From Jennifer Coolidge's award-winning role in The White Lotus and Emily Blunt's superb turn in The English to Sarah Lancashire's acclaimed performance in Happy Valley, there is something wonderful happening in the world of TV.
Actresses, and specifically actresses over 40, are no longer invisible or confined to the traditional roles of battle-axe, meddling mother-in-law or dumped wife – they're front and centre as lead performers in some of the best dramas and comedies on TV. And we're here for it.
Sarah Lancashire, who is 58, gives the powerhouse performance behind the success of Happy Valley, the BBC crime drama currently in its third and final season. As West Yorkshire police sergeant Catherine Cawood, she has provided many of the emotional moments of the series. Alongside the show's impressive ratings (the first two series boasted more than eight million viewers per week in the UK), it's proof that it's not just women of a certain age who want to watch women of a certain age on screen – we're all tuning in.
The soaps, of course, have always featured strong roles for women over 40, from Elsie Tanner (who appeared in the first-ever episode of Coronation Street) to EastEnders' Kat Slater. But finally, they're not the only ones who are recognising that women over 40 can bring the best performances on TV.
Producers aren't just casting "older" women in memorable supporting roles – such as Gillian Anderson in Sex Education or Adjoa Andoh in Bridgerton – they're building whole shows around them, too.
We've already had 47-year-old Kate Winslet (Mare of Easttown), 66-year-old Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbott Elementary), 71-year-old Jean Smart (Hacks) and, of course, 61-year-old Coolidge winning multiple awards for their performances, often winning in categories where the other nominees are decades younger.
At the Golden Globes earlier this month, Coolidge revealed in her acceptance speech that her turn as Tanya in The White Lotus has changed her career, following years of supporting roles.
Dedicating the award to the show's creator Mike White, she said: "I just want you all to know that I had such big dreams and expectations as a younger person. But what happened was, you know, they get sort of fizzled by life or whatever… I just want to say: Mike White, you have given me hope. You've given me a new beginning."
There are more must-see series featuring women over 40 in the next few months, too. As well as a second season of Yellowjackets with Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci all returning (and all over 40), there is the TV drama re-imagining of David Cronenberg's movie Dead Ringers, with 51-year-old Rachel Weisz playing twin lead roles, and Lizzy Caplan (40) and Amanda Peet (51) in a new TV version of the classic thriller Fatal Attraction.
Of course, it can be argued that there have been standout roles for women in the past, such as Helen Mirren's memorable performance as DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, the TV series that began in 1991 when she was 46.
In an interview with Harpers Bazaar in March 2022, Mirren acknowledged that the role was ground-breaking at the time. "I was very lucky that Prime Suspect was such an iconic moment in television, she said. "In general, in the presentation of women on screen. Culturally it was quite an important moment."
The success of Prime Suspect should have paved the way for many more strong roles for women over 40 over the next decade or so, but outside the works of a few trailblazers like Kay Mellor (Band of Gold, Fat Friends) and Sally Wainwright (Gentleman Jack, Scott & Bailey) there are less than you may think and it has taken a long time to get to where we are today.
Indeed, a TV critic for the Daily Mail wrote a feature in 2015 praising all the "middle-aged women" in TV dramas at the time, before going on to list the "adult women playing mature characters full of flaws and contradictions".
While he did include Sarah Lancashire (who would have been 51 at the time), Unforgotten's Nicola Walker (then aged 45), and Olivia Colman, who was then co-starring in Broadchurch at the ripe old age of 41, he also listed Suranne Jones (37 at the time), Sheridan Smith (33 at the time) and Keeley Hawes (then 39) as examples.
Describing a 33-year-old actress as middle-aged or "mature" (one of those words that is never meant as a compliment unless you are describing wine or cheese) seems bizarre, but mirrors the thinking of casting agents for movies and TV, who hesitated for years when casting an "older" woman, especially alongside a male lead.
Last year on the Allison Interviews podcast, actress Geena Davis – best known for iconic movies Beetlejuice and Thelma & Louise as well as for her roles in Grey's Anatomy and GLOW– revealed that she had experienced that discrimination first-hand when a potential male co-star (who she has not named) didn't approve of her casting because he thought she was too old.
"It's very strange and so prevalent," she told podcast host Allison Kugel. "A certain male actor that was making a movie said that I was too old to be his romantic interest, and I was 20 years younger than him."
"Women peak in their 20s and 30s, and men peak in their 40s and 50s as far as actors go. So the male stars of the movies want to appear to be younger than they are, or they want to appeal to younger people, so they always want a co-star who is really young," she said. "That is why that happens, and that is why women don't get cast very much after 40 and 50."
Davis, who has supported research into gender representation in media and advocates for equal representation of women as part of the Geena Davis Institute, is looking for a change in the way women over 40 are seen on screen.
"Look, this is the only way things are going – towards more inclusion," she said in an interview with Shondaland. "Let's just get there a lot faster than we are."
We haven't even addressed the racial dimension that makes it even harder for Black women over 40 to get lead roles, of course – that's a whole other article – but thanks to the success of shows like Happy Valley, Yellowjackets, Fatal Attraction and Mare of Easttown, it could be that the change Geena Davis campaigns for is finally coming.
Happy Valley season 3 is currently on BBC One and seasons 1-3 are on BBC iPlayer. The English is also available on BBC iPlayer.
Abbott Elementary is available on Disney+ in the UK and ABC.com in the US. Hacks is available on Netflix.
Season 1 of Yellowjackets is available on Sky and NOW in the UK, and Showtime in the US. The White Lotus season 1 and 2, and Mare of Easttown are available on Sky Atlantic in the UK and HBO Max in the US.
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