Amanda Peet, 51, and David Benioff, 52, have been married since 2006 and have three children together, Frances, 16, Molly, 12, and Henry, 8. Amanda is an actress and David is a successful, albeit controversial, writer and producer. Amanda is promoting her role on the Fatal Attraction series on Paramount +, where she plays the wife who gets cheated on by Joshua Jackson’s character. Lizzy Caplan is the bunny boiler! Just the casting makes me want to see it, Caplan won me over on the underrated Castle Rock on Hulu.
Amanda was on Kimmel when she told a story about how she makes her husband work out of her closet. He has a big ergonomic chair and she banished him to the closet so she wouldn’t have to deal with that ugly chair in her living space. I don’t understand why the guy doesn’t have his own office, but they have three kids so space must be at a premium in their house. Anyway the set up to this story is she was just out of the shower and getting dressed, her husband was working there in her closet/his office and her daughter came in to borrow something to wear. That’s when her daughter delivered the cutting line in the title. Here’s what Amanda said about that to Kimmel.
I was a little bit excited because when she comes in my closet usually means she’s borrowing my clothes which is like a real ego boost for me. I was… completely naked and she just looked to David, back to me [and said] ‘do you guys ever miss being young and attractive?’ The most most painful part of it was it was a real existential question like she really was like ‘is it hard that you are so saggy?’ David and I laughed and we were like ‘yeah we really do.’
That’s such a teenager move! How are they so damn mean at that age? The self centeredness really comes through when they’re teens and they often don’t realize you don’t have to say everything you think. I like how Amanda reasoned that her daughter didn’t mean it the way it came across, like Frances was genuinely wondering how it felt to no longer be young and hot. There’s a learning curve, but once you know what teenagers are like you are emotionally equipped to deal with how rude they can be. They can be gently corrected and that’s all I’ll say about that. It’s more interesting to me that David Benioff works in a closet because his wife thinks his chair is ugly. Maybe he’ll get an office once Frances is out of the house.
photos credit: Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon, Getty and screenshot from YouTube
To add insult to injury, Amanda looks like she’s in her mid 30s not 50s!! Wow!!
Wait till her daughter sees what an average poor 50-year-old looks like, lol
Absolutely. I especially noticed it in the picture above with Sarah Paulson. When will women realize less is more when it comes to makeup past,I don’t know, about 40-45? The heavy kardashian style makeup just is aging. Anyway good for her to have that role but I hope they don’t make it as thankless a role as Anne Archer had to deal with.
How a woman chooses to wear makeup has nothing to do with age. A woman can wear as little or as much makeup as she likes until the day she dies. When will women stop putting these kinds of arbitrary restrictions and rules on how other women choose to look past a certain age??
I didn’t say you couldn’t wear gobs makeup if you want just that it is aging. And that’s why in the picture shown above Amanda looks younger than Sarah Paulson even though I believe they are the same age.
It’s actually not aging. The only difference with the amount of makeup these two are wearing is the color. Literally, that’s it. They are wearing the same amount of makeup.
I think Lens just meant that styling in general makes a difference.
Paulson actually looks really young in real life (not that “looking young” is important, but anyway).
I see a lot of women in my age range (51) still holding it together pretty well. I am not rich, but I have been determined to do all I can to stay as healthy as I can. I think the confidence we have as we get older, make us all look pretty good.
LeeLee, I’m in my 50s and in better shape, physically and emotionally, than I was in my 30s. I have time to hit the gym and engage in self care, things I struggled to find time for with the craziness of work and raising children. I think that is true for a lot of women our age! We can finally prioritize ourselves.
This funny and familiar. On my birthday, about 25 years ago, my then teenage daughter asked me if I ever missed being 21. I laughed and told her “no, I never wanted to be that dumb again in life”.
Absolutely this!
Yes! I may miss being young and hot but lordy, I don’t miss being young and stupid.
I honestly think the cruelest thing to say to a young person is that these are “the best years of your life.” Such crap. Personally, I think the best I ever looked was mid-late 30s. That’s the me I’d want to look like again, but I’m a happier more confident person now in my late 40s than I was even then, and then I was a happier more confident person that I had been at any previous time.
I had my first kiddo at 30 and will never have the body of my 20’s again, but that’s okay. I’m happy with my appearance now, and it would look really crazy if I looked 26 while having a 15 year old, lol.
I would not trade the contentment and confidence that I have in my mid-40’s for the body of my 20’s for any amount of money. If I could keep my interior and trade for that exterior, well, tell me more, but I wouldn’t trade my life now for my life then, either.
