FINDING A WAY

NOMINATED FOR AN OSCAR FOUR TIMES, COULD THE STAR'S LATEST ROLE BE THE WINNING ONE?

As a 65-year-old actress in Hollywood, Annette Bening knows how it feels to be discounted by an industry that doesn't always show it believes an older woman has anything left to offer.

It's one of the reasons why she responded so passionately to the real life story of long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, who at the age of 64, became the first person to swim unassisted from Cuba to Florida.

"What's so cool about Diana is that she decided to do this when she was 60 which is really weird and unusual," Bening tells WHO. "And she also says that she couldn't have done it in her twenties because she didn't have the mind that she has now!"

Nyad had been chasing the record for more than 30 years, finally accomplishing the 180-kilometre non-stop crossing in 2013 after four previous attempts.

Inspired by Nyad's 2015 book, Find a way, Bening says, "Its a metaphor that we all need, be it solving a particular problem or improving our relationships with our kids or parents or partners. You're always trying to find a way to get there. And many of us say, 'Oh, maybe I could?'

"And mostly we just don't do the thing that we're thinking about doing. We procrastinate and there's so many reasons not to do it, whatever it is. But, in this case, Diana told herself: 'No, I have to find a way,"" she says.