Noni Hazlehurst has a very blunt message for 'difficult' people

"One of the things I love about being older is that I no longer care so much about what people think of me," Hazlehurst told The Senior.

"You're not being measured in the way that most women are up to the age of 50, where it's all about youth and beauty.

"It is very liberating to be older and to be able to say, 'Well, actually, I don't want to go there. I don't want to say that. I don't want to do that, and you can take a running jump.'"

The 72-year-old is a familiar face in Australian loungerooms.

She spent 24 years presenting children's program Play School, and close to a decade as the host of lifestyle show Better Homes and Gardens.

Hazlehurst has also won numerous awards for her work as an actor, including an AACTA gong for her work in the 2005 film Little Fish, and nominations for her role in the 2006 addiction film Candy, starring alongside Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish.

Hazlehurst was also the second woman inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame in 2016.

Speaking with The Senior from London as she prepares to return home for a national tour of new one-woman show The Lark, Hazlehurst said the show centres around a woman's grief about her soon-to-be demolished pub.

"She (my character) is obviously in her 70s, and she took over the pub when her father died. She has been there literally all her life," she said.

"The pub is a metaphor for life, really."

Playwright Daniel Keene's script delves into memory, ageing, gentrification and Australia's changing relationship with its local pubs, Hazlehurst said.

"When the pub was in its heyday it was the social life of the working class, a central meeting place, and a kind of refuge," she said.

"But now the demographic of the inner city has completely changed, and the pub has kind of dwindled into insignificance. She (my character) is reflecting on the fact that maybe she is too."

As she has matured, the Redfern Now star is unbothered by other people's opinions, and is instead embracing her own wisdom.

"We all have insecurities when we're younger. We all want to appear to be measuring up or playing the game," she said.

"One of the things you realise as you get older is, no one's really looking at you all that intensively. They're really focusing on themselves."

But she urged people to hold on to their self-belief as they age, and find value in the wealth of experience they have developed.

"One key for older people, particularly older women, is to not be submissive, to not let yourself be disrespected.

"We've earned the right for respect, most of us, and everybody has the right to respect until they've proven unworthy.

"It's about finding your voice and having the confidence that your experience and your judgment and your instincts over time have taught you how to weed out the BS.

"That wisdom has to be tapped and it's up to us to say, 'Hello, we have that wisdom'."

Having been outspoken on the corrosive issue of ageism in Australia, Hazlehurst said the lack of respect that drives ageism can go in both directions, and cross generational lines.

"I think there are as many older people who are disrespectful of some young people, and just as many young people disrespectful of old people," she said.

"I think the basic problem is respect for each other."

The Lark premieres at Adelaide Festival Centre's Space Theatre on June 24, and tours nationally from June to October.