Carla Gugino Slams Hollywood’s ‘Absurd’ Ageist Double Standards

’San Andreas’ star Carla Gugino says casting in Hollywood suffers from “double standards” when it comes to the ages of its leading men and women.

She says the practice which led to her friend Maggie Gyllenhaal (37) being rejected for a role as the love interest of a 55-year-old actor for being too old, is “absurd”.

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“It’s a really crazy thing because Maggie is a dear friend,” Gugino shared with Yahoo Movies, “So when I’m hearing [what she said] it’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.

"The double standard in that way is pretty crazy and I just think that it has to be acknowledged - I’m glad it’s being acknowledged - because it’s just absurd. So, yes, that does happen, but it doesn’t always happen. There are a lot of leading men who don’t want that.”

“I think it’s something that’s been talked about for a while,” she adds, “And it’s good to be talked about because [extreme age gaps] sometimes makes a movie not believable, and characters not believable, because there’s an artifice to that.”

The 'Watchmen’ star’s thoughts come off the back of quotes from Gyllenhaal that emerged last week.

“There are things that are really disappointing about being an actress in Hollywood that surprise me all the time,” Gyllehaal revealed to The Wrap Magazine. “I’m 37 and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55. It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh.”

43-year-old Gugino acknowledged that the gender age gap isn’t a problem in her new film 'San Andreas’ as she plays the estranged wife of Dwayne Johnson’s helicopter rescue pilot. Johnson is also 43.

Gugino’s co-star Alexandra Daddario (29) says she’s been rejected for roles alongside older leading men for the opposite reason - for being too young - so she thinks Hollywood is aware of the problem.

Watch the full interview above.

'San Andreas’ is in cinemas now. Watch a trailer below.

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Image credits: Warner Bros.