--- title: Watch: Justine Bateman on Reactions to Her New Book on Aging description: Justine Bateman on the reaction to FACE: One Square Foot of Skin, on anti-aging products, why fear of ageism is worse than looking older canonical: https://time.com/5958215/justine-bateman-maybe-its-not-your-face-its-fear/ author: Susanna Schrobsdorff article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-04-25T09:41:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:11:30.982Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Watch: Justine Bateman on Reactions to Her New Book on Aging og:description: Justine Bateman on the reaction to FACE: One Square Foot of Skin, on anti-aging products, why fear of ageism is worse than looking older og:url: https://time.com/5958215/justine-bateman-maybe-its-not-your-face-its-fear/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt179b5475bea38ddf/698a190497cdffc4606bbe0a/INJY-TWO-Bateman-video-screenshotsmiling-1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1648 og:image:height: 927 og:image:alt: INJY-TWO-Bateman-video screenshotsmiling og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch: Justine Bateman on Reactions to Her New Book on Aging twitter:description: Justine Bateman on the reaction to FACE: One Square Foot of Skin, on anti-aging products, why fear of ageism is worse than looking older twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt179b5475bea38ddf/698a190497cdffc4606bbe0a/INJY-TWO-Bateman-video-screenshotsmiling-1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch: Justine Bateman on the Reaction to Her Book and Why Fear of Aging Is Worse Than Looking Older > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=3b9ec3f6-96f3-4c10-8e12-5158a7c689ae&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: TIME Interviews: Justine Bateman, Author of FACE: One Square Foot of Skin [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Interviews: Justine Bateman, Author of FACE: One Square Foot of Skin](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/2BY6eTtn.m3u8) (8:50)  _Published 2021-04-25. Interviewed by Susanna Schrobsdorff, TIME Editor at Large_  by [Susanna Schrobsdorff](https://time.com/author/susanna-schrobsdorff/)  ## Susanna Schrobsdorff Apr 25, 2021 9:41 AM UTC Interviewed by Susanna Schrobsdorff, TIME Editor at Large  by [Susanna Schrobsdorff](https://time.com/author/susanna-schrobsdorff/)  ## Susanna Schrobsdorff Apr 25, 2021 9:41 AM UTC _Well hello! A version of this article also appeared in the_ [_It’s Not Just You_](https://time.com/tag/its-not-just-you/) _newsletter._ [_Sign up_](https://ti.me/2TwyJHH) _here to receive a new edition every Sunday for free._ _Check out my video interview with Justine Bateman above, or read excerpts below._ **Two weeks ago,**[ I wrote about actor and director Justine Bateman’s new book,](https://time.com/5953951/justine-batemans-aging-face-and-why-she-doesnt-think-it-needs-fixing/) [FACE: ](http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/face-one-square-foot-of-skin/)One Square Foot of Skin, in which she challenges women to stop trying to fix their faces in response to a culture steeped in anti-aging messaging. The response was overwhelming. More than a million of you read the piece on TIME.com, and many commented on Twitter, wrote to me, or messaged Justine on social media. Most praised Bateman for dragging these secret fears into the sunlight, writing: “It’s so great to see Justine advocate for women to be themselves.” And: “The system needs fixing, not women.” **Others asked**: “How in the hell do we get men to stop caring?” Some feared losing their livelihoods if they didn’t try and look younger. Many men wrote to say they thought Bateman’s unaltered face was beautiful as is; others were less than supportive. Ahem. The book provoked discussions across the internet, so I thought it’d be great to talk to Justine about the reaction and her battle cry of #TheresNothingWrongWithYourFace. **Excerpts of our conversation are below.**  **On the reaction to** [**FACE: One Square Foot of Skin**](http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/face-one-square-foot-of-skin/) “I was not prepared at all for the magnitude of the response. I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of DMs on Instagram, saying, ‘I’m so glad someone’s talking about this.’ One woman said, ‘I work as a hospice nurse, helping people to die. And yet I’ve got my co-workers telling me I should do something about my face.’… and ‘it’s made me realize that I need to not be as critical about my face because I have two teenage daughters, and I don’t want them to be sort of tainted with that, that those kinds of thoughts for their own face.’” **On anti-aging products** “One very easy way to generate a need for a product is to find what fears already exist and then zero in on those fears. I’m interested in eliminating the buttons that have existed in me or may still exist in me that react to those \[fears\]. ‘If people think my face is old, then, therefore…’ I think for every woman, there’s a fill in the blank for that. For some, it might be they’re afraid they won’t find a mate for someone else; it might be they’re afraid they won’t, their new business won’t succeed. What I’m proposing is to forget the face. It’s got nothing to do with your face. If you fear you’re never gonna find a mate. That’s a fear that’s going to stay with you for the rest of your life, regardless of what you do to your face. So why not address that fear to get rid of it. So that then you can be free of that.”  [_Sign up here to receive an essay from @susannaschrobs every Sunday (for free)_](https://ti.me/2TwyJHH) **On letting go of her younger face** “I always wanted to look eventually, like Georgia O’Keefe. So, all these things that start happening, you know, like, with the loose neck and the hooded eyes and stuff, and I’m like, I’m on my way! I’m gonna make it! … Now you look at my face, and you know what you’re getting… I didn’t dislike my face, but I don’t feel like it represented me the way this face represents me, you know what I mean?” **On people saying she looks ‘old’** “When people say something like that, they’re telling me about themselves. They’re not telling me about me. They’re telling me about how they look at life, and they’re telling me how they look at themselves.” > [](https://twitter.com/BiatchPack/status/1381995863875088387) **On ageism** “If somebody is running a firm, and the woman looks older, and they don’t like that, it’s an interesting thing to dig into. What do we think is going on in that man, or that woman’s head, that they don’t like that they have an employee that looks older? I mean, we can guess. It might be the rule thing, like, well, she’s not doing anything about her face. And that’s the rule you should, and she’s breaking it. It could be: ‘Oh, I’m afraid that \[an older face\] indicates that we’re not innovative anymore. And I don’t want other companies to imagine we’re not innovative. And so I’ve got to get rid of that evidence,’ which is their fear. I believe then that individual has a fear that their company is not innovative. He imagines, ‘Oh, I can do this easy fix where I get rid of an older person.’ And then, ‘Okay, I’ve solved that problem.’ But he can have everybody at the company be 22, and he will still have a fear that his company’s not innovative.” **On feeling that we can’t be relevant if we look older** “I’m just saying, maybe it’s not your face. Maybe it’s the direction you’re looking. Maybe there’s a new direction open for you, and you’re not paying as much attention to it. And the timing’s right for you to go in that direction. Because I feel like everyone’s got a basket of opportunities, and skills and talents that come with you, when you’re born. And I feel like that basket does not care what gender I am, what, what the state of my face, my age, it doesn’t care. To me, I think life is fun. You have uncomfortable things and comfortable things, but they’re all conspiring to make you more and more yourself, more who you are.”  --- Did someone forward you this newsletter? [SUBSCRIBE to _It’s Not Just You_ here.](https://ti.me/3jD4Hwo) ## Transcript [00:00] I just thought, like round this face. [00:03] Fully functional, fix the smell might for my whole life from [00:09] you. In the womb to now has smelt everything I've smelt, [00:16] has said everything. [00:18] I said, cried every moment I've cried has laughed, [00:21] everything. I every time I've laughed and tell him, [00:24] I'm now going to go do that. [00:27] Thanks for everything you ever did. [00:30] For me, whatever. [00:31] Now I'm going to cut you up cuz I don't like you. [00:39] Welcome Justine. I'm so happy to have you here as you know, [00:42] I read your books which is all about this compulsion that women [00:46] feel to fix their faces when they age. [00:48] I wrote a column about it and I devoted most of my newsletter [00:51] to it and we got a flood of emails and comments that you write [00:57] about all the experiences that your face reflects that all this [01:00] life is written on on that face. [01:03] That's the very thing. [01:03] People get criticized for like, boys, she shows her age, [01:07] that's a thing. [01:16] They're telling me about how they look at life and they're [01:19] telling me how they look at themselves. [01:21] And the other thing I want to say about that is so I my [01:25] professional position now is as good as a writer director [01:29] producer, I have to commend the set, [01:32] I have to be a leader. [01:34] I have to be an encourager of the other people, [01:38] they're working on the set all of that, [01:39] right? Me if I have a face like this, [01:42] I am. It's a shortcut to oshie's an authority. [01:48] She's in a, in a position of story of authority, [01:52] if I have a face like this, [01:55] The maybe it's going to take them a few minutes to go help others [02:00] look. 23 it take a few minutes to go she's in charge. [02:06] You know, does she know what she's doing and then as they get [02:09] to know me that she that I know what I'm doing? [02:12] Buttons. This is super duper shortcut to that. [02:16] I think I'm going to revise my thinking about all of myself [02:20] that I think about. [02:21] You want to get it. [02:25] You said something about men or people being aggression [02:28] against faces that are wrinkly because if we don't see them, [02:31] I saw some of that. [02:33] And I, and I wonder what you thought. [02:34] Cuz you use the word aggressive or aggression against aging [02:38] face is, what is that mean to hear? [02:39] Well, I found it when I found all those comments about my face [02:46] online, I was really taking a bath with the vociferous [02:51] mess with which they posted these. [02:54] I mean, they were [02:56] it's like sometimes when you see bad reviews on on Amazon [02:59] for different products, you know, but some of these bad reviews [03:03] are [03:04] So passionate like really did that inflatable raft. [03:09] Really annoy you that much. [03:10] You know, you were in an essay or pretty remarkable, [03:14] right? It pushed your button. [03:16] So yeah, I do find that really interesting that my face or some [03:21] of the older face would push other