Emily Mortimer admitted she finds getting older more akin to a carnival ride than a graceful journey.
The Mary Poppins Returns actress, 48, said she’s struggling with the ‘ferris wheel’ of ageing as she discussed her new horror film Relic.
‘It’s horrible getting older,” she told Radio Times magazine.
‘There’s not much to recommend it. You go through this inevitable midlife crisis: “Who am I? Why am I here? What’s the point of anything?”
‘It’s all about accepting that ultimately one is going to die.
‘I’ve found that the moments in my life where I’ve just been interested in telling stories, that’s when I’m OK.’
In her latest project, Relic, three generations of women are haunted by a dementia-inspired spirit that haunts their home.
Emily stars alongside Top of the Lake’s Robyn Nevin, who plays matriarch Edna, and Australian Bella Heathcote (The Man in the High Castle) as Sam.
She said it was easy to identify with Kay, who searches for her elderly mother after she disappears.
‘I related to Kay with that moment in your life when you’re the parent to your own parent, as well as your children, and yet you can see yourself getting older and your children becoming more grown-up,’ said the star.
‘You can feel yourself on this ferris wheel and it’s your turn next.’
Relic received rave reviews from critics, with Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt calling it ‘a sinister slow-blooming portrait of domestic horror’.
Arizona Repubic’s Bill Goodykoontz called Relic ‘a horror film… but it’s also a heartbreaking meditation on watching someone you love slip away, until they aren’t who they were anymore.’
Emily is currently filming The Pursuit of Love, a TV miniseries based on the novel by Nancy Mitford.
Emily married fellow actor Alessandro Nivola in 2003. The couple share two children, May Rose, 10, and Samuel John, 17.
Read the full interview with Emily in this week’s Radio Times, out now.
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