Carrie-Anne Moss offered grandmother role day after 40th birthday

Carrie-Anne Moss was offered a grandma role the day after she turned 40.

The Canadian actress, who is best known for playing Trinity in The Matrix franchise, revealed how hitting the milestone age instantly affected the roles she was offered as she moderated a conversation with Justine Bateman, the author of Face: One Square Foot of Skin, on behalf of New York's 92nd Street Y.

"I had heard that at 40 everything changed," the 53-year-old actress said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "I didn't believe in that because I don't believe in just jumping on a thought system that I don't really align with. But literally the day after my 40th birthday, I was reading a script that had come to me and I was talking to my manager about it. She was like, 'Oh, no, no, no, it's not that role (you're reading for), it's the grandmother'. I may be exaggerating a bit, but it happened overnight. I went from being a girl to the mother to beyond the mother."

Moss admitted she struggled to process the transition because male actors don't experience it and it's "kind of brutal" to witness herself ageing on screen, and shared that she looks up to European actresses and how they embrace ageing gracefully.

"I would look at these French and European actresses and they just had something about them that felt so confident in their own skin. I couldn't wait to be that. I strive for that. It's not easy being in this business. There's a lot of external pressure," she said.

Moss will soon be seen reprising the role of Trinity alongside Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix 4, which is due to be released in December.