Manville, a familiar face on TV, film and stage, said it was now OK to be 60 on screen.
The actor Lesley Manville has said she has seen a slow sea change in attitudes toward older women in film and television as the industry realises audiences do not want to feel alienated.
Strikingly, none of the women nominated in the category at the Oscars – Manville, Laurie Metcalf, Allison Janney, Octavia Spencer and Mary J Blige – are under the age of 40.
You don’t have to be shoved in a corner in a cardigan doing knitting,” she said in an interview with the Radio Times.