Lisa Edelstein Says "It's a Wonderful Thing" to Be Over 40 in Hollywood

Abby McCarthy's menopause is in full swing this season of Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce, one change on a long list of many for the character that she's not exactly thrilled about. 

But ask the actress behind Abby, Lisa Edelstein, and she's absolutely loving that we'll be seeing her character enter this new territory that few female characters have experienced onscreen before. "It used to be that a woman could act until that point in her life when she was teetering into menopause and then you couldn't see her again until she was a crone," Lisa told The Daily Dish. "There was something about the transition time from youth and fertility to being an old woman that was missing in our storytelling, and that's the most powerful time in a woman's life. That's when, yeah, you're not worried about getting pregnant anymore. Now you've actually had a lifetime of experience that you can apply to the world. And so it's great that these stories are being told." 

Of course, this is part of a larger trend in Hollywood where women in midlife are getting more and more complex leading roles on TV and in film. That's something that actresses like Viola Davis and Tracee Ellis Ross acknowledged during the Golden Globes ceremony earlier this month.  

Lisa has definitely seen and felt this change personally. "I think Hollywood mirrors what's happening in our culture, so it's not like it's in its own separate track," she told The Daily Dish. "But certainly for myself, I got this job [on GG2D] when I was 48 to be the lead of a romantic dramedy, and that wouldn't have happened 20 years ago, that wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. I don't know what shifted, but it's a wonderful thing to be able to tell a sexy, fun, lively story about a woman in her late 40s." 

And yeah, it's pretty great to be able to act your age on TV. "And no one's trying to hide that I'm that age," she said. "It's not like I'm trying to squeeze myself into a 35-year-old character, which would be miserable because I think it's a wonderful time in a woman's life when you've sort of figured a lot of sh** out and you can kind of move forward with confidence and knowing yourself in a way that you just can't possibly do in your 20s or 30s or even your 40s." 

Find out what else is in store for Abby as this season of GG2D continues, below.

Lisa Edelstein Spills on GG2D Season 3