Barbra Streisand on ‘Gypsy’: What’s age gotta do with it?

Barbra Streisand’s got one thing to say to anyone who thinks she might be too old to play Mamma Rose in the anticipated film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ legendary musical Gypsy: “What’s [age] got to with anything?”

Ever since Universal announced plans last March for a Gypsy update — written by Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes and co-produced and starring Streisand — some critics have drawn attention to the difference between Streisand’s age, 70, and that of the real-life woman portrayed in the musical. The Academy Award-winning actress would not only have to depict a woman who, in parts of the production, is between 30 and 40 years younger than she is, she’d have to play the mother of children who are as many as 60 years younger than she is.

But that’s not standing in Babs’ way. “Age is just a number,” she told EW, when promoting her upcoming film The Guilt Trip (co-starring Seth Rogen and out Dec. 19). “Some people look old at 45. Some people look younger at my age…. I saw CGI of an actor that made him go from 60 to 30, by the way. What they can do now, technically.” Streisand added that she was “still working out one rights issue” for the movie, and that “it should happen, but it just takes forever.”According to  Entertainment Weekly

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