The interviewer, a man half her age with a smile like a neon sign, leaned in. "Elena, you’ve played the ingenue, the tragic wife, and now the matriarch. How does it feel to finally reach the 'stately' phase of a career?"

"I spent twenty years being the object of the camera’s affection," she continued, leaning toward the audience. "But the most interesting thing about me wasn't my cheekbones; it was my rage. It was my intellect. It was the fact that I knew exactly how the lighting worked even when I wasn't allowed to touch the dials."

Elena smiled, a slow, practiced movement that didn’t reach her eyes. Soft was for silk and overripe fruit. At sixty-two, Elena was neither. She walked onto the stage to a standing ovation that felt more like an act of communal memory than a greeting for the woman currently standing there.

"Stately is a word we use for buildings that don't move," Elena said, her voice a low, resonant cello. "I find it fascinating that when a man in this industry hits sixty, he’s 'weathered' or 'authoritative.' When a woman does, she’s 'brave' just for showing up without a filter." The room went silent.