<\/p>\n
Kate Walsh isn\u2019t interested in talking about looking young. Ask her to define aging well, and she\u2019ll tell you it\u2019s \u201cone foot forward and partly surrendering\u201d\u2014not a fight to hold onto anything, but a shift toward joy, curiosity and letting go of the idea that getting older is something to dread. It\u2019s the same instinct that\u2019s shaped her career: She didn\u2019t break out until her mid-30s, when she landed Grey\u2019s Anatomy,<\/em> going on to spend more than a decade playing Dr. Addison Montgomery across that show and its spinoff, Private Practice<\/em>\u2014proof, in her words, that there\u2019s no expiration date on doing your best work.<\/p>\n Now, Walsh is bringing that philosophy to a new partnership with Centrum, fronting the launch of Centrum Age Defy ($20), a multivitamin line for adults 35+ built around proactive, not reactive, health. She\u2019s also headlining the brand\u2019s Inside Out Makeover, an event that trades facials and blowouts for a look at how nutrition and self-care actually shape how we age, with a public companion event\u2014the Inside Out Scavenger Hunt, hosted by Hannah Bronfman\u2014hitting New York City on August 21.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ahead of the launch, Walsh sat down with us to talk about ditching an outward-only definition of confidence, why she thinks beauty is \u201can inside job\u201d and what aging well actually looks like once you stop measuring it against being young.<\/p>\n \u201cTaking care of myself in my 20s looked like just working, then studying to be an actor, then working and acting\u2014there was no real consciousness around self-care. I think I maybe started thinking about going to the gym, or the idea of it: What\u2019s a weight? But there was also that fear of not wanting to get bulky, and there wasn\u2019t a huge exercise culture, so if it didn\u2019t happen organically\u2014like riding my bike somewhere or walking\u2014it wasn\u2019t really there.<\/p>\n Then, in my business, there was this need to keep in shape, but it was more about looking good because I\u2019m an actor and I\u2019ve got to take care of myself. Probably in my 30s was really when it became, oh, vitamins beyond taking vitamin C if I feel a cold coming on. At some point, I became more health-conscious\u2026I think, as a culture, we got more educated about exercise and diet, and the more I got educated, the more I took care of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAging well for me is a balance. It\u2019s partly one foot forward and partly surrendering. It\u2019s making sure I exercise and am proactive in that sense, and making sure I eat well, but also keeping a balance because I enjoy my life. I love eating, so I\u2019m not going to diet\u2014I just want to make sure I\u2019m getting the nutrients I need, which probably aren\u2019t going to come from dark chocolate or a bag of potato chips. It\u2019s making sure I\u2019m getting enough protein, getting my supplements and enjoying life. <\/p>\n That\u2019s what aging well is for me: Being proactive in self-care, but also practicing radical acceptance, joy and curiosity about, \u2018Oh, look, it\u2019s changing,\u2019 as opposed to horror and shock. I think there is sometimes this story in the culture of horror and shock, like we must stop it and prevent it from happening. But it\u2019s like, no, this is what we do. It\u2019s what\u2019s supposed to happen. So I think anytime we can tell more holistic, positive, healthy stories about aging as women, and how we embrace it and work with it, and work to take care of ourselves from the inside out, that\u2019s a great thing\u2014which is also why I was excited to partner with Centrum.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was first starting out, it was so outward-focused, because it was really about work and getting work. Now, it\u2019s much more of an inward journey. That\u2019s sometimes a difficult transition, especially because I am a communal person, and a lot of what I enjoy about work is that community\u2014when you go on set and have all that support, all that connection, and you\u2019re in a flow. <\/p>\n So as I\u2019ve aged, and life changes, and particularly as the world is changing so quickly and massively, it\u2019s important that we\u2019re able to ground ourselves and find some calm and serenity in ourselves, as opposed to looking out there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s just that the version of beauty we saw, or at least that I saw, was really youth-oriented\u2014your 20s and 30s. But I also feel really grateful, because part of why I wanted to become an actress in the first place was that I loved old movies. I would watch these fabulous stars from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. I grew up in the 70s, which I think is arguably one of the most powerful times of filmmaking and cinema, so I got to see women in their 40s and 50s acting and still going\u2014there was this other story, as opposed to, \u2018Oh, you can\u2019t, you\u2019re done after a certain age.\u2019<\/p>\n My experience, personally, was that I was a quietly working actor, but I didn\u2019t really become known until I was in my mid-30s, when I got on Grey\u2019s.<\/em> So you could say I was a late bloomer, but I didn\u2019t have that experience of ageism, or feeling like I\u2019d aged out, or that I was supposed to look a certain way. <\/p>\n I think beauty, going back to it being an inside job, really is more about what you\u2019re doing inside. I\u2019ve noticed that people who are happier tend to look younger, or they\u2019re in a state of joy. I\u2019m Italian, Sicilian, Irish\u2014I could wear a mask of tragedy pretty easily. So I think joy goes a long way toward beauty, feeling good on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cInternal health, as I said, is an inside job. Happiness, joy and beauty all come from that. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re getting all these facials, or makeup, or this hair product or that\u2014that\u2019s great, working out and all that\u2014but I think having a relationship with yourself, whether it\u2019s meditation, resting, getting enough sleep, definitely taking a supplement, eating right, all those things help. It has to work in concert with whatever your beauty routines are. It\u2019s just as critical as whatever you \u2019re using on your face at night.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how healthy it is to keep seeing ourselves, or to keep watching ourselves\u2014it\u2019s a little Greek mythology, you know. But I sort of detach or dissociate. I\u2019m like: \u2018Who\u2019s that?\u2019 Even when I was younger in movies, I was like, \u2018Who\u2019s she?\u2019 It doesn\u2019t really sync up with me, because I didn\u2019t grow up that way. We didn\u2019t grow up in camera culture. I didn\u2019t grow up doing selfies or being seen like that. And I was one of those actors who never really even liked watching my own work. So yeah, it\u2019s weird\u2014I don\u2019t think we\u2019re meant to watch ourselves too much.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kate Walsh isn\u2019t interested in talking about looking yo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How has your relationship with self-care evolved since your 20s?<\/h2>\n
If you had to describe what aging well means to you without using the word \u2018young,\u2019 how would you put it?<\/h2>\n
Where does confidence actually come from for you at this stage of life, versus where you thought it might come from when you were first starting out?<\/h2>\n
Is there a version of beauty you believed in earlier in your career that you\u2019ve since let go of?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Inside Out Makeover flips the traditional makeover concept by starting with internal health. What does that mean to you personally?<\/h2>\n
Your work on Grey\u2019s Anatomy<\/em> and Private Practice<\/em> spanned over a decade. Did anything about watching that character grow up on screen change how you thought about your own aging in real time?<\/h2>\n