THE decision to leave film for TV was a “no-brainer” for Weeds star Elizabeth Perkins.
“The roles are better, there’s more depth to the writing and you don’t have to pump your face full of s— to get the part,” she says.
“And I do not want to go through life looking like the Joker.”
The 49-year-old star of movies such as Big and Must Love Dogs is one of the many older actresses migrating from film to TV in search of more satisfying roles.
She joins Glenn Close (Damages), Oscar winners Holly Hunter (Saving Grace) and Sally Field (Brothers and Sisters), Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer), Jane Lynch (Glee) and Jeanne Tripplehorn (Big Love) on the small screen this year.
Others such as Jessica Lange (Grey Gardens), Sigourney Weaver (Prayers for Bobby) and Joan Allen (Georgia O’Keefe) have appeared in made-for-TV movies and been rewarded with Golden Globe nominations for their efforts.
Aussies Rachel Griffiths (Brothers & Sisters) and Toni Collette (The United States of Tara) have also won acclaim for TV work.
Television used to be seen as a lesser medium to film, but Perkins says TV is now the only place actresses over 40 can find juicy parts without pressure to have plastic surgery, Botox and extreme dieting to look younger than their years.
“I would still love to do some film work, but the satisfying work is in TV these days,” she says.
In Weeds, the cult black comedy about a suburban mum turned marijuana dealer (played by Boys on the Side star Mary-Louise Parker), Perkins plays psychotic and neurotic social-climber Celia.
And she couldn’t be happier about finally embracing her dark side.
Perkins has received multiple nominations for Emmys and for Golden Globes for her work in Weeds.
“I had always wanted to do it (play a twisted character), but somehow I ended up the girlfriend or the supportive mum,” she says.
“I was bored out of my mind.
“The great thing about it (Weeds) for Mary-Louise and I is we get to play viable women who are still sexually desirable and who are still living their lives.
“I’m almost 50.
“I feel really really grateful for this. It’s the role of my career.”
Perkins says there is so much pressure on women in Hollywood that some actresses are going to extreme lengths to stay young and thin in order to get work.
“Walking down Rodeo Drive now is like a horror show,” she says.
“You see these 60-year-old women who do not want to look 60. It’s so screwed up.
“When archeologists dig up people (from today) they will say, ‘ahh this was the generation where people were obsessed with putting things (breast implants, collagen, Botox) in their bodies’.
“It will seem as weird to them as people getting ribs removed in the Victorian era seems to us now.”
Perkins says plastic surgery is now so prevalent in Hollywood that she often doesn’t recognise some of her peers until they open their mouths to speak.
“They look completely different,” she says.
“It’s freaky.”
Perkins says she admires Fargo actor Frances McDormand’s approach to Hollywood’s youth obsession.
“I remember her saying that she planned to be the only actress in Hollywood who was not going to get plastic surgery,” she says.
“That way, she would be the only one left that actually looked 60 and would end up getting all the parts.”
Even though she avoids the limelight and doesn’t aspire to be the Hollywood stereotype, Perkins says sometimes the realities of fame cannot be avoided.
Recently diagnosed with a rare form of diabetes, Perkins piled on almost 16kg.
She was shocked when her agent called to ask if the rumours that she was “really fat” were true.
“The tabloids were like ‘Elizabeth Perkins pregnant or just a fat pig?’,”she says.
“I try not to take any notice of the tabloids, but it’s hard not to take that personally.”
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