Gail Bean is 33. So why is Hollywood already calling her ‘too old’?

After being passed over for roles because of her age, “The Drop” star Gail Bean is opening up about the ageism Black women face in Hollywood.

“Black don’t crack” is one of the many phrases that pop culture has adopted to classify the graceful ways in which Black communities age. Now, while social media celebrates the ways Black women seem to age like fine wine, Hollywood seems to have a different standard when it comes to casting. During an appearance on “DMC with Na’im Lynn,” “The Drop” actress Gail Bean revealed how her age has stopped her from getting roles. 

“Let me tell you something. And we’re not even really talking about the industry, but just to get into the industry, a deep, meaningful conversation piece that needs to happen when it comes to women and their age. I have been told this year alone for two projects that I was too old,” Bean, 33, explained. “I was told I was too old to play Shantae, Snoop Dog’s wife. I was told I was too old to play Storm [from X-Men].” 

And while Lynn joked that Bean looks like a teenager, she explained: “They see my age online. And they’re just like, ‘Oh, no.’ And the thing is, these are phenomenal casting directors. They do love me. They bring me in for way [more] other stuff. But, like, I was on the list literally two years ago for X-Men, for Marvel…as time passed, they’re like, ‘Yeah, no.’”

Bean continued, “I had such an emotional moment because it was like back-to-back within a month of being told no. And here’s the thing. I’m okay with the no. It wasn’t the no that hurt my feelings. It was the I’m too old that hurt my feelings.”

She said the criteria to qualify for certain roles seemed to keep changing, sharing, “It just feels like it’s always something. People keep moving the finish line, the goalpost.” 

And “The Drop” star is not the first actress to call out the invisible age limit in Hollywood. For years, stars like Taraji P. Henson, Regina King, and others have called out the double standard in the industry regarding age between men and women. 

“Men don’t have an age limit put on them at all. They don’t. I have not seen a man stop working because of his age. I haven’t even seen a man stop working because of his receding hairline or his beer gut,” Henson told Refinery 29. “So why should women have a limit? That’s what Viola [Davis], Regina King, and I are all fighting for: To break through that ceiling. We’re still talented, why should we stop working?”

And if they aren’t told no, actresses sometimes face limits on the types of roles they are considered for. For instance, Viola Davis, whose intimate scenes in “How to Get Away With Murder” seemed groundbreaking at the time, told NPR in 2012:

“I can go into an audition with my makeup and my hair and my lashes and come out with these roles that you say I have. Which goes into the area of perception, and how people perceive Black women of a certain hue, and when I say certain hue, I mean Black women who are darker than a paper bag. And I’m a dark-skinned Black woman who is 46 years old. And I don’t know about you, but when I go to see movies, I don’t see a lot of women like me in glamorous roles. Not in any mainstream movies, and inevitably when I say that, people mention one person — but usually just one. I don’t see a lot of narratives written … where a woman who looks like me gets to be beautiful and sexualized and upwardly mobile, middle-class, funny, quirky. They’re very seldom written.”

Halle Berry explained that this phenomenon is sometimes felt beyond Hollywood. 

“You get to this age where you feel like you’re being marginalized, devalued. You feel it at work. You feel it from society,” Berry, an Academy Award winner, told The Cut. “But I have adamantly decided I am not going to allow myself to be erased…I’ve had a 30-year career being an actor, but what empowers me and what feels really good is that I can take my second act. It’s been the joy of my life in so many ways.”

In fact, a number of actresses, particularly Black actresses, have seen tremendous success later in their careers. Davis launched a production company and won her first Oscar at 51. Sheryl Lee Ralph won her first Primetime Emmy Award at 65 after decades in entertainment. Women continue to push the bounds of what society and industry standards claim is law, which is exactly why AARP Movies for Grownups launched its 25 Most Fabulous Gen X Actresses list, to highlight and celebrate women 45-61 like Davis, Henson, Kerry Washington, Regina King, and others who have excelled when society tried to tell them to slow down. 

“Women are told that when we reach a certain number, we’re no longer valuable. I believe the opposite,” Berry told AARP. “Society should look at us as jewels as we get older. Because the older women get, the more formidable we are.”