The XX Factor: What women really think.

Hollywood Ancient

Jamie Foxx. Paul Giamatti. Benicio Del Toro. Liev Schreiber. Guy Pearce. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Pretty safe bet that if any one of these 41-year-old actors had been the subject of this Newsweek piece they wouldn’t have been run through the gender double-standard meat grinder—the one that permits Julia Roberts to be declared “Hollywood ancient” at the advanced age of 41. Oh, and those five years she took off to raise her kids? An unfortunate  “dry spell.”

I’m thinking it’s a pretty safe bet that if it was Philip Seymour Hoffman who had taken five years off in his mid-30s—even if it was to work on his rare African beetle collection—he’d be acclaimed upon his return as fresher, younger, and crackling with new energy.