Elisa Donovan Highlights the ‘Brutal’ Conversation Around How Women Are Judged for Aging (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Elisa Donovan chimes in on the ever-changing conversation around how women age

• Donovan partnered with IT Cosmetics while encouraging women to embrace individuality over beauty standards

• She shares messages about effort and character with her 14-year-old daughter, Scarlett

Elisa Donovan is shutting out the noise.

The Clueless actress, 55, is well aware that being a woman in Hollywood is tough, especially when it comes to aging. But she’s letting the commentary around the topic roll off her back.

“I want to present myself in a way that represents who I am and that makes me feel good,” Donovan tells PEOPLE while discussing her recent partnership with IT Cosmetics. “But I don’t really subscribe to the whole Hollywood thing of ‘Fix your face to look like everyone else.’ Everyone should do what makes them feel good.”

The podcast host and mom admits that Hollywood is “complicated,” but she’s happy to call her “individuality” her “biggest asset” — both as an actress and a human.

“I don’t mean to say I feel immune to all of that because I’m certainly not, but I just don’t give it any more value than it should have,” she says.

Donovan believes that a lot of the conversation comes down to how you actually feel about yourself and understanding how to feel confident, no matter what commentary is happening around you. For women in Hollywood, she says that commentary can be especially loud, “brutal and judgmental” — and probably not changing any time soon.

Her confidence comes from “feeling good” in her skin and as the person she is.

“I’m not trying to look like I did when I was 20,” she says. “I’m trying to look like my best self today.”

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Donovan is working to pass this mentality on to her 14-year-old daughter, Scarlett, whom she shares with husband Charlie Bigelow. However, she jokes that because she’s a teen, she’s not exactly listening to all the wisdom she’s trying to pass along. Still, Donovan makes a point of sharing positive messages with her daughter about individuality.

“We do talk about these things, and I have always made a point of talking to her about the things I value in her as opposed to what she looks like,” she says. “So I always am championing her individuality, her efforts at things. And it’s not that I don’t say, “Oh, you look great,” but I don’t focus that much on those things.”

“I really feel passionately about this,” she adds. “I am a person who cares about what I look like. It’s not that I would ever venture to say, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’ No, it does matter. But it only matters as much as it should. And I am far more interested in feeling good about that as opposed to subscribing to some sort of signing up for something that is about changing how I look to fit some standard that I don’t even believe in.”

Read the original article on People