Jessica Lange Says Hollywood’s Treatment of Actresses ‘at a Certain Age’ Hasn’t Changed Much (Exclusive)

Sexism and ageism in Hollywood may have been “more extreme back then,” says Jessica Lange, but it endures today

Jessica Lange has been a consistently working star for long enough to judge whether actresses these days are getting the respect they deserve.

The currently Tony-nominated star of Mother Play, now playing on Broadway, tells PEOPLE the “idea of what happens to an actress in Hollywood at a certain age” has been a through-line in her career.

“Maybe it was more extreme back then in the ’40s and ’50s and ’60s,” she says of sexism and ageism in the industry, "but it certainly hasn't changed that much.”

Related: Jessica Lange, Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger Make a Move in Broadway's Mother Play (Exclusive)

At 75, Lange is now older than Joan Crawford, who died in 1977, ever was. Playing the late Mildred Pierce star in 2017’s miniseries Feud: Bette and Joan gave Lange an “extremely poignant” perspective, she says, on how roles for women in Hollywood tend to become scarce — from the time Crawford was filming Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to today. 

“Once I started really looking into Joan Crawford's history, where she came from and her experience in childhood and growing up, it was nightmarish,” recalls Lange. “So the fact that she actually did what she was able to do in life, I found her incredibly admirable.”

Back when the Ryan Murphy-produced series was airing, costar Susan Sarandon, who played Bette Davis, told PEOPLE that Golden Age of Hollywood starlets “who had these amazing parts found themselves high and dry later when they were older… There are so many tragic stories of women who were so beautiful and couldn’t figure out a way to age within the system.”

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But Lange and some of her contemporaries (including Sarandon, 77) have continued to reinvent themselves and take risks on stage and screen, earning nuanced roles for decades.

“I've always been extremely willful, and it's not something I'm proud of, but I recognize it,” Lange tells PEOPLE when reminded of her feature film debut: Dino De Laurentiis’ blockbuster King Kong remake in 1967. 

“Maybe it was good that I had no other experience, so I just did it,” she recalls of her whirlwind introduction to Hollywood. “I just did it because I was naive and I didn't know any different, I guess.”

Lange has since defied the industry’s tendency toward bias, winning two Oscars (for 1982’s Tootsie and 1995’s Blue Sky), three Emmys (for 2009’s Grey Gardens and seasons 1 and 3 of American Horror Story) and a Tony Award (for 2016’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night — a performance she’ll reprise in a film soon).

“There's so much depth to these characters,” Lange says of her still-growing résumé, which includes The Great Lillian Hall (premiering on HBO May 31). “For me, it's always a question of, what is the emotional life that I can explore? And is it big enough?”

The roles that inspire Lange the most, she adds, are “women who are on the edge, maybe walking that emotional tightrope. Is it madness? Is it not? [That’s] the moment where my imagination is triggered and I think, ‘I want to do this.’ ”

Mother Play — A Play in Five Evictions is now playing at the Hayes Theater.

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