Carrie-Anne Moss says she was offered grandmother role 'literally the day after my 40th birthday'

"Matrix" star Carrie-Anne Moss opened up about ageism and life in Hollywood for an actress after 40 during a frank discussion with author and filmmaker Justine Bateman.  

Moss, 53, who returns to her universe-saving role as Trinity in "The Matrix 4" (due out Dec. 21), revealed that she was offered the role of a grandmother for a different project the day after her 40th birthday. 

"I had heard that at 40 everything changed," said Moss in the wide-ranging talk at New York's 92nd Street Y on April 1, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "I didn't believe in that because I don't believe in just jumping on a thought system that I don't really align with. But literally the day after my 40th birthday, I was reading a script that had come to me and I was talking to my manager about it. She was like, 'Oh, no, no, no, it's not that role (you're reading for), it's the grandmother.'"

"I may be exaggerating a bit, but it happened overnight," Moss added. "I went from being a girl to the mother to beyond the mother."

The actress said it was a tough transition to mentally process in part because male actors don't experience ageism in the same manner. 

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"It's a stereotypical story, working with men that are so much older and aging," Moss said. "And people are enjoying the aging of them. While I'm much younger than they are."

The discussion centered around "Family Ties" star Bateman's new book, "Face: One Square Foot of Skin," which examines the aggressive ways that Hollywood and society react to the aging of women's faces.

During their talk, Moss said the natural aging process could be "kind of brutal" for screen actors. 

"You don't feel like you've aged much and suddenly you're seeing yourself onscreen," she said. "I would look at these French and European actresses and they just had something about them that felt so confident in their own skin. I couldn't wait to be that. I strive for that. It's not easy being in this business. There's a lot of external pressure."

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Moss praised Bateman for writing "Face," the follow-up to her 2018 book examining Hollywood, "Fame: The Hijacking of Reality."

Bateman, 55, said she was driven to discuss the unfair expectations placed on women as they grow older. 

"I find it psychotic that we have leapfrogged any conversations that we should be cutting up our faces," Bateman said discussing plastic surgery. "It's become normalized. Time out, time out!"