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Linda Hamilton Fires Back Against Ageism in Hollywood: ‘F–k Trying to Be What I Was’ (Exclusive)

Linda Hamilton is back — and yes, she’s older. In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, the Terminator: Dark Fate star reveals the message she has for everyone who notices she “got old,” while also sharing why she left Hollywood 28 years ago.

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“It wasn’t so much about the work, because I love to work. I hope to work until I die, but if it’s on stage for $7 a performance, that’s enough for me,” Hamilton, 63, tells Us exclusively in the latest issue. “I love my life in New Orleans. I left all this. Not in a belligerent way particularly but just like, I don’t get Hollywood. I don’t get the obsession with this [motions to her body]. Skin is 16 percent of our body. Why does everybody focus on the color and the tightness of skin?”

Linda Hamilton Opens Up About Aging Hollywood
Linda Hamilton during a photo session at Four Seasons Hotel LA at Beverly Hills on October 26, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

The Maryland native, who began acting nearly 40 years ago, then says that since she’s been out of the game for some time, she knows she’s aged — and that’s OK!

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“Of course people are going to look at me and say ‘Oh, she got old.’ Yes, I did and I have so much more to say as a strong, experienced life-ridden woman,” the Chuck alum shares. “Ultimately, I woke up one day and said, ‘F–k trying to be what I was, because I am so much more than I was,’ and that’s what’s coming to screen. That was the point where I was like, ‘I am all in.’ I dug to my places of greatest sorrow.”

Linda Hamilton Opens Up About Aging Hollywood
Linda Hamilton in a scene from ‘Terminator 2 – Judgment Day’ in 1991. StudioCanal/Shutterstock

Stepping into Sarah Connor’s shoes wasn’t as easy as it used to be either.

“It was fierce, it was hard. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done — huge, overwhelming, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, we’re talking hard,” Hamilton notes. “And I made it, so that’s life. The more demanding, the harder, the greater. They do go hand and hand.”

Related: Costars Reunited

For more from Hamilton, watch the video above and pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now.

Terminator: Dark Fate is in theaters now.

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