At 49, Elizabeth Reaser is more fired up now than she ever has been, telling HELLO! with a big smile on her face: "When you're my age, you're just fresh out of [expletive]."
"Your connection to yourself becomes so much stronger and your authenticity becomes stronger – it's a dangerous age for a woman."
© Getty Images for IMDbThat feeling is one she embodies in Nadia Conners' buzzy, heartbreaking look at marriage and fame in Hollywood, The Uninvited, out in cinemas on May 9, and starring Pedro Pascal and Walton Goggins.
It's also one she is utilizing to steer new talent in the right direction, including Warren Beatty and Annette Bening's daughter Ella, whom she will star alongside in upcoming movie Act One.
"I have a movie coming out soon called Act One with Ella Beatty who played my daughter, and she's this phenomenal young actress that just blew my mind, in every way," says Elizabeth.
"It was very exciting. Not only was she so brilliant, but she was serious and fun at the same time, a real light and a young person with beautiful energy that was fun to be around."
© Bruce Glikas/Getty ImagesElizabeth is currently starring in A Doll's House Part 2 at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles, and she adds: "I'm working with a young actress named Kahyun Kim, who's playing my daughter in this play, and she's hilarious and brilliant – and I'm blown away by these kids, these people in their twenties.
"They're doing it, and they're so bold and confident and I feel very protective of young people in this industry."
© Getty Images for IMDbElizabeth made her acting debut in 2000 before finding worldwide success in 2008 when she starred in what would become the global box office success Twilight alongside Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.
She went on to star in all five films in the franchise as well as Grey's Anatomy and The Good Wife, and now she will be on the big screen again as Rose in The Uninvited, a former actress who stepped back to focus on her home life but whose world is turned upside down when an elderly woman arrives at her doorstep, claiming the house is hers – and on the same evening as an important industry party Rose is hosting in honor of her husband.
"Nadia tapped into something that I was already experiencing – and continue to experience – as an actress and an older woman in the world," says Elizabeth of what drew her to the story.
"It was a hilarious, heartbreaking and infuriating take on the injustice of the world that we're in, it was so incisive and meta."
For Elizabeth, so much of her own personal experience in the industry has been one of "erasure, of getting older and becoming invisible".
In The Uninvited, Rose invites her former flame and co-star Lucian (played by Pedro Pascal) to the party, as her husband Sammy tries to woo industry bigwigs to join his new agency.
At one point Lucian asks Rose why she is not taking part in the movie version of the stage play they performed together.
"That question is so unbelievable to Rose because it's as if it was her choice," says Elizabeth. "He has no understanding, he thinks that that was something she chose to stop, and that was a mind blowing moment on the page for me."
© Getty Images for IMDbElizabeth has known Pedro, 50, and 53-year-old Walton for years, but she admits that they have not had conversations around how their on-screen counterparts may be feeling the same emotions and doubts off-screen.
"I don't know that they have that understanding," she says. "I'd be curious, I would love to know how they see it. But when you're on the other side of it, I think you just believe that's how the world is and so I don't know how they conceive of it, or their understanding of it. But I would hope that they would have a deeper understanding, certainly."
The Uninvited shot over 15 days in 2023 and Pedro "bopped in and out," but her close friendship with both actors has helped them forge a "real shorthand" that allowed Elizabeth to "understand immediately what they're thinking or feeling".
"Also they would both have chemistry with a paper bag. They're such alive creatures," she jokes.
In July Elizabeth will turn 50, and in August she will celebrate her second wedding anniversary.
The concept of aging is thrilling for the actor though, who admits that at 49 she is the "happiest" she's even been.
© Getty Images for IMDb"I have a theory that women get so much more interesting when they get older because they're not playing to men as much," she says.
"It's ingrained from such a young age to be appealing to men, and it fosters competitiveness and stupidity. As you get older you shed that and now the women in my life are so primary – the funniest, most dynamic, most hilarious people I've ever met."
She continues: "I'm married and he's my everything, but I have these rich female friendships that I couldn't live without and they're more important to me than almost anything. Aging really connects you to yourself, and that's a deep, cool thing that happens."