And agree with the cruelty of “the best years of your life.” All of my years have had some redeeming value. I know who I am and what is important to me now, and that is worth more (to me) than a flat stomach and no gray hair.
IKR? It’s a shame our skinniest days are often our least confident, but confidence is worth so much more than a bikini. Encourage kids/teens to enjoy being young, but give them hope that so much more is yet to come. I can’t ever imagine saying I miss being young. If anything, I’d say that I wish I’d appreciated it more at the time.
If this is what a teenager says to an attractive, fit, and well groomed movie star, it’s not looking good for me in a couple years…
The woman is 52 with 3 kids and looks like THAT, what exactly does the kid think is “attractive”??? She looks amazing.
I have to say, sometimes this talk about “oh, teenagers” or “oh, kids” is getting on my nerves. This is not something I would have dreamed of saying to ANY adult when I was 16. It never even occurred to me. Yikes. But I guess growing up showbiz-adjacent is a different beast.
So as a teen you never said anything biting or insensitive to an adult? Ever?
I’m guessing that no matter what I say, you won’t believe me, judging by your response. So I’ll leave you with my original comment.
Geez Ameerah why so argumentative? Who pissed you off this morning? Smh
This is not the cute story Amanda thinks it is. As the mom of two daughters (18, 20), I would say that the comment is in line with her daughter’s personality. My grumpy, dramatic 20 year just the other day, asked me if I was sad because I was fat. Meanwhile, my sweet natured daughter complemented me on my new bathing suit (skirted bottom, bikini top) and said I looked amazing. Amanda’s daughter is old enough to know her comment was hurtful. It’s good that she and her husband could laugh about it.
Yeah, her daughter sounds awful. See, African-American kids could never get away saying mess like this to their parents. Only if you wanted to be grounded forever–or had a death wish…:)
I definitely think that the 16-year-old was old enough to know that her remark was inappropriate and could be hurtful. However, I also think that she may have said it out of embarrassment at finding her mother stark naked, with her father nearby, and she just uttered something cutting to cover up her own sense of embarrassment at the situation. It’s still inappropriate and thoughtless but it might explain it.
If I asked my mother was she happy being old and fat, I would have been slapped into next Tuesday my mom was white but she disciplined like a black mom.
Yes, same here. In my family (and culture) adults ruled. Not only would I never think to insult my parents (or any other adult), I would never enter their room without knocking first and getting permission. And because our family was not interested in celebrities and there was no social media, it never occurred to me that adults weren’t supposed to look older. People looked how they looked and got older as time passed. My parents thought about it, but it wasn’t something we discussed until much later in life.
I feel the same. I grew up with parents that would lash out at me if I spoke this way, so I often think that’s a reason I didn’t express myself as most “teenagers do” bc I know for a fact all hell would break loose if I ever commented something like this to my parents. I assume my case is not common though
This “closet” is large enough to hold a man, his big ergonomic chair and office, a woman, her clothes, and a teenager? This closet sounds bigger than my bedroom
Lol, I had a an image of that scene in Night at the Opera, with all those people crammed into the cruise ship cabin…only one of them is naked. Seriously, in NY real estate listings, a closet like that would be called a master bedroom.
I immediately thought of a cousin whose golf course side McMansion had a master suite with three enormous walk in closets. It’s crazy how some builders just put all the space into the primary bedroom, so there aren’t home office spaces and the kid’s bedrooms are all tiny.
I am so glad that I’m not the only one who needs to see a pic of this closet. We all know teenagers are assholes, I NEED to see the closet one of them gets to hide in, from the teenager.
LOL, kids in their 20s can be a handful too. Not in quite the same way, but they are still not fully out of adolescence at that point. I find my daughter to be a lot right now. She’s great, very impressive, but she’s also maddening. Now that she’s in grad school, she thinks she knows better than we do about everything. These kids all call anyone over 40 “Boomers” (I’m actually more Gen X) like kids in the 60s called their parents “Squares.”
Anyway, Amanda looks amazing. Her daughter will understand some day. As to her husband? GoT Season 8. That’s all I have to say about him.
+1 to kids in their 20’s!
My older son is 23 and almost a year away from graduating with Computer Science major, Japanese minor from a reputable state university. He is living with his dad and fiddling with his portfolio but he is not applying for jobs and not even exploring some of the useful job hunting resources that are readily available to him. Add to that the fact that his 85-year-old grandmother lives with his dad (until this summer) and he is often asked to care for her on short notice, something that I have reminded him to emphasize somewhere in his application material.
They’re adults at this point but not really and I just want him to be settled and happy.
