Kristin Scott Thomas: 'I'm fed up of playing cold, wicked bitches'

The actress said she now feels limited by cinema

Kristin Scott Thomas has spoken candidly about ageism in the film industry (Getty Images)

Kristin Scott Thomas has said that her exasperation at being constantly cast as a "cold, wicked bitch" contributed to her decision to turn her back on Hollywood.

The 54-year-old actress, who has starred in the likes of Four Weddings and a Funeral, The English Patient and Tell No One, told the Radio Times that she had become uncomfortable at the way she was being portrayed on screen.

"I got fed up with being asked to do the same thing, playing cold, wicked bitches. I felt like the camera was stealing bits of me and the end product was a mosaic, just snippets," she said.

Scott Thomas, who was made a Dame on the 2015 New Year's Honours List, has recently bemoaned the lack of representation of 50-something women in the film industry.

Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show at the start of this month, she described ageism in Hollywood as a "disaster", but added that "it’s never going to change" in the current climate.

The actress has said she now wants theatre to be her "main job".

"I no longer want film to be my primary source of existence," she said in her latest comments.

Scott Thomas will take on Helen Mirren's role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience from April. She has just finished a run in Electra at the Old Vic.

In recent years she has been very vocal about how female actresses are treated. In 2010 she told the Guardian: "Often, the roles I'm offered in England are melancholic women who are filled with regret for the past, regret for their fading beauty. I like playing women who have plenty of life still left in them."