Meryl Streep backs Rusty's views on ageing actors

Hollywood star Meryl Streep has supported Russell Crowe's view that ageing actresses should not expect to be given roles that are not suited to their age.

Crowe caused a stir when he said in an interview that older women should accept they were not right for a role as an "ingenue", in the same way that male stars had to take roles which were appropriate for their age.

Speaking at the launch of her new film Into The Woods, in which she plays a wizened grey-haired witch, Streep backed his sentiments.

"I agree with him. It's good to live in the place where you are," she said.

She pointed out that Crowe, 50, had actually been making a point about himself.

Streep said: "The journalist asks him, 'Why don't you do another Gladiator? Everyone would love that'.

"He said, 'I'm too old, I can't be the gladiator any more, I'm playing parts that are appropriate to my age'.

"The conversation went onto actresses, so that was proving a point that he was talking about himself, as most actors do."

She said she had actually been offered roles as witches when she entered her 40s but turned them down because they did not feel suitable at the time.

But the 65-year-old said she was happy to accept this time around.

"Why this witch? Well I thought: age appropriate," Streep said.

"I felt it was time, and it was not time at 40. Also, I just had a political sort of reaction against the concept of witches, of old women being demonised into age being this horrifying scary thing.

"I just didn't like that. I didn't like it when I was a little girl and I don't like it now.

-AAP