I have this character in my head. She keeps appearing places: on trains, in the city, on the highway. I see her out there. She is heroic, but not like any hero we’ve ever seen.
— Debra Winger in this interview with The Guardian
I am proud of the women in the screenplay I have in development. They are as real as I can make them. They pass the Bechdel test. I love them, as I love all the characters of my fiction — and thank goodness, because I would hate to spend this much time with people I don’t like, real or not.
And they are young women. That’s what’s required for this story, and fair enough.
So here’s what I hope — that writing them well helps get the movie made, and helps me establish myself as a professional screenwriter. So that I can write the literally dozens of stories I have in my head for women in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s… stories of adventure, bravery, sex, love, action, suspense, big feelings, small everyday moments, across the spectrum of human relationships. Not sweet old lady stories; not stories where women play someone’s mommy or grandmommy in the background. We get enough of those. The stories in my head are muscular stories of intriguing, compelling people who come in grownup female packages and do things that apparently will startle the hell out of the men who run Hollywood.
I want to do it for Debra Winger.
And Meryl Streep.
And Emma Thompson.
For every woman who has ever had to choose between playing bullshit roles or playing none at all.
For every woman over 40 who loves the movies but wonders why no one who looks like her is up on screen kicking ass and taking names, living large, being sexy, being frightened of something besides old age or loneliness, and maybe, just maybe, being the hero every once in a while.
That’s what I’m going to write. And I can’t wait.
Yes! You go.
I can’t wait to see these characters come to life.
Can you also do it for us who are in our 30’s and looking forward to being 60?
And for Emily Watson?
Maybe your stories will help E understand why I find women over 40 so sexy. It’s something she keeps asking me to explain, will even wake me up in the middle of the night just to ask again: “Why do you have to say Meryl Streep is sexy? It messes with my head, I can’t sleep thinking about all the years between her and me. I’d get it if you liked someone young like Alizée.” Ugh. Alizée? I think E only sort of “gets it” when she thinks of k.d. lang. We definitely need those role models that show us on screen how awesome it is to be alive and 50. I could tell her, “Here, go watch the movie Kelley wrote and you’ll understand.”
Debra Winger is my all time favorite actress. Have you seen “A Dangerous Woman”? It is one of her most complex roles. I love what you’re doing with your screenplay. Keep up the good work.
As I have grown and become older, I have often puzzled and pondered why so many women I see, older women that is, have become so sexy and attractive to me. The curve of neck, the turn of haunch, the light laugh that draws my smile, the winsome nature of the way each dances seem to have gathered together to overwhelm my senses somehow in a way that when I was younger would have been quite a surprise. And so I wonder, and take great happiness in the discovery.
Because being a joyful grownup is the sexiest thing there is.