It’s the Hollywood sensation we all enjoy: aging movie stars drawn to a TV near you | Fiona Sturgess

SHowever, the TV series about Jason Segel’s Jimmy, a sad psychotherapist who can’t stop telling patients what he’s really thinking, sounds pretty harmless on paper. From Frasier to In Treatment to Sex Education, there’s no shortage of TV dramas about dysfunctional therapists. What stands out from the crowd is the presence of Harrison Ford, who plays Jimmy’s octogenarian mentor. Here we see a Hollywood star getting high on food, grappling with his failures as a father and trying to hide his Parkinson’s symptoms. Although Segel shares top billing with Ford, the latter is the main attraction and gets the best lines.

Likewise, Paramount’s 1923 film, Taylor Sheridan’s precursor to Yellowstone, relies on Ford’s elder statesman status as it depicts the efforts of a cattle ranching family to maintain their wealth and status during the Great Depression. Ford’s co-star is Helen Mirren, another octogenarian actress who had previously appeared with him in 1986’s The Mosquito Coast. Set in 1923 Montana, this is a sublime drama that infuses its heroes’ rocky traits as well as their penchant for brutality.

So, what should we do with the sheikhs of cinema plying their craft on the small screen? In years past, old Hollywood stars refused to move to television. Doing so was a sure sign that their careers were on the rocks, although both Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Collins shrugged off vanity in the 1980s when they joined the cast of The Thorn Birds and Dynasty respectively. Collins became a bigger star as Alexis Carrington, Dynasty’s prostitute, than she ever was when she was in her 20s under contract to 20th Century Fox, where she starred in films like Land of the Pharaohs and The Opposite Sex. Conversely, Charlton Heston’s toe-curling role in the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys had the opposite effect, dooming his career. After that, the actor stuck to comedy shows and NRA rallies.

Clearly, today’s television landscape looks different for Hollywood stars wanting to expand, offer more variety, and, for the most part, a better quality of drama than in the past. Think of Meryl Streep, who appeared in the 2019 second series of Big Little Lies and, later, happily took a ride on the hit Hulu comedy Only Murders in the Building. Or Gary Oldman, who played Dracula and Churchill on the big screen, as an elderly ghost needing to be washed in the TV series Slow Horses. Or Kathy Bates playing the septuagenarian lawyer in Matlock, who is always underestimated because of her age. Or Sly Stallone made his TV debut as a veteran gangster in Tulsa King, another Taylor Sheridan series. In fact, Sheridan, who recently cast Kevin Costner and Billy Bob Thornton in Yellowstone and Landman, appears to be on a one-man mission to lure veteran male actors into retirement.

Few of these aging stars could be accused of being neglected in often big-budget productions, even if they have a job on their hands to attract attention in the age of too much television. There’s no sense in dining out on past laurels either. When Jeff Bridges, the big-screen star of The Fisher King and The Big Lebowski, was persuaded to return to television to play an elderly former CIA agent struggling to put his socks on in the morning, the FX Networks title was unambiguously The Old Man. In Shrink, Ford is asked to tend to his elderly pose and portray his character’s struggle with his creeping frailty. Compare that to the 2023 Indiana Jones reboot Dial of Destiny, where he, as an octogenarian, reprises the whip-cracking, stunt-enjoying action hero.

That meaty TV roles are being written specifically for older people can only be good news – it’s certainly an improvement in putting them out to pasture in late middle age, as Hollywood used to do until recently – but for now men are still getting the lion’s share of these roles. In acting, as in life, he is ruthless Ageism has always disproportionately affected women, a situation parodied by Amy Schumer in the play “The Last Damn Day,” in which three actors — Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey, and Patricia Arquette — celebrate one of the last days of their number of being “reasonably workable” in the eyes of the entertainment industry.

Another factor pushing the acting old guard to seek work in television is that the film industry is still feeling the financial hit from the coronavirus and the writers and actors strike in 2023. Budgets remain tight, and big hits are now few and far between — last year, Snow White and Mickey 17, Christy, After the Hunt and the Dwayne Johnson vehicle The Smashing Machine all failed at the box office. Meanwhile, viewers have the option of waiting for big films to appear on streaming services, which sometimes takes days after a theatrical release.

It’s no wonder, then, that older actors want to appear on television, where they can be seen by those viewers unwilling to drag themselves to the multiplex, and where they can spend time developing complex characters. Meanwhile, the shows in question get gravitas, experience and star quality in return. Right now, there is a lot to be pessimistic about in the creative industries, but this is the golden age for the retired actor who will have new glories and a third act.