# 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:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/21 "2014-04-14T12:39:15Z")
> [@Fleetwood](#): > > Wasn’t she a fifteen y.o. playing a fifteen y.o.? IMDB has her born in 1983 and the show debuting in 1998. Right. Kunis was the only one playing a character that was the same age as her. The rest were supposed to be 16, but they weren’t in real life. Some very obviously as the seasons wore on. > [@NDP](#): > > 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**? I don’t know the actual age of Lawrence’s character, but I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be older than 21. The same for American Hustle, where she played the haggard old wife to Christian Bale. And now the director wants her to play the 40 year old woman who invented all those Made For TV cleaning products. I think someone needs to sit him down and tell him how old she really is. Repeatedly. ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/22 "2014-04-14T20:32:37Z")
[Cicely Tyson](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071175/?ref_=nm_knf_t4)? ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/23 "2014-04-14T20:44:06Z")
Virtually every father/son or mother/daughter role recently has been played by actors whose ages do not fit. The most recent example I saw was the father/son team in Pacific Rim. The actors were 15 years apart, which may or may not be a comment on relationships in Australia. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![VernWinterbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c67d28/32.png) [@VernWinterbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VernWinterbottom)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/24 "2014-04-15T00:13:22Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > 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. Finney was just 34 in the musical Scrooge. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/25 "2014-04-15T01:13:06Z")
[Laurence Fishburn](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000401/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm) was only 14 when he was cast in [Apocalypse Now](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/?ref_=nmbio_mbio). ---
**Author:** ![80sMusicfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/8/2acd7d/32.png) [@80sMusicfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/80sMusicfan)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/26 "2014-04-15T02:44:21Z")
some turn back the clock films, there must be actors/ actresses playing way different ages. what about this film back to the Future Michael J fox had to play a different age? unless I made a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/27 "2014-04-15T02:55:00Z")
How old was Vincent (Tom Cruise) supposed to be in _Collateral_? ---
**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 15, 2014, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/28 "2014-04-15T03:37:26Z")
> [@VernWinterbottom](#): > > Finney was just 34 in the musical Scrooge. That’s an interesting one, because Scrooge is usually depicted as being very old, but if you do the math, he’s actually only about 57 or 58. ---
**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 15, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/29 "2014-04-15T03:50:05Z")
Oh, Here’s an interesting one I almost forgot about. In _I Remember Mama_ (1948), 50-year-old Irene Dunne was cast as Mama, who was about 50, or maybe a little younger, but Dunne was so youthful-looking, that she had to wear age make-up. Dunne, born in 1898, had spent most of her career player women anywhere from 5, to 10 years younger than she actually was. It’s hard to believe she was 39 when she did _The Awful Truth_. She looks about 32 or 33, and if someone had told me she was 29, I’d have believe it. She was 42 when she did _My Favorite Wife_. ---
**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 15, 2014, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/30 "2014-04-15T04:32:17Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > That’s an interesting one, because Scrooge is usually depicted as being very old, but if you do the math, he’s actually only about 57 or 58. That doesn’t seem old now but it definitely was in 19th century England. ---
**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 15, 2014, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/31 "2014-04-15T04:42:25Z")
Still, he’s depicted usually as much older, and I think that’s been true from early on. When you think how long Victoria herself lived, I think that from the beginning, readers have had a sense of Scrooge old before his time. ---
**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 15, 2014, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/32 "2014-04-15T18:07:10Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > Virtually every father/son or mother/daughter role recently has been played by actors whose ages do not fit. The most recent example I saw was the father/son team in Pacific Rim. The actors were 15 years apart, which may or may not be a comment on relationships in Australia. 😃 Yes, too, too common. I mentioned the _Golden Girls_ issue earlier. But my current peeve is Sasha Alexander is less than 12 years younger than Sharon Lawrence who plays her mother on _Rizzoli & Isles_. But this type doesn’t match the topic as it’s the parent that’s playing younger, not the child playing older. I think, as per the other age thread, we should exclude actors deliberately playing/made up to be someone for aging purposes. Such as Hoffman in _Little Big Man_. Otherwise I’d have to mention Slavitza Jovan who played the 8000+ year old Gozer as a 30 year old in _Ghostbusters_. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/33 "2014-04-15T22:02:44Z")
Sarah Michelle Gellar was originally hired for a soap opera, she was 16 playing a 21 year old. Later, she was hired for Buffy as a 20 year old playing a 15 year old. Or something like that. My numbers may be slightly off, but that’s the gist of it. Sally Field played Tom Hanks’ love interest in one movie, then played his mom in another movie (Forrest Gump). Of course, what people fail to mention is that much of her role in Forrest Gump, she’s mom alongside a boy playing Forrest, so the age makes more sense in that context. ---
**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 21, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010/34 "2014-04-21T14:59:29Z")
Vickie Lawrence was about 25 when she started playing Carol Burnett’