Motherhood Quote by Ellen Burstyn

Aging in Hollywood is usually framed as a slow erasure; Ellen Burstyn flips it into a punchline with teeth. She starts with the classic actor’s dream role - Joan of Arc, the incandescent young martyr everyone wants to embody at least once - then snaps the fantasy shut with the clock. The comedy is timing and escalation: mother, then grandmother, the parts sliding down the family tree as the industry nudges older women away from the center of the story.

The intent isn’t just self-deprecation. It’s a compact indictment of how prestige and agency are rationed by age and gender. Burstyn isn’t saying she lacks the talent or fire for Joan; she’s saying the marketplace increasingly refuses to imagine her there. That “If I don’t hurry up” lands like a wink, but it also carries a threat: delay doesn’t just cost you opportunities, it changes what you’re allowed to want.

The subtext is sharper because Joan of Arc is a symbol of moral authority and public urgency - a young woman taken seriously, briefly, then destroyed. Burstyn’s joke points to a different kind of martyrdom: the cultural habit of treating older actresses as supporting infrastructure (the mother, the wise elder, the background) rather than protagonists with desire, contradiction, and narrative momentum.

Context matters: Burstyn’s career spans New Hollywood to now, a living ledger of roles offered and withheld. Her line is funny because it’s true - and because she refuses to let that truth pass without a laugh that doubles as a protest.