The resurrection of Demi Moore and Pamela Anderson: Hollywood does give second chances | Culture

Demi Moore after winning the Golden Globe: “The gift of doing what I love and knowing that I do belong”

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Upon being crowned best actress at the Golden Globes for The substancefull of that meta-message about how Hollywood treated her, Moore recalled the foundations of her career in a powerful speech: “I’ve been doing this for 45 years, and it’s the first time I’ve won an award as an actress (…). It reminds me that I do belong.” Campaigns with a message like this are not only essential to win the prized statuette, but also for someone with your profile, a star of the past, to reconfigure their career with a new look, thanks to the prestige of gray hair.

Moore, who was, at the time, the highest-paid actress in Hollywood with Stripteasehas something to say, although sometimes the industry, as he criticized his own film, continues to see it as the past. Perhaps she was never considered a great performer, but this may be the push to give new meaning to her career at the age of 62, after spending a life battered by criticism of her commercial films. “Mature women are opening conversations and using their strength and power to explain who we are at this age. And I think it’s very nice,” Cameron Diaz reflects with EL PAÍS in a video conference for his return to cinema after a decade.

Moore or Curtis hadn’t really disappeared, but the industry stopped offering them prominent roles. They discarded them. Diaz decided to make a self-controlled retreat, while she was still being called. In 2014 he hung up his clothes and focused on his family. Then, at the age of 42, he made a speech about ageism and published a book about it: “We do not allow others or ourselves to age with dignity. And turning old is a privilege,” he said just before the retirement. His return a decade later, with Back to action on Netflix, it is not a blow to his career like that of Moore or Anderson, but rather an action comedy in which he claims that at 52 he can repeat the roles that gave him success, just like veterans like Liam Neeson or Harrison Ford still hits the screen.

“We finally put the focus on what happens to women of that age and throw it in the viewer’s face. Now we can say the word menopause in conversation. It had never been talked about. We are respecting each other more,” Diaz responds from Berlin. And he adds: “I think Demi and her film talk about that better than anyone. It shows you what society expects of women and what women expect of themselves, and it does it in the most daring way. I think everyone experiences it in a different way. I now play a mother, which is precisely my place in life. It has come naturally to me, but we all want to meet those expectations.”

Diaz decided to take this step after emerging from confinement due to Covid: “The world was opening wide, and it was the right time. Plus, I knew what I was getting into. If I was going to be away from my family for 10 or 12 hours, I wanted it to be with someone I was comfortable with and have a good time,” he says of Jamie Foxx, with whom he just filmed his last film in 2014 (when he chained three releases), Annieand who accompanies her in the interview. “I feel privileged to be able to return after 10 years,” she insists.

But not all actresses always have that option. There is a whole generation of protagonists of blockbuster dramas from the eighties and nineties whom the industry filled with trauma and left in the background. Like Debra Winger (Officer and gentleman), Rebecca de Mornay (Risky Business), Lori Petty (They call him Bodhi), Madeleine Stowe (the last of the mohicans), Anabella Sciorra, Alicia Silverstone, Rosanna Arquette or Juliette Lewis. Few like Meryl Streep or Nicole Kidman (and the risky choices that are once again palpable in Babygirlanother role that redefines mature actresses) are able to stay in the spotlight.

Jane Fonda retired in 1990 due to her marriage to Ted Turner and returned 15 years later with The groom’s motherrecovering her career as a comic actress with light projects. Just as Spanish television discovered Amparo Baró to a new generation (7 Lives), Emma Penella or Gemma Cuervo (There is no one who lives here). Although she never left, Winona Ryder had her resurgence with Stranger Things. And it doesn’t just happen with women. Quentin Tarantino, due to his B-movie buff streak, is an expert in recovering the careers of actors who seemed far from the front page. John Travolta has acknowledged on several occasions that Pulp Fiction He gave him a second chance, far from his Tony Manero style. Nor did Paramount want Marlon Brando in The godfather after a series of failures that had withered his star. Escaping the archetype is not easy in Hollywood.

Since Travolta’s Oscar nomination, the strategy has worked again with Brendan Fraser (The whale) o Mickey Rourke (The fighter), although later Hollywood didn’t know what else to do with it. “I started in this business 30 years ago, and it was never easy for me, but there was an ease that I only appreciated when they stopped calling me,” Fraser said as he collected his statuette. The story is repeated every year. Others like Robert Downey Jr. managed to redirect their career to, after his onslaught with drugs and prison, become the highest grosser thanks to Marvel, now at 41 years old. At 60, he will earn more than 80 million to return to the Avengers. He knew how to become another type of icon, and maintain it. Just as Pamela Anderson is looking for, who premieres her film in Spain on March 14 and has just participated with Liam Neeson in the new Grab it as you can: “I always thought I was capable of more,” he acknowledged this week on the program The View. The difficult thing is to maintain the trail. Because Hollywood forgets, and Hollywood remembers. It is the endless cycle.

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He has spent years weathering fires in the EL PAÍS social media team and now he dedicates himself to talking about movies, series, comics and whatever comes his way from the Culture section. He doesn’t know how to ride a bicycle.