‘A facelift has become a status symbol’: Kristin Scott Thomas reveals inner ‘conflict’ about cosmetic surgery, sharing the treatments she’s had
She knows she has a 'good face,' offering insight into her feelings about preserving youth and what ageing means for her career
Kristin Scott Thomas is known for talking openly when it comes to topics such as grief and ageing.
The actress has been very candid about the "joy and acceptance" that comes with being in her 60s, and also the profound effect of losing her father at the age of five, and her step-father at the age of 11 on her life.
However, no matter how tolerant people are of their age, cosmetic surgery and tweakments are available and unescapable - and they're particularly prevalent in the industry Kristin works in.
Women in general are expected to preserve their youth, but those in the public eye are under constant scrutiny every time they leave the house with a wrinkle on show or dare to look their age in any way.
Although Kristin embraces getting older, when asked whether she thinks surgery is necessary to keep her career going, she feels "conflicted."
When asked that question by The Telegraph, the actress replies, "I don’t know. I mean, actresses such as Imelda Staunton keep on working, and I don’t think she’s ever gone down that road."
She adds, "I don’t think Maggie [Smith] ever did either. I suppose the question is to facelift or not to facelift."
She recalls having a poignant conversation with a young woman in New York about the prospect of a facelift, who warned her that if she had one, "I’d never look the same again."
Instead, the woman told her, "You just look expensive." Believing this to be a good point, Kristin now comes to think of cosmetic surgery as "a kind of status symbol," explaining, "It’s about displaying your wealth. And the rest of us either sink or swim."
Sharing how she feels inner turmoil over whether she'd ever go ahead and have one or not, she shares, "I’m quite conflicted about it, because it’s always slightly diminishing when someone says, 'That woman hasn’t taken care of herself.'"
She continues, "Deep down we do care about these things. Sometimes you see women who are 70 and they look fantastic. And it’s clear they’ve had a brow-lift perhaps."
However, she believes it to be "dangerous" when seemingly small surgeries mount up. Kristin shares, "I had a make-up artist who used to say of women like that: 'Oh, her face looks as if it’s been ploughed.'"
The actress also shares what she has had done to her face, but at the moment she keeps everything "always non-invasive" and has "lasers, that sort of thing. Nothing that requires any recovery time."
Kristin reveals, "I’ve this wonderful massage therapist in Paris who gets right in there with her hands inside your mouth. She just releases all these muscles, and it’s amazing. Oh, but it hurts."
Confident with how she looks, Kristin refers to her face as "a good face," understanding that the how it looks isn't the most important thing. "It can be used in all sorts of different ways," she says, her remarkable career being testament to that.
However, knowing it's a "good face" doesn't always align with her personal feelings towards it, as many women might identify with.
"Whether I like my face is another matter. I sometimes look in the mirror and think, God, who is that?," she says candidly.
Something else the star doesn't mind sharing insight into is her second marriage. Kristin split from her first husband, obstetrician François Olivennes, in 2005.
Kristin later married John Micklethwait, editor in chief of Bloomberg News, in 2024. "I don’t know how to describe it without going mushy," she told The Times at the time of her wedding.
She added, "But to have two hearts, two brains, two minds, two energies all striving for the same thing is fantastic."
Two years later, the actress shares, "I think I was perfectly happy before, but not this happy."
She continues to say that although her husband "is not the cure to anything," meaning he can't take away her ongoing challenges with grief for which she's had therapy, she says, "but he is a man with whom I can talk about anything."
Kristin concludes, "He is inspiring and clever. My partner in crime."
