Rebecca De Mornay slams double standard of aging in Hollywood
’80s icon Rebecca De Mornay is getting candid about the double standards that women face while getting older, especially when in the public eye.
The actress, who will be 66 on August 29, broke out on the scene in 1983 as the sultry call girl Lana, opposite Tom Cruise in “Risky Business.” The blockbuster centered around the sexual escapades of Joel Goodson (Cruise), a high school senior who meets Lana while his parents are on vacation.
De Mornay was dating Cruise, 63, while filming. They continued their romance until breaking up in 1985.
After their relationship, De Mornay landed another huge role, starring as Peyton Flanders, the deranged nanny out for revenge, in the 1992 hit thriller “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.”
The star, who often played the sexpot in her roles, discussed ageism in Hollywood with The Post in an exclusive interview to promote her latest project, “Saint Clare.”
De Mornay recalled being told she was “too old to play” the love interest of “a big movie star,” scoffing, “I was in my mid-thirties and he was in his mid-sixties.”
Saying ageism while in the spotlight is “its own animal,” De Mornay also put the blame on society’s standards.
“It’s also reflective, very reflective of what is in society,” she explained. “And ageism has been a thing for women for, I don’t know how long. I mean, certainly all of the 20th century.”
While she acknowledged “it’s a thing that a woman is at her height when she’s young and beautiful,” De Mornay shared that she believes the view on women aging is changing.
“I think that Hollywood actually might be helping that,” she continued, praising actresses like the “amazing” and “sexy” Helen Mirren.
While De Mornay is hopeful that the stigma surrounding women’s age will be lifted, she noted, “I think it’s gonna be, it’s still a long road for women to be as cherished in their older years as men are.”
De Mornay also addressed the remake of “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” telling The Post she wasn’t exactly thrilled when she heard the news that director Michelle Garza Cervera was giving the chilling movie a makeover.
The original flick follows an obstetrician and his pregnant wife (De Mornay), whose caught sexually molesting one of his patients. With his personal and professional life on the line, he takes his life, leaving De Mornay to suffer a miscarriage.
Looking for revenge, De Mornay’s character poses as a perfect nanny to get hired by Claire Bartel (Annabella Sciorra), the woman who stepped forward with allegations against her husband. She begins doing disturbing things, like breastfeeding the baby, in order to destroy the Bartels’ lives.
It ends with Claire pushing Peyton out of the attic window to her bloody demise, when she’s impaled on the picket fence below.
“Longlegs” star Maika Monroe, 32, will be portraying De Mornay’s insane character in the reboot.
“I found out about it, and I kind of joked that I was quite perturbed. It felt like a betrayal, like how dare you [have] somebody else be playing that part,” she exclusively told The Post in July, revealing that no one from the remake contacted her about the follow-up film.
“I’m actually kind of curious to see it, to see if they can live up to what we did,” she added.
When it comes to reboots and sequels — a trend in Hollywood these days — De Mornay isn’t impressed.
“New stories seem to be impossible for people to come up with. That’s why I really like ‘Saint Claire.’ It’s new. I haven’t seen anything like it before,” she said.
“There’s a kind of laziness of falling [into] ‘Oh, well, that works. So let’s just do that one again,’ rather than coming up with a new story. So that kind of bugs me a little,” the actress explained.
“The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” remake has no release date yet; however, Martin Starr, who stars opposite Monroe in the follow-up thriller, told Collider in March that it would likely come out this year or in 2026.
De Mornay’s latest flick “Saint Clare” is directed by Mitzi Peirone and features Bella Thorne and Ryan Phillippe.
The movie follows Clare Bleecker (Thorne), an isolated woman who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. After being haunted by voices, she goes on a killing spree in their small town, with her last murder unlocking a world she’s not ready for.
Phillippe stars as Detective Rich Timmons, who is investigating the killings.
“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” De Mornay told The Post about the film. “It was much more hallucinatory and experimental than I even was expecting.”
“Saint Clare” is now on demand and on digital.
Credit to Nypost AND Peoples
