Costar age gaps hurt Hollywood. ‘Fire Country’ star Diane Farr urges for age parity between on-screen couples

The actress speaks with stars including Marcia Gay Harden, Chandra Wilson, and Sarah Wayne Callies about their experiences with same-age costars and how it lends to more relatable and authentic portrayals of relationships.

Orcas are one of the most successful species on earth, reigning at the top of the food chain. Not only are they matriarchal, they are also among the few mammals other than humans whose females go through menopause. However, when breeding ends for a female killer whale, she moves up in status, taking command of her pod as their new leader and most valued hunter.

I currently play Sharon Leone, the matriarch on last season’s No. 1 new TV show, Fire Country. The CBS hit has the highest ratings of any freshman series, on any network, reaching roughly 10 million viewers a week across various platforms. Some say part of its success is the chemistry between me and my onscreen husband, played by Billy Burke — “chemistry” being the word Hollywood uses for a connection and its heat, that can’t be manufactured between actors but will catapult a performance to a cultural moment.

But what if it can be created? Or at least massaged by harnessing a secret I’d like to share: My male costar and I are about the same age.

This is not the norm on American TV, and even less when you consider we are both over 50. Age parity — hiring women who are the age a character is written, and within the same decade as their male costar — has yet to become a standard in film and TV, or even a consideration despite movement toward racial, gender, sexual orientation, and pay parity.

Skipping over the truth of characters’ ages denies actresses opportunities when they are primed to do the best work of their career (hi, Jean Smart, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Sandra Oh), usually when they are also mostly done raising their own babies and ready to give all to their work (hey now, Penelope Cruz, Robin Wright, and Angela Bassett). But what if overlooking them is actually hurting movies and TV shows as well?

I’ve played the female lead or romantic interest of the male lead on 10 television series. The two most successful — Rescue Me, a critic’s darling, and now Fire Country, a ratings standout — both paired me opposite actors within five years of my age. On the other eight shows, my love interests were 10 years older; 20 years older; and, twice, older than my father at 25 years my senior. And none achieved the same success.

Sarah Wayne Callies had a similar experience to mine. She rose to fame on Prison Break and then cemented herself in the zeitgeist on The Walking Dead, where both her male leads were within five years of her age. A film studio then cast her opposite Nic Cage, with a 15-year gap between them that was not a part of nor addressed in the story. The film shared none of Sarah’s previous success. “Hollywood does something very false, which is expect us to walk a path of peers when we are patently not,” Sarah tells me. “What we expect women to do is tell a lie.”

Of course, age-divergent casting can sometimes be successful. Jurassic Park was a box office beast, although it may have slowed Laura Dern’s course to an Academy Award and the slew of nominations she now garners. She recently told The Times, “The age gap between me and Sam Neill was completely inappropriate,” which she only realized after the film’s release when an article pointed out the patriarchal dynamics.

Why does this casting habit even exist? Is it just to make older men seem more virile? I asked Oscar nominee Andy Garcia — who has worked with more leading ladies his own age in romantic roles than most, most recently in Book Club and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again — if there is something his peers bring to projects that he finds valuable. “Wisdom,” he says. “Like good wine, you get better with age.”

Let me tell you, Andy’s charm is stronger than the pull to the center of the earth. Yet I persist because Gloria Estefan has said she took her role in 2022’s Father of the Bride because it was Garcia who offered it to her. Is there a reason he courted a costar his age, when this would also be her very first starring role at age 63? “We have been very close friends for a long time,” he explains. “There was no other person we all wanted to play my wife. She was our first and only choice. She is an extraordinary artist and I knew that our history would layer our relationship in the film.”