Glenn Close on Aging: How To Embrace Getting Older

If we could all embrace aging the way that Glenn Close does, we’d be much happier with our authentic selves!

The eight-time Oscar nominee tells Glamour that she’s retraining her perspective on growing older. And it’s no easy task, considering the message that society sends women about their aging bodies: Cover it up or find a way to “fix” it.

“We are so brainwashed about skin,” Close says. “Certainly about women’s skin. The texture of your skin, and [the comparison of the young] warm, hard, smooth bodies against the [old] ones that are fighting to get a waist again.”

That fixation on skin leads us to seek out a wealth of treatment and skincare options. Products that aim to “tighten,” “firm,” and “brighten” our skin are the ones that sell — not the products that simply aim to keep our skin healthy and hydrated.

So, how does Close overcome this messaging?

Her body does not define her.

“I’ve always felt that my body is not really who I am,” Close says. “We have this house, if you will, that we look out of during our whole life, and it’s not who you are.”

The actor carries this idea into her approach to life — she doesn’t let her age dictate the way she thinks. “I’m 75, and I look out in the world and I feel like I’m looking out in the world with the energy of somebody in their 20s,” she says. “And that’s who I am.”

She finds beauty in her ‘unappealing’ features.

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Like all of us, Close isn’t immune to the shock of age. “I look at my arm in the morning at a certain light and I go, ‘Ah! Are you kidding me? Whose arm is this? Are you kidding?’” she jokes.

But that’s never the end of the thought. “It’s like, ‘Okay, I see; it’s happening,'” she tells herself. “So I’m trying to come to the point that I just embrace my — what’s the word they use for it? Crepey skin? Is there a beauty in it? I try to think that maybe it looks like the sand after the tide has gone out.”

The takeaway? If you want to change your appearance — be it with face creams, injections, or shapewear — go for it. It’s your body! But giving yourself a little extra love and leniency in terms of what you see (and allow others to see) is an admirable thing. Aging is beautiful; don’t forget it!