people's buttons so much, [03:25] you know, maybe because they themselves are very critical [03:28] of the round faces, or they had a mother that was very critical [03:35] of her own face. [03:36] And so they got it in their heads. [03:37] That one must be critical of of women's faces. [03:40] So for a lot of people, it's it's a rule that they have in [03:43] their head about older faces, that must be fixed, [03:46] and if someone is not doing it, [03:47] then I think they count themselves as a as a Defender. [03:53] Of that rule. [03:55] And you can't break that rule and Amaya and it's like I can break [04:01] you or who [04:03] I don't really care about you or what? [04:06] 2 things, I'd love for you to go back to that cuz I think [04:09] that not everybody knows that story about how one you wrote [04:12] your first book. [04:13] Same [04:15] Having grown up on TV, being an adolescent on Family Ties, [04:18] what the reaction was to you in the world. [04:21] So when I was writing my first book, [04:24] same, I I made the mistake of Googling myself, [04:29] which I don't suggest for anybody, but it brought me to where [04:34] I am today, so maybe we should, [04:35] but the autocomplete was looks old. [04:38] So Justine Bateman looks old, and the time I was 41 or 42, [04:41] and I was really, cuz I didn't think I looked a little anyway, [04:49] I then made it through the mistake of deciding they were right. [04:53] And I was wrong, there were so many of them. [04:55] And so few of me, they must be, [04:56] right? And I, and I think that's something that happens to a lot [04:58] of women. If so many people around them are staying one particular thing. [05:02] It's the Conformity principal, right? [05:05] You got to want to go along with it because you're concerned [05:08] that you're going to look dumb that you don't really know what's [05:11] going on and also that you'll be left out. [05:14] So for reasons that had nothing to do with my face, [05:17] that, you know, there were more specific more specifically [05:20] had to do with, how thing was changing in my life and people [05:23] can read it more detail in the book. [05:25] Because of that, I took it in like I said I made them right? [05:29] And me wrong. [05:29] And it really messed with my head for much longer than than [05:35] I expected it to. [05:36] So, I had to unwind not in me. [05:39] I had to get to my roots. [05:40] Here's one way, when very easy way to generate a need for product [05:45] is to find with the what fears already exists and then zero [05:51] in on us for me. [05:53] I don't want to change the Beauty World, [05:56] I want to change advertising, I don't want to change people [06:00] who are critical of people's faces. [06:02] I'm interested in eliminating the buttons that have existed [06:07] in me or may still exist in me that react to those things. [06:10] So that that's my help with the book that, [06:12] you know, there's there's Everywhere. [06:15] I go into that kind of thing. [06:17] To help people to maybe find what their irrational fears are. [06:22] It's making them turn on the face cuz the problems not the fix. [06:26] The problem are these fears. [06:29] If you change your face, [06:32] you're still going to have these fears. [06:34] So why not? [06:35] Just take care of the fears and then yeah you can do whatever [06:38] you want with your body or are whatever. [06:39] It's yours. Look, I'm a hustler. [06:43] I don't care what my age is. [06:45] I don't even want to know when my edges are. [06:48] Like, I don't really care to meters to age is alive or dead, [06:52] see if it can help anyone. [06:53] What I do if I feel like I've always got in this direction [06:56] every and all the doors have been opened and now that's not happening [06:59] anymore. I just got to step back a minute and look at like, [07:02] there's no way that would be happening unless I need in my head, [07:08] turn in a different direction. [07:09] Because in truth, if I, if I had kept getting acting jobs, [07:13] I would not have gone to UCLA. [07:17] I wouldn't have a computer science degree. [07:18] I would not have written two books, [07:21] I would not have just directed the film. [07:23] That was my path. [07:25] I didn't understand it. [07:27] It took that door shutting so hard to turn my head. [07:33] That's that's how life is works for me. [07:36] And I don't think I am an outlier. [07:38] I love that cuz it also gives me back to another thing you said [07:41] earlier, which was about, [07:43] How when you get to a certain age, [07:46] you've had this life of experience cuz a lot of people wrote [07:49] into and said that they've gotten cancer or they'd had a scare [07:52] or they'd come back from something, and they realize that they [07:55] wasted a lot of time. [07:56] Just like you said about their faces when actually they were [08:01] more important things. [08:01] I always wanted to look eventually like your joke. [08:06] You so, all these things that start happening, [08:09] you know, like what's a loose neck and this around here and like [08:12] the hooded eyes and stuff. [08:13] I'm like, I'm on my way like I'm going to get there, [08:17] you know, I'm going to make it as my space. [08:20] More interesting to me. [08:21] I was like it's happening. [08:23] Now, you look at my face and you know what you're getting [08:26] versus. I'm this type of person but you're just seeing this [08:31] really pretty. I didn't feel like a space I had before I hadn't [08:35] just like my face. [08:36] I was like, whatever. [08:37] I don't feel like it. 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