I have talked to my therapist about my anxiety over all this, and she advised me to let go. So, I am just learning how to spend time with him and only give advice if he asks directly for it.
Mom of young adults here, and I concur. I look forward to not being worried about them 😉
I wouldn’t have thought that the woman in these pictures was fifty. Late 30’s maybe. But to a teenager, that’s practically ancient.
I think the story is cute. I’m 47. I think I look decent for 47, although periomenopause has definitely taken a toll. But do I miss my 32 year old body (probably my beauty prime)? Hell yes. It’s weird. but don’t lie to yourself or chase youth. that way lies madness and Madonna.
I really dislike my menopause face. I have no need to look young and I actually love older faces on other people, but I hate my own droopy menopause face. Feels like it happened in a day.
Mother of three daughters now in their 20s. Raising teens (esp girls) is the third circle of hell for parents. Glad Amanda still has a sense of humor lol.
Firstly, she’s beautiful. As a teen, I do remember asking Mamaw if she felt inside the same way she did when she was very young. Of course she said yes. My mother was vain, so I never asked her about her beauty. I was, in fact, jealous of her lol. She paid meticulous attention to herself, bought expensive clothes and makeup. Sometimes she’d let me borrow something, but mostly, I had to suppress my explorations, because they interfered. :-/
Secondly, I’m looking forward to watching this because yes Celebitchy, I fell in love with Caplan on Castle Rock. She was….exemplary. I can’t believe I haven’t ready anything about her performance.
My mom is 76 and still says she is surprised when she looks in the mirror at the “old lady” in there. I’ll be 50 in a few years and I have to say, I get it!
Ha! If she thinks Mom isn’t attractive at what? 51? She would consider me a walking corpse at 65 and I take really good care of myself
I agree with @Michelle. Our 3 girls in their teens were just this side of being pushed into a pit of cobras on the daily. The two oldest are in their 40’s and the youngest will be 40 next year. I am happy to report that THEIR daughters (21, 19 and 17 respectively) really put them through it. I get apologies at least once a day!
I feel Ms. Peet on all the levels
I hope Amanda’s daughter looks just like her … she’ll learn if she has a daughter of her own someday LOL.
When my daughter was a tween she stated “Mommy, when I grow up I want to be just like you, but stylish”. I was proud that she wanted to be like me on the important stuff and had to laugh because “stylish” would never be used to describe me. I’m all about comfort and convenience in my daily wardrobe (I have created a uniform for myself, 4 pocket linen guayabera shirts and Banana Republic khaki cargo pants). Simplicity and comfort rule for my few “special occasion” outfits.
The Guardian had a really good article about this series the other day, though a really negative one, unfortunately. Seems like they just went with the old “women are crazy” narrative like in the original movie. I don’t understand why.
Okay, but to be fair to the kid, she’s 16, anyone over 18 is ancient to her. Also this is her MUM, of course she’s gonna think her mum is OLD old. Growing up, everyone thought my mum was my older sister and instead of thinking, ‘Oh, wow, my mum really does look young for her age’, I thought ‘Wow, I must look old for my age’. I mean, still thought my mum was beautiful etc, but she felt OLD to me.
Amanda Peet is very beautiful and still looks very youthful to me, but I completely understand how she’s feeling .dang yes these older kid comments really sting
Your body permanently changes after a *certain* age and especially if you have children. It’s not like being under 25 ever again, that’s just a fact. It’s nature and I genuinely feel that every person has their own beauty regardless. But Amanda Peet is soooo gorgeous, this was a funny story.
I miss it. I would pay money to turn heads again. But you can’t hold on to it forever.
It is wonderful not having children. I look, feel much more young than my age, and no brat asking stupid question. Zero regret
Fishy story here, I think.
Not about the teenager thinking her folks are old.
The part about the Hubby works from his big chair in her closet.
He is a successful writer/producer.
She has a long successful record of profitable movies.
Her closet is likely a fancy 20×20′ room complete with chandeliers and floating Island in the middle. Like the one on Mom, that Jamie Prestley had.
He’s not sitting between bi-fold closet doors, using a folding card table as a desk.
A. Peet looks terrific. Loved her in Saving Silverman, I will watch that whenever it pops up.
I was a chubby teenager. In my late 20’s I joined a gym, lost almost 70lbs.
Went from a size 18 to a 7/8.
I never felt stronger in my life, I could move, I actually wanted to go for a walk, etc.
I often daydream about getting my good health and energy back. At 61, I’m working on keeping my mobility, those days of 124lbs., strong legs, taking the stairs 2 at a time without pain seem to be past now.
Teenagers, bless ya.
HeyKay, 61 is still young!