Andie MacDowell on Her Secret to Looking — and Feeling! — Younger

Andie MacDowell says staying active is the key to looking and feeling young.

The Southern beauty, 61, who got her big break in 1989’s Sex, Lies and Videotape, followed by hits including Green Card, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Groundhog Day says she feels like exercise is “in my DNA.”

“I’m driven to exercise. I love hot yoga or I’ll go to a spin class. I get high off of it. If I don’t do it, I miss the endorphins and the chemical part of it,” says MacDowell.

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And while the actress who currently stars in her first horror film Ready or Not, sees the physical benefits from exercising, she says it also helps with mental health.

“Walking in nature really helps balance your cortisol levels, which can help you with your sleep. If you’re stressed out, your cortisol levels get all wonky, and then you’ll have anxiety and won’t be able to sleep. That has happened to me, so that’s why I try to hike a lot,” she says.

MacDowell who is the proud mom to her three children with ex- husband model Paul Qualley: Justin, 33, a real estate agent; Rainey, 29, a singer and actress; and Margaret, 24, who stars with Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood, adds that age really is just a number.

“I think we have a lot of outdated concepts about aging—and I suffer from that as well. That dialogue of what I’m supposed to be now and how I’m supposed to feel. So I’m trying to release those because I don’t have time to waste putting myself down or holding myself back because I’m a certain number or because of some concept of who I should be,” she says. “I just want to love myself more and love others more. That’s really what we’re all here for.”

Ready or Not is in theaters now.