Tea Leoni: 'Brett Ratner Made Me Want To Be A Sexy Thirtysomething'

Tea Leoni felt the pressure to be sexually alluring to younger men in her 30s thanks to an inappropriate remark made by moviemaker Brett Ratner.

The actress discovered 20-something Ratner was telling his friends and peers that his leading lady in 2000 movie The Family Man was "doable", despite her age - and the saucy comment made her fixate on staying sexy as she aged.

She tells More magazine, "Ratner, whom I really like, by the way, was going around telling people that despite my age, I was 'still doable'. I think I was 34 then. And he was something like 28.

"I asked myself, ‘Do I still care about that?' And at that time, I did. I felt that pressure to be 'doable'. It was the meanest thought I'd had for myself in a long time."

But Leoni eventually "moved past" that period in her life and insists she's now happy to grow old gracefully: "Chasing youth is a war I'm not going to win. It's not like I'm thrilled to turn around and catch my can (face) in the mirror, but I can see now how much of my happiness could be a victim of trying to stay young and desirable. And it feels like peace and victory to be relieved of that burden."