What the 40? Tackling the Big Birthday as a Hollywood Actress
Judy Greer talks the hilarious truth about turning 40 in Hollywood in her personal essay. (Photo courtesy of @missjudygreer )
I’m turning 40 this year and, honestly, I’m not in the mood. My dad always says it’s better to have a birthday than to not have one, so if I follow his mantra, all I need to do is make it, breathing on my own, to July 20th. But he forgets he raised a neurotic, goal-orientated overachiever who’s going to need a checklist in order to clamber into the next decade. A little while later, I went on a hike with my friend Michelle and she told me she’d heard that how you go into your 40s is how you go out of your 40s. A new obsession was born: I became convinced that if I could get my whole entire life in order before July 20, I would be OK for the entire next decade, like there is some magical thing that happens on a 40th birthday, like life freezes. I know this is not realistic, because life is not a high-concept studio movie starring Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo (and me!). But I like the idea that I can give myself an upgrade. A new and improved Judy! Judy 40.0!
Since I’m an actress and how I look plays a major role in my work (it’s kind of the main thing about being an actor) I decided to build the perfect 40-year-old me the same way I build my characters, from the outside in. (Spirituality is important but it’s never paid anybody’s bills.)
BEAUTY
I’ve decided the healthiest way for me to deal with the aesthetics of aging would be to teach myself to just get over it—but I just can’t. As the type of person who freaks out over a birthday, I am not the type of person who can just ‘get over’ something. And even if I could, my line of work doesn’t let me. Yesterday I had to do a scene where I was lying in bed talking to my TV husband. Mid scene, the director yelled cut. After some whispering at the monitor, my hair stylist ran in, took a chunk of my hair, and draped it over my neck like a hair choker. Whatever my neck was doing was so foul and distracting they had to stop the take and cover it! What the hell am I supposed to do when I’m in bed pillow-talking with my real life husband Dean Johnsen? Who is going to save me from my neck? Will there be a professional there to angle a giant bounce board towards my face to erase all traces of the last seven years? Sadly no. That would cost a fortune and my money is being saved for freezing my ass fat (CoolSculpting, look into it!).
I have to focus on the things I can control, like sleeping seven to eight hours a night, drinking water, washing my face before bed, and what I put on my face. Besides wearing gobs of SPF, I’m a big fan of using lasers and other products that occasionally [intentionally] burn my face. My friend’s mom recently got some kind of swamp-creature facial procedure that I think did, literally, burn her entire face off, but now she looks almost fetal, so I’m going to research that, too.
What I can’t control is how my face looks even if I do all those things. I have really puffy undereyes—it’s hereditary and a total nightmare. I have been told that I should sleep on my back with my head slightly elevated to decrease the pooling of liquid in my lower eyelids, but it turns out I can’t control that either. Every night I go to bed in vampire position, but wake up in face-down starfish. I’ll keep trying though, and in the meantime I’ll wear chilled under-eye patches while I drive to work.
Makeup artists have warned me of the dangers of too much makeup on an aging face. No sparkles, no shimmer, beware of the word ‘radiance’ in a product. So, I’m streamlining my beauty routine! I’m tossing out the sparkle eyeshadows, recycling the glitter lip-glosses, I’m gonna keep it simple. But harder than the cosmetic cleanout is getting used to the way my face looks with less makeup. It seems so naked, like a small peeled potato (which I am also swearing off in my 40s). I will allow a dab of concealer, mascara and a bright lip. Any more than that will seem like I’m not confident in my 40 year old face, and by July, I better be!
My hair is another story. I hate everything about it. The color. The texture. And how fine it is. (No one believes that it’s actually super curly! But if you’ve seen The Wedding Planner, that’s my real hair.) I need a non-drastic way to deal with it. Enter my new best friend, the Brazilian Blowout. I vow to loyally cover my head with chemicals every six months. I am convinced that if it existed when I was in high school, I would have been popular. I’m not sure how long the top-knot is going to be in style, or if I can still get away with it in my 40s, so for now Brazilian chemicals heal me.
