Well, I started, Demi Moore plays an aging actress
Oh, that is horror!
my mom said grimly.
By Smith’s own admission, her looks werent her superpowershe made plenty of self-effacing jokes over the years.
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During theDownton Abbeyera, the British actor good-naturedly toldVanity Fair, I play 93 quite often.
When youve done it more than once, you take the hint!"
They dont see older people.
What made Smith stunning never faded; at 29 and at 89, there was power in her face.
I thought, I want to feel this power, this freedom!
I looked so … middle aged!
Was it the hideous mall lighting or had I suddenly developed jowls?
I hate feeling like this, and I actively try tonotfeel like this.
It sounds simple, but it is profound.
When I was able to really see myself, it elicited enormous compassion, she shared.
(Although perhaps my 42-year-old self would have been less receptive.)
Seeing myself, not my flaws.
Its a gift to age, I remind myself constantly.
In response to interviewer Steve Krofts question, How are you dealing with the whole aging thing?
she replies, I dont like it at all.
But then, I dont know who does!
An existential laugh and then: I cant understand why everything has to go so fast!
Our grasping, our clawing at our youth wont stop the inevitability of time.
I give a shot to just keep moving, to stay healthy and strong and alive.
Look at her face!
I will squeal to my daughter while we watch the latest Netflix series about terrible rich people.
Look how different she looked!
What am I doing when I do this?
The National Portrait Gallery of London posted another of my favorite glimpses of Maggie Smith onInstagrama few days ago.
Its a photograph of the actor standing in front of her portrait, painted by James Lloyd in 2012.
Both Maggies are dressed in comfortable-looking clothes, their heads similar mops of gray hair.
Well, here I am, the portrait seems to say.
the woman in the photograph seems to be laughing.
But Maggie Smith was anything but invisible.
What if everywhere we looked, we saw women like her?
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