TORONTO - Hope Davis wants to act her age. She just wishes the movie industry would let her.

"I'm 34, but in Hollywood I'm 72," Davis said yesterday. "For women, it's the opposite of dog years."

She was at the Four Seasons Hotel promoting Lawrence Kasdan's comedy Mumford, a recent festival gala.

Davis' criticism wasn't directed at Mumford, but rather the '90s movie trend to have older men loving much younger women: Like Sean Connery opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment and Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow in A Perfect Murder.

And then there was Davis, who recently auditioned to play Ben Stiller's fiance in Meet The Parents, "but the studio wanted one of those girls from Dawson's Creek."

On the other hand, Mumford, opening theatrically Sept. 24, doesn't do the man-woman-age-gap thing.

The picture does recall Kasdan's ensemble strengths previously showcased in Grand Canyon and The Big Chill.

In Mumford, Loren Dean plays the title character, a sort-of-psychologist who exploits the neuroses of small-town residents. Davis portrays one of his patients, a depressed divorcee suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and hiding out with her parents.

Also in the cast are Ted Danson, Jason Lee, Mary McDonnell, David Paymer, Martin Short, Alfre Woodard and Martin Short.

It was a shoot with the sort of talent that made Davis forget about her negative feelings concerning the sometimes cruel, always youth-obsessed business.

"I felt guilty for having so much fun and getting paid," admitted Davis, who added that cast and crew enjoyed the surroundings of Kasdan's Napa Valley set a little too much.

"Wine country, y'know. And we went for dinner almost every night. And during the day, we really had a lot of fun, before and after takes. Sometimes even during.

"How could you help it?"

Davis pleaded her case: "There's Marty Short praying before a shot: "Oh please God, make me be the best one in the scene."

The one-for-all Mumford experience made her nostalgic.

Davis started out with Chicago-based David Mamet in the late '80s before moving to New York.

Soon after, it was off to L.A., where she had smaller parts in big movies like Flatliners and Kiss Of Death, then bigger parts in smaller pictures such as Next Stop Wonderland, The Daytrippers and The Myth Of Fingerprints.

She was recently featured in Arlington Road with Jeff Bridges, "but there are only 13 years difference between us."

Next up for Davis is Stanley Tucci's Joe Gould's Secret, a 1940s period piece that will be released early next year. She plays Tucci's wife, another age span apparently appropriate.

But don't get her going.

"It's bizarre and appalling," she said of the extreme older-man-younger-woman movie dynamic. "Sean Connery is an octogenarian and he was with a 30-year-old."

Making her old enough to be his Hollywood mistress, Davis was told.

Smirking, she shook her head yes, acknowledging yet another industry reality.


More Artists