Susan Sarandon on beauty, aging and a new fight for equal rights

“Every movie I make—whether it’s about a man and a woman, or a woman and a child, or even a nun—they are all, in my mind, love stories,” says Susan Sarandon at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. “I’m always drawn to [scripts] that encourage people to be the protagonist in their own life.” And what a life Sarandon has lived. At 69, she has starred in films, such as Thelma & Louise and Dead Man Walking (she won an Oscar for the latter), that have shaken the status quo and shed light on injustices of all kinds.

Her penchant for pushing the envelope has not faded in the least. Before doing her red carpet rounds, the actress spent 10 days camping out in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert at the Burning Man festival (where she scattered the ashes of her dear friend, psychologist and advocate of LSD Timothy Leary, who passed away in 1996).

At TIFF, Sarandon had two films: The Meddler, a romantic comedy starring J.K. Simmons and Rose Byrne, and About Ray, with Elle Fanning and Naomi Watts. In the latter, she plays a lesbian grandmother whose granddaughter is transitioning to male. “It’s not a documentary; it’s just the beginning of a conversation,” Sarandon says of the movie. “These are conversations we need to have to make transgender people accepted and make them safe and make them understood.”

Despite having several other projects in the works, Sarandon says that aging in Hollywood has, unfortunately, meant fewer roles. “As a woman, you just get better and better. It takes a while to find your voice in your 20s and then it takes a while to not be driven by needs. Women are so interesting as they get older, especially vital women who continue to ask questions. You’re free to have even more adventures. This is where the tunnel just opens up.”

Sarandon notes that it is tougher for young people, too, nowadays. “Everything now is so superficially critical—not just of older women, but of women in general. I mean, I never had pressure to have abs when I was 20. And I was naked a lot.”

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