TLDR
At 93, Ellen Burstyn says she is thriving because she walked away from alcohol, smoking, drugs, and meat, and leaned fully into movement, work, and gratitude.
The image is hard to shake. A cane in one hand, a bright orange top catching the New York light, Ellen Burstyn waves to onlookers outside a TV studio. She is 93, still working, still promoting a new book, and very comfortable explaining why her ninth decade looks this strong.
On a recent episode of the podcast “Literally! With Rob Lowe,” the Oscar winner laid out, in simple terms, what she cut from her life to stay healthy this long. “I do not drink alcohol. I do not smoke cigarettes anymore. I do not smoke marijuana anymore,” she said, listing decades-old habits that are now firmly in her past.
She described a routine built on intention instead. “I do not eat meat. I have a plant-based diet. I exercise, walk my dog several mornings a week or almost every morning a week, and have a trainer, workout in the gym,” Burstyn explained, before adding the quiet thesis of her late-life reinvention: “So I live a healthy life, and it pays off.”
During an appearance on “Live with Kelly and Mark,” Burstyn said she still moves her body every day and lights up when she talks about walking through Central Park. “That is how you get to be 93 and still kicking,” she told Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, turning a casual morning chat into a kind of living proof.
Her lifestyle shift is not new. In a 2023 conversation with her “Law & Order: Organized Crime” co-star Christopher Meloni for Interview magazine, Burstyn traced it back to a decision to become a vegetarian and avoid alcohol, smoking, and drugs altogether. “That is what I decided after doing all those bad things for a couple of decades,” she said. The reset was physical, but it was also mental. She keeps her mind busy with reading, creative work, and an active social life.
What caught even Burstyn off guard was what happened to her career. She told Meloni that at 90, her schedule was fuller than it had been at any other point. “This is so bizarre. I turn 91 in December, and I am busier than I can ever remember being at any point in my career,” she said, before wondering aloud, “I mean, what is all this stuff about ageism in Hollywood? How did I get left out of it?”
There is another ritual woven through all of it. Burstyn said she tries to begin each day with the same words. “I try to have the first words out of my mouth be, ‘Thank you,'” she explained. “Thank you that I am alive. Thank you for being safe. Thank you for being healthy. Thank you for being 90 and still going. Thank you for my doggies.” Gratitude, for her, is not a slogan. It is part of the regimen.
That mindset has carried straight onto the set. Burstyn earned a Primetime Emmy Award for playing Bernadette “Bernie” Stabler, the troubled, bipolar mother of Meloni’s Detective Elliot Stabler, first on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and later on “Law & Order: Organized Crime.” NBC has now canceled “Organized Crime” after five seasons, but Burstyn is already moving to the next chapter.
She will appear next in the ensemble drama “Place To Be,” alongside Taika Waititi, Pamela Anderson, Edgar Ramirez, Lena Waithe, Murray Bartlett, and Maika Monroe. At an age when most stars are asked about legacy, Ellen Burstyn is still talking about call sheets, dog walks, and the quiet discipline of staying ready.
Which of Ellen Burstyn’s late-in-life changes resonate with you most, and do they shift how you think about age, work, and what thriving can look like in your 70s, 80s, or 90s?
