Carrie-Anne Moss suddenly given grandmother roles when she turned 40

Carrie-Anne Moss was suddenly given grandmother roles when she turned 40.

The Matrix star says her Hollywood career completely changed when she reached the milestone and rather than being offered roles as a mom, she was now auditioning for grandmas.

She said: "I had heard that at 40 everything changed. 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. You don't feel like you've aged much and suddenly you're seeing yourself onscreen. It was kind of brutal to see the transition to playing older characters on screen."

And Carrie-Anne admits there is a "lot of pressure" for women in the film industry.

Speaking in a series hosted by New York's 92nd Street, she added: "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 pressure."