Judy Greer’s recently released book where she talks further about her life as a Co-Star. (Photo courtesy of Judy Greer)
PERSONAL STYLE
Do any of you know Emmanuelle Alt? If yes, how easy would it be for you to get into her closet? I am not asking you to steal her clothes (although you could offer to drop her Goodwill bag off and then ship to me instead…that’s probably legal). If you could just photograph everything in her closet, I’ll trade you a few director-chair backs with my name on them and my husband’s labradoodle, Nacho. Emmanuelle Alt gets it right every time. She recycles her pieces, wears jeans a lot, and doesn’t seem to carry a handbag (such a mystery to me). Therefore she is my style icon. How does she manage with so little? Is it just because she’s French, or does she hate dry cleaning? I worship the ground her Altuzarra booties walk on. While it’s not realistic for me to purge my entire closet, save for the pieces that emulate her street-style photos, I am consciously weeding out my trendy items and slowly replacing with more classic pieces. I have a giant blue IKEA tote by my closet, and every time I grab an item I ask myself, “What would Emmanuelle do?” If the answer is vomit, it goes in the blue bag.
I feel at 40 I should have honed in on my personal style in a way that is comfortable for me, inspires confidence in my daily life, and cuts my getting ready time in half. I’m creating a uniform. Well-tailored blazers (just splurged on a tan linen Alasdair and denim Etro). T-shirts that don’t cost a mortgage payment and can be washed and dried: black, navy, and gray. Jeans that fit and flatter. I’ve always been a J Brand girl, but have been wanting to try Frame too. Sadly good jeans are pricey, but I believe in my heart they are worth it. I am an avid worshiper at the church of denim.
As for shoes, I’m realizing my feet are jacked. I need to solve the problem of the aching feet/hips/back in a form-meets-function kind of way before it’s too late for my little piggies. Why do beautiful shoes have to ruin our feet? And why are the comfortable ones so fugly? If I wanted to just go deep into boho chic, I could do that with a clog and save my metatarsals. But I’d still be running the risk of breaking my ankle one night after too many glasses of Prosecco. I once tried to pull off my friend Lola’s post-bunion surgery look—silk sweatpants with Adidas high tops and a moto jacket—but I just couldn’t. (Maybe because I’m not Italian?) I’ll have to stick with my Isabel Marant Dickers, ballet flats, oxfords and Rainbows (don’t judge, I live in SoCal, I have to have a pair).
FINANCES
Way less fun than fashion and beauty, but very important. I have tried desperately to save money since I started acting. Sometimes I’m really good at it, like when I’m too busy to shop or there’s no wi-fi on set. Sometimes I suck (see above Etro blazer purchase last week) But it’s time to make sure I have my estate planning in order and have a retirement plan. And, because I am an actor who is essentially freelance, it’s important that I have at least a year’s worth of living expenses saved in case I fall in a sinkhole, or I just say F-it for a year and decide to read all the books on my bookshelf. So I’ve traded in my foreign sports car and paid cash for a used Prius. I send my residual checks to an investment account without looking at them, and I did a few commercials to pad my savings. Check all of those boxes and add in a victory lap. I’m probably never going to know what it’s like to be filthy rich, but with all the money I’m saving on gas and not having a car payment I could probably afford the Altuzarra booties!
HEALTH
It’s weird, but all of a sudden I feel like I’m entering a different medical class. I’m less worried about the actual illnesses that I could be getting, and more worried about the fact that I can now plausibly get them. Loads of health problems are circling closer. They’re real now, whereas in my twenties and thirties I was like, “whatever, shut up, I’m young!” Now I’m saying, “how do you spell that again?” I haven’t stopped thinking about my brain since I saw Still Alice. I’m starting brain workouts. I read that knitting, learning a language and doing crossword puzzles are good for brain health, so I am plugging away, hoping to stay sharp (and someday be able to make my own cable knit sweater).
Most importantly, I want to have a body like Gwyneth Paltrow. I don’t want to be her, but I want to look like her and I want all of her money and I can work out for an hour and a half a day, but I can’t. So I’m back to my workout DVDs. I hate/love them, but they work. Running hurts my knees, classes are hard with my schedule, but DVDs I can do in my PJs! By July I’m hoping to have the ass of a much younger woman—or at least a 37 year-old.
OK, I might be delusional. But if I like how I look, have a closet full of overpriced jeans, and reduce my ass circumference by a third, will I be a peaceful, happy, confident 40 year old? I’m trying to figure that out. But if it was as easy as being skinny and getting laser treatments, Los Angeles would be filled with the happiest people on earth. (In case you’ve never been here, it’s not.) Maybe I can try to play the character of 40-year-old Judy and help her let go of the fear of aging and finally say, “Who cares! I’m pretty good the way I am!” And if that doesn’t work out, you can find me under the nacho cheese machine, killing time until I turn 50.
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