We Should All Age Like Frances McDormand
Actress Frances McDormand at the Venice Film Festival Sept 2014, Solo Francis for WireImage
Watching this year’s Grammy’s, I noticed a female performer—one I’ve always considered a badass—step on stage with a frozen, swollen, injected-with-God-knows-what face. Of course, I don’t know what it’s like to be a rockstar pushing 40, but it made me sad. She didn’t look younger or better, just different—and slightly desperate.
So I was overjoyed to read Frances McDormand’s comments in the New York Times this week. The Oscar-winning actress has taken the opposite approach to award shows, beauty, and aging in the spotlight. When she won the Acadamy Award for Fargo in 1997, she strutted on stage in a killer blue dress and hardly any makeup at all. At the 2011 Tony’s she stood out in a sea of up-dos and fancy gowns wearing a stretchy maxi dress, a Levi’s jean jacket, wire-rimmed glasses, and tousled brown hair. She looked like she just got off the subway—and there was something awesome about that.
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McDormand with Her Husband Filmmaker Joel Coen; Getty Images
McDormand doesn’t seem opposed to makeup or dresses—she’s been known to rock a red lip and a long dress—but she does seem opposed to Hollywood conventions about appearance. She tells the Times that she figured out early on it wasn’t worth obsessing over her looks “I was often told that I wasn’t a thing,” she said. “‘She’s not pretty enough, she’s not tall enough, she’s not thin enough, she’s not fat enough.’ I thought, ‘O.K., someday you’re going to be looking for someone not, not, not, not, and there I’ll be.’ ”
In the interview, to promote the upcoming HBO miniseries Olive Kittredge in which she produced and stars in, McDormand talked about loving the scenes where she is made-up to be 70 years old more than the ones where she is 40. She’s not bringing in the soft lighting to make herself look prettier, she is proud to show her age and the lines that have come from a life well-lived. “We are on red alert when it comes to how we are perceiving ourselves as a species,” she told the Times. “There’s no desire to be an adult. Adulthood is not a goal. It’s not seen as a gift. Something happened culturally: No one is supposed to age past 45 — sartorially, cosmetically, attitudinally. Everybody dresses like a teenager. Everybody dyes their hair. Everybody is concerned about a smooth face.”
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As for cosmetic procedures, McDormand, never one to mince words, refers to them as mutations. “I have not mutated myself in any way,” she said. “Joel and I have this conversation a lot. He literally has to stop me physically from saying something to people — to friends who’ve had work. I’m so full of fear and rage about what they’ve done.” Age is something to be proud of, a philosophy shared by her husband, the filmmaker Joel Coen, “I’ve been with a man for 35 years who looks at me and loves what he sees,” she said.
McDormand’s shining proof that confidence equals beauty; she exudes strength and an inherent sense of cool. There’s no need for approval, no insecurities, just a clear self-acceptance and rejection of Hollywood’s push to keep everyone looking forever young. Hats off to her. There is something truly badass about loving exactly who you are at the moment.
