How Netflix's 'The Boroughs' is transforming 'invisible' aging journey

Erin Jensen, USA TODAY Wed, May 20, 2026 at 9:36 PM UTC

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Netflix’s “The Boroughs” provides another reason to respect your elders: They just might save your life.

In the 8-episode sci-fi adventure series premiering May 21, residents of a retirement community in New Mexico join forces after its newest occupant, widow Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina), spies a monstrous creature. Sam, a former engineer, quickly befriends charismatic neighbor Jack Willard (Bill Pullman); inquisitive retired journalist Judy Daniels (Alfre Woodard); her husband, the spiritually curious Art Daniels (Clarke Peters); the audacious Renee Joyce (Geena Davis) and her bestie, the gifted Dr. Wally Baker (Denis O'Hare). Matt and Ross Duffer, brothers and creators of “Stranger Things,” are executive producers on “The Boroughs.”

“If you look at something like ‘Stranger Things,’” Jeffrey Addiss tells USA TODAY beside his “Boroughs” co-creator Will Matthews, “when kids turn to somebody and say, ‘I saw a monster,’ nobody believes them. When an older person turns to somebody and says, ‘I saw a monster,’ nobody believes them. This is a coming-of-age story, just of a different age."

“As Will and I get older, and our parents get older, and our grandparents get older,” Addiss continued, “what you wish for the people you love is adventure. And, also, the way that we've been showing aging characters on screen felt a little old to us.”

Stars of Netflix's "The Boroughs" premiering on May 21. From left: Alfred Molina, Denis O’Hare, Clarke Peters, Bill Pullman, Alfre Woodard and Geena Davis.Geena Davis, Denis O'Hare, Clarke Peters and Alfre Woodard embrace journey of aging

At 64, O'Hare is the youngest of the principal cast, and Peters, 74, is the eldest.

“It's fantastic that all of us get to be heroic,” says Davis, 70. “That's really unusual and great.”

Davis also relishes her character’s boldness. “She's a badass,” she says. “I would like to be like that in real life.”

The Academy Award-winner has been a proponent of fair representation on screen and founded the Geena Davis Institute in 2004. A recent report from the nonprofit found that 83% of the men and women surveyed, ages 50 and older, felt on occasion that “the media/culture doesn’t realize how much they stereotype older people.”

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A mysterious creature stalks a retirement community on Netflix's new series "The Boroughs."

“The biggest thing for me is you become invisible,” O'Hare says. “I was never a sexual object, so I didn't lose that. But there is a sense of you're not… a viable candidate for anything, literally being walked in front of or walked over. It can be challenging.”

Peters believes older performers “become commodities. We no longer become actors. You fit the role because you're a certain age and you look a certain way, so there you are, you're Granddad. You're somebody's father, rather than the superheroes that we really are.”

And Oscar-nominated Woodard, 73, agrees, noting that people "see you walking around and I guess they think you're supposed to be older. People always say to me, ‘God, you don't look your age.’ It's like, what does that mean anyway?"

In “The Boroughs,” Woodard adds, "we get to be the way mature people are in life. They're not lying around. They're active.”

Wally (Denis O'Hare) is terrified in a close encounter with a creature on "The Boroughs."Forging an unbreakable cast bond

The cast's decades of industry experience helped forge a bond unlike anything Molina, 72, has experienced before.

“I've never known this kind of closeness amongst all of us before,” he says. “We're all part of a generation that we've done some work, we've been around the block a few times. We've all enjoyed success. We've endured failures. We've endured all kinds of ups and downs in the business, and I think we've learned, over the years, not to sweat the small stuff."

“And the fact that we can take comfort and strength and support from each other without feeling that we're giving anything away or losing anything. Just the very fact of sitting together in between shots and just talking and chatting and sharing stories," Molina adds. "That's what I call the 'green room energy,' it's really, really important at work. Helen Mirren calls it the grease that keeps the wheels turning. Just that sense of camaraderie and common experience.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Netflix's 'The Boroughs' cast, Geena Davis on aging, being 'invisible'

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