Andie MacDowell says it's time older women are looked up to: ‘Wrinkles have a story to tell'

Andie MacDowell is one of the actors who has been aging gracefully and she doesn't shy away from admitting it. The 65-year-old in an interview with TODAY shared that she isn't afraid of being considered "old." "I say it to people all the time, 'I'm old,' and they'll go, 'No, you're not,' and I go, 'Yes, I am,'" MacDowell said. The actor was first discovered by Wilhelmina Models while she was on a trip to Los Angeles in the 1970s. She worked for years as a runway and print model before becoming an actor. She did many movies before she was cast in the Oscar-nominated film, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape." MacDowell won a Gloden Globe nomination for the movie and later ended up doing films like "Grounding Day" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral." She went on to do different movies and TV series.

MacDowell admits that she is content with where she is at and happy about how far she has come. “If you saw where I came from, what I have been through, how I was raised...I wasn’t given great opportunities. I created opportunities,” she shared. She is currently working with Chyler Leigh and Sadie Laflamme-Snow in the new Hallmark series, "The Way Home." The 65-year-old doesn't see aging as a bad thing but something to embrace. I don't think 'old' is a bad word for me. What is bad, however, are all the negative connotations around aging, especially for women. Even younger people," MacDowell said. "We're so hard on ourselves."

She was in the headlines for her dark curls going gray which is not a very obvious choice when it comes to Hollywood but MacDowell has managed to make some heads turn with her look. Gwyneth Paltrow is one of them and she finds the actor inspiring. "I love when you see Andie MacDowell, in all her power, walking down the runway with this gorgeous shock of gray curls," Paltrow said. When asked what she thinks about being called powerful, the actor said, "I do think there is power and owning where you are. And it's not to say that if you're coloring your hair, that's a bad thing, I do think it can make you look younger," she says. "But there's also great beauty in having no shame about being an older person, particularly an older woman." She added that, unlike men, women often lose the status of "sexual being" after a certain age.

MacDowell said that women do it themselves because they are taught that, so "we procreate it." "Even ourselves. We diminish each other. If you dated a younger man, everybody would think it was scandalous. They would make fun of you. But a man does it and it's, of course, normal. All of those guys, they all do it. But if it were a woman, it would be front-page news," expressed the actor. The 65-year-old shared that casting for men in their 40s and 50s is easy. However, she is not worried about that because she only wants to play old."I'm in a great place now because I'm only going to play old. I don't have to worry about it anymore. I'm just old. I've got silver here. I know what I'm going to be cast as. But they'll never cast me with a younger man," she said.

MacDowell though does not want to date younger men, she has no issues in taking roles where she is being "sexual" or "strong." She had to shoot a scene in which she ran into Lake Ontario without any clothes on. "I have on my underwear, but I thought it was pretty brave for Hallmark to do, or anybody, a 65-year-old woman. And I loved how I played it," she explained. "I didn't diet or anything. I didn't worry about my body. It's like, at a certain point, you're so tired of having to think about those things."