# Actors playing older roles **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 13, 2014, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010 "2014-04-13T10:20:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qwertol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Qwertol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertol)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/1 "2014-04-13T10:20:44Z")
It is common for an older actor to play a teenager. But what about the opposite? Do you know instances of younger actor playing older character? Myself I can give example of Tom Cruise in “Collateral” or Mila Kunis playing sophomore being about 15 years old in first seasons of “That '70s Show”… ---
**Author:** ![Fleetwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fleetwood/32/271_2.png) [@Fleetwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fleetwood)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/2 "2014-04-13T10:39:29Z")
> [@Qwertol](#): > > It is common for an older actor to play a teenager. But what about the opposite? Do you know instances of younger actor playing older character? > > Myself I can give example of Tom Cruise in “Collateral” or **Mila Kunis playing sophomore being about 15 years old in first seasons of “That '70s Show”** … Wasn’t she a fifteen y.o. playing a fifteen y.o.? IMDB has her born in 1983 and the show debuting in 1998. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/3 "2014-04-13T10:59:29Z")
Angela Lansbury, 36, played the mother of Lawrence Harvey, 33, in the [Manchurian Candidate](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056218/). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/4 "2014-04-13T11:59:10Z")
Traci Lords played an adult in some of her, uh, earlier work. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/5 "2014-04-13T12:27:58Z")
[Andy Clyde](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Clyde) made a career of his “old man” character in short subjects; he was 32 when he created it (and had already played comic old men before that. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/6 "2014-04-13T12:37:27Z")
Tim Conway played an old man character on the Carol Burnett Show, and Mel Brooks played a 2,000 year old man on the radio. I’m assuming you’re avoiding the realm of science fiction, wherein you’ve got Adrian Paul & various others playing immortals in the Highlander, Frank Oz playing Yoda, and Virginia Hey playing Zhaan on Farscape . ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/7 "2014-04-13T12:40:20Z")
Not sure of her character’s age, but Estelle Getty was ~62 when _The Golden Girls_ started. She played the mother of a senior citizen. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/8 "2014-04-13T15:35:26Z")
There are thousands of examples of people playing older than themselves. For a start, every single movie set over a period of decades, where the characters age over the course of the film. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/9 "2014-04-13T15:39:44Z")
Clive Dunn was much younger than the character he played in _Dads Army_. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/10 "2014-04-13T15:47:10Z")
In “The Exorcist”, 44 year old Max Von Sydow played 79 year old Father Lankester Merrin. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/11 "2014-04-13T16:34:46Z")
Dustin Hoffman in _Little Big Man_ played the same character from age 16 to 121. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/12 "2014-04-13T16:39:34Z")
Russel Crowe is 50. He just played Noah at the age of 600. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/13 "2014-04-13T17:20:06Z")
Kate Nelligan played herself at two different ages in _The Prince of Tides_. She was 40 at the times, and the younger age was about 35 or 36, slightly younger than she was, while the older character was about 60, and she did a great job, playing mother to Nick Nolte, who was 50, but playing a character about 10 years younger. It was director Barbra Streisand’s intent to cast two different actresses as the mother at different ages, but someone convinced her to let Nelligan try it in age make-up, and Streisand said Nelligan blew her away. Nelligan was nominated for an Oscar for Supporting Actress, but lost to Mercedes Ruehl for _Fisher King_. Personally, I don’t like _The Prince of Tides_, but I did like Nelligan a lot in it. Something else worth mentioning is Albert Finney in _Murder on the Orient Express_ (1974). Finney was only 38 when he played the middle-aged Poirot. The director of the film, Sidney Lumet, commented on how great his make-up was. He said it is easy to make someone look old, but not easy to make a young person look merely middle-aged, and the make-up turned out great. Finney did a wonderful job speaking and moving like he was just a couple of decades older, as opposed to ancient. Jokingly, I’ll add Boris Karloff in _The Mummy_. There’s about a 3,000 year age difference between Karloff and his character. Unlike other mummy movies, [Karloff was unwrapped](http://www.alicia-logic.com/capsimages01/mmy_021BorisKarloff.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/14 "2014-04-13T17:59:48Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Not sure of her character’s age, but Estelle Getty was ~62 when _The Golden Girls_ started. She played the mother of a senior citizen. In a similar vein, Abe Vigoda was ~53 when he started playing the close to retirement Phil Fish. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/15 "2014-04-13T18:18:08Z")
I think it’s not unusual for elderly roles to be played by less-than-elderly actors, just as it’s not unusual for teenage rolls to be played by adults. I can’t think of a lot of examples of actors who were either teens or retirement age playing working-age adults. For obvious reasons, I suppose: there are fewer working actors who aren’t “working age”. An exception would be flash-forwards to show a normally teenage character (played by a teenage actor) as an adult (played by the same actor). ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/16 "2014-04-13T19:07:39Z")
A 47 year-old Paul Newman played an elderly (75-80) Judge Roy Bean in the 1972 eponymous film. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/17 "2014-04-13T22:00:27Z")
Wasn’t Jennifer Lawrence’s character in **Silver Linings Playbook** supposed to be about ten years older than she is? Likewise, Nicole Kidman in **Dead Calm**? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/18 "2014-04-13T22:29:18Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Not sure of her character’s age, but Estelle Getty was ~62 when _The Golden Girls_ started. She played the mother of a senior citizen. She was, in fact, a year younger than Bea Arthur (who played her daughter) and Betty White (the oldest of the four). Only Rue McClanahan was younger than her (by a decade). ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/19 "2014-04-14T00:14:38Z")
Melody Patterson was 16 when she played Wrangler Jane on F Troop, the love interest of Captain Parmenter (Ken Berry, who was in his early 40’s.) Melody Patterson was born April 16, 1949, which means that as of today, she still isn’t eligible for Medicare, despite having had an adult role in a show that left the air 47 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/20 "2014-04-14T12:09:52Z")
One of my childhood heroes, 11th century wizard Catweazle, who happens to be a scruffy old geezer in the [TV series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catweazle), was portrayed by [Geoffrey Bayldon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Bayldon) who was actually only 46 years old at the time of filming. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010.md?page=2)