Thank you that I'm alive. Thank you that I'm still here.
At 93, Ellen Burstyn offers something rarer than celebrity longevity advice — she offers a reckoning. Having spent decades in habits that diminished her, she reversed course, and the reversal became a life: plant-based, physically active, mentally alive, and rooted each morning in gratitude. Her continued presence in Hollywood is less a triumph over age than a testament to the quiet power of accumulated small choices made in the right direction.
- At an age when most careers have long concluded, Burstyn is fielding more work than ever — a fact that quietly dismantles Hollywood's assumptions about who gets to keep creating.
- The tension in her story is not dramatic but deeply human: decades of self-damage followed by decades of deliberate repair, with no guarantee the repair would hold.
- She walks, trains, eats plants, reads, maintains friendships, and eliminates what once harmed her — not as a wellness regimen, but as the architecture of a life still in motion.
- Each morning she speaks gratitude aloud before anything else, treating thankfulness not as sentiment but as the first act of the day — a practice she credits as central to her vitality.
- With 'Law & Order: Organized Crime' canceled and a new film alongside Taika Waititi and Pamela Anderson ahead, her trajectory bends stubbornly forward rather than toward conclusion.
Ellen Burstyn is 93, still working, and recently explained why on Rob Lowe's podcast with characteristic directness: she stopped doing things that were harming her and replaced them with things that sustain her. Decades of drinking, smoking cigarettes, and smoking marijuana gave way to a plant-based diet, morning walks in Central Park, and regular gym sessions with a trainer. She does not frame this as vanity. She frames it as arithmetic.
The Oscar winner — known for 'The Exorcist,' 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,' and years playing a recurring role on 'Law & Order: Organized Crime' — told Kelly and Mark's audience simply: 'That's how you get to be 93 and still kicking.' The word kicking is doing real work there. She is not merely surviving her ninth decade. She is moving through it.
When Christopher Meloni asked her in 2023 what kept her going, she half-joked that she might be the last actress standing who can play a great-grandmother. But underneath the humor was a genuine puzzlement: she had become busier at 90 than at any prior point in her career, which made her question whether Hollywood ageism was even real, at least in her own experience. A new film, 'Place To Be,' with Taika Waititi and Pamela Anderson, is ahead.
The deeper secret was never only the diet or the exercise. It was the mind — kept alive through reading, creative work, and friendship — and the mornings, which she begins by speaking gratitude aloud. Thank you for being alive. Thank you for being safe. Thank you for the dogs. She spent decades doing damage, then decades in repair. The repair was unglamorous: a walk, a meal, a book, a quiet word of thanks. Chosen again and again until they became the shape of a life that still had somewhere to go.
Ellen Burstyn is 93 years old and still working. She appeared recently on Rob Lowe's podcast to talk about why. The answer, she said, is straightforward: she stopped doing things that were killing her, and started doing things that keep her alive.
Decades ago, Burstyn spent years drinking, smoking cigarettes, smoking marijuana. Then she stopped. She became vegetarian, then moved to a fully plant-based diet. She walks most mornings—sometimes with her dog, sometimes in Central Park near her home in New York. She has a trainer. She goes to the gym. She does this not because she is trying to look young, but because the work itself has become part of how she lives. "So I live a healthy life and it pays off," she told Lowe's audience.
When she appeared on "Live With Kelly and Mark" last week, she was direct about the arithmetic: "That's how you get to be 93 and still kicking." The phrasing matters. She is not merely alive at 93. She is kicking. She is still in motion, still present, still working.
Burstyn won an Oscar. She was in "The Exorcist." She starred in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." For years she played Bernadette Stabler, the troubled mother of Christopher Meloni's character, on "Law & Order: Organized Crime"—a role that earned her a Primetime Emmy for a guest appearance on "Special Victims Unit" before she became a recurring presence on the spinoff. That show was canceled last month after five seasons. But Burstyn is not slowing down. She has a new film coming, "Place To Be," alongside Taika Waititi and Pamela Anderson.
When Meloni asked her in 2023 what kept her going, what made her want to keep working at 90, she gave him an answer that was part joke and part truth. "I don't know, except possibly that everybody else who could play those parts has already died, so I'm the only actress still standing who can play the great-grandmother or something." But there was something else underneath that. She had become busier at 90 than she had ever been in her career. She could not understand it. She questioned whether ageism in Hollywood was even real, at least in her experience.
The real secret, though, was not just the diet or the exercise. It was what she did with her mind. She read. She created. She maintained friendships. And every morning, before anything else, she spoke gratitude into the silence of her day. "I try to have the first words out of my mouth be, 'Thank you,'" she said. "Thank you that I'm alive. Thank you that I'm safe. Thank you that I'm healthy. Thank you that I'm 90 and still going. Thank you for my doggies." She had a lot to be grateful for, she said. And she lived in that state.
She had spent decades doing damage to her body. Then she spent decades repairing it. The repair work was not glamorous. It was a walk in the park, a session with a trainer, a plant-based meal, a book, a conversation, a moment of thanks. It was the accumulation of small choices, made again and again, until they became the shape of a life that could still move, still create, still surprise itself with how much it had left to give.
Citações Notáveis
So I live a healthy life and it pays off.— Ellen Burstyn, on the 'Literally! With Rob Lowe' podcast
I try to have the first words out of my mouth be, 'Thank you'—thank you that I'm alive, that I'm safe, that I'm healthy, that I'm 90 and still going.— Ellen Burstyn, in an interview with Christopher Meloni
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
When you look at her list—no alcohol, no smoking, plant-based diet, exercise—it sounds almost austere. Is that how she experiences it, or has it become something else?
I think it's become something else entirely. She's not white-knuckling through deprivation. She's describing a life that works. The exercise isn't punishment; it's a walk in Central Park with her dog. The diet isn't a restriction; it's what she eats now. The gratitude practice isn't a chore—it's the first thing she says when she wakes up.
But she spent decades doing the opposite. Drinking, smoking, using marijuana. That's a long time to undo.
Yes. And she's honest about that. She calls those years "bad things." But she doesn't dwell in shame about them. She made a choice to change, and then she lived with that choice long enough that it became who she is. That's the real story—not the willpower, but the time.
There's something interesting about her comment on ageism in Hollywood. She seems almost bemused that she's busier than ever.
She is. And her explanation—that everyone else has died—is funny, but it's also a kind of honesty. She's not claiming some special wisdom or beauty secret. She's saying: I'm still here, I'm still capable, and apparently that's rarer than it should be.
Does the gratitude practice feel connected to the physical health, or are they separate things?
They're the same thing. She's describing a whole life, not a collection of habits. The gratitude is how she orients herself each morning. The exercise is how she moves through the day. The plant-based diet is what she puts in her body. They're all expressions of the same decision: to live in a way that honors being alive.