Three years later, Jen was playing a divorced mother of three in her thirties in Joy, which is completely wild. While her acting is undoubtedly up to snuff, it seems unfair that Jen be aged up so quickly, and for these kinds of roles to not be offered to women who are actually of a similar age to a character. Bill was 52 at the time, and even though the age difference was a part of the plot and they weren’t strictly lovers, the decision to cast a 17-year-old Scarlett instead of someone more age-appropriate only accentuated the age gap. Winona has dealt with Hollywood’s distorted view of age herself. In Star Trek, she played the mother of Spok who was portrayed by Zachary Quinto, a man only seven years younger than her! I guess you could argue that ageing works differently in Atlantis, but given the rest of these examples and the many more out there in Hollywood, I’m not going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.
