Elisha Cuthbert seems to work pretty steadily on TV and in movies here and there. She had a couple of movies this year and has another in pre-production. She also appears on podcasts and talks about how her reputation as a sex symbol affected her life and career. Elisha was on Rachel Bilson’s podcast over the summer and talked about the pressure from studios to pose for men’s magazines after The Girl Next Door came out. And Elisa just appeared on her old friend Paris Hilton’s podcast to talk again about the pressure of living up to that role and how people make comments about her aging.
Elisha Cuthbert’s role as an ex-porn star in 2004’s The Girl Next Door solidified her reputation as a sex symbol. Now, nearly two decades later, the actress says society still pressures her to live up to that title.
“There was this pressure of, like, maybe the fashion world or whatever saw me as a certain thing when really it was a character,” she told Paris Hilton on Monday’s episode of her podcast, This is Paris, of the attention that came after the movie was released.
Even today, she says it’s rare for people to not bring up the fact that she was once named the “most beautiful woman in television” by men’s publications like Maxim and FHM in the mid-2000s.
“It ends up getting in the bio somehow, and you’re just like, what does that even mean? It’s not really a reflection of me as an artist,” the 24 alum explained. “But on the flip side of it … if that’s what they see and they liked that, too, I’m OK with it. For a long time, I’ve had a lot of disdain for it and wanted to push against it, but I kept getting thrown back into that sort of stereotype. Now I’ve learned to sort of embrace it.”
Though her role in The Girl Next Door “struck a chord with a lot of people,” it’s not something she dwells on in her everyday life.
“I certainly don’t try to keep up with it,” Cuthbert, 39, said. “I would go crazy if I felt like I had to, every time I showed up [to an event], I looked like her. For me it’s not even me, it’s that character. So it seems so strange to live up to a character I played when I was 21.”
Given the impact her role had at the time, Cuthbert says fans refuse to let her age.
“Comments are just so weird. It’s like, ‘Oh you look older!’ Sure I do. That’s the way the world works,” she said. “I’ll be on social media and I’ll see a comment like, ‘Oh, why are you so old now?’ Because I am! Because I’m just older than I was. I’m like, I don’t know what you’re comparing it too. Do you know what I mean? There’s this weird feeling, like, people don’t want to see actors or musicians age in any way. So it’s a sorta strange thing.”
The comments really are weird. Obviously Elisha looks older, that movie was filmed nearly 20 years ago. I don’t know if it’s people not wanting her to age so much as people not used to seeing the natural aging on celebrities. Elisha does not look old by any means, but she does not look as tweaked and ‘toxed as other celebs who try really hard to stave off the aging process. I also wonder if part of it is streaming and the fact that people have may watched Girl Next Door for the first time and then go to check out her social media and are shocked it’s 20 years later. Anyway, I guess it’s good that Elisha isn’t trying to hang on to that character and live up to expectations of her looks based on that. I do think she may actually be the one that keeps bringing up all her men’s magazine accolades. She’s definitely embracing it and possibly putting in the bio herself. It’s been a talking point of hers in two recent podcasts and it kind of seems to me that she has a lower profile than she thinks she does.
Elisha and Paris in 2006
photos credit: Michael Williams and Xavier Collin/Avalon and Insight News and Features, Inc.
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