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Classic English beauty Kristin Scott Thomas still lights up the screen at 53, but the actress admits that she often feels like "an old ragbag" next to younger actresses and fears becoming "invisible" off screen now that she has reached middle age.

Speaking candidly in a new interview in the latest issue of Stella, the Sunday magazine of British newspaper the Telegraph, Scott Thomas admits it's not easy getting old in an industry that prizes youth.

"When you're my age, you're invariably in a supporting role, so there's often a young woman in her twenties or early thirties who is the lead, and you're constantly put next to them," she told Stella.

"You're watching yourself get old, on a screen that hides nothing," said the Oscar-nominated star of such films as "The English Patient," "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Sarah's Key."

Meanwhile, off screen, Scott Thomas said she has started to feel "invisible" since becoming middle age.

"I'm not talking about in a private setting, at a dinner party or anything," she told Stella. "But when you're walking down the street, you get bumped into, people slam doors in your face - they just don't notice you. Somehow, you just vanish. It's a cliché, but men grow in gravitas as they get older, while women just disappear."

Scott Thomas acknowledges that thoughts of cosmetic surgery have crossed her mind, especially when standing next to some of her peers.

"At the Cannes Film Festival I got such a shock," she told Stella. "I saw lots of my contemporaries there this year, all looking so beautiful and gorgeous and healthy, and I just felt like an old ragbag next to them. I just thought, 'Maybe it's time to do something about it, like a facelift.'"

In her latest role opposite Ryan Gosling in "Only God Forgives," Scott Thomas buries her classic looks under heavy makeup, fake fingernails and a long bleached-blonde wig to play a vengeful "mother from hell."

The divorced mother of three joked that she will probably be single for life because "all the men will run for the hills" when they see her portrayal.

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