Julia Sawlha has criticized TV executives for casting older women in negative roles.**ch’.
The 55-year-old actress, best known for playing Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous, has hit out at the way some executives seem to approach women’s characters with old fashioned views.
‘They’re still writing for women like we’re in the 1940s. Younger actresses are always cast against older actors to play husband and wife, that still hasn’t changed,’ she said.
‘Actresses in their fifties, you get roles sent to you and you’re some bitter old, twisted old bi**h that the husband doesn’t want. You never get the glamorous.’
She pointed to how Ab Fab co-star Jennifer Saunders has claimed ‘it wouldn’t be accepted in this day and age’, but Julia disagrees.
Appearing on the RHLSTP with Richard Herring podcast, she added: ‘I think the opposite.
‘It wasn’t what we called “politically correct” then, and that’s why everyone was like “You’re saying everything we can’t.”
‘Jennifer is intelligent enough to write it in a way where we can say things that need to be said, because of the cancel culture and the wokeness.’
Julia, who didn’t name any names, was left devastated when she was recast as Ginger in Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.
She voiced the lead character in the beloved 2000 classic, but she wasn’t invited back for the second film and claimed Aardman Animation scrapped her from last year’s sequel because she sounded too old.
Back in 2000, she said in a statement on X that she had been ‘unfairly dismissed’.
She wrote: ‘Last week I was informed out of the blue, via email, through my agent that I would not be cast as Ginger in the Chicken Run sequel.
‘The reason they gave is that my voice now sounds “too old” and they want a younger actress to reprise the role
‘Usually in these circumstances, an actress would be given the chance to do a voice test in order to determine the suitability of their pitch and tone, I however was not given this opportunity.’
Despite trying to prove that her voice hadn’t changed in 20 years with a voice test she recorded at home, she was replaced by 51-year-old Thandiwe Newton.
She added: ‘To say I am devastated and furious would be an understatement. I feel totally powerless, something in all of this doesn’t quite ring true. I trust my instincts and they are waving red flags.
‘I am saddened that I have lost the chance to work with Nick Park and Peter Lord from whom I learnt so much. The three of us, together, created Ginger.’
