Amanda Redman has said there are plenty of roles around for older women – but only if they’re old enough.

The 58-year-old actress stars opposite Ray Winstone in new ITV drama The Trials Of Jimmy Rose, but has noticed that roles have dried up since she turned 50.

Amanda said: “If it was the same for male actors then you’d have to go, ‘Well that’s life’, but it isn’t, and therefore it’s insidious sexism and it makes my blood boil. It’s labelled as whinging, but why is it whinging when all you are doing is defending your right to work? Why is it wrong to say that needs to be addressed?

Amanda Redman
Amanda Redman (Ian West/PA)

“There are still plenty of roles for younger women and [for those in their] late 60s and upwards, but not the 50s, because they don’t know what to do with us. They don’t know what we are. We’re not old, we’re not young, so what are we?

“What they forget is that the demographic of people watching TV is women of our age, who would like to see themselves represented on screen.”

Ray Winstone and Amanda Redman in The Trials of Jimmy Rose
Ray Winstone and Amanda Redman in The Trials Of Jimmy Rose (ITV)

Amanda enjoyed working with Ray again on the drama, about a convicted bank robber trying to rebuild his relationship with his family after getting out of jail. The pair memorably played a married couple in 2000′s crime film Sexy Beast.

“We’ve got a shorthand,” Amanda said.

But she has “no idea what I’m doing next”.

“Nothing has been sent to me that I want to do. Not one thing. I don’t see why I should work just for the sake of it,” she said. “I never have done, so I’m not going to start now. Life’s way too short.”

The Trials Of Jimmy Rose is a three-part series beginning on ITV tonight (August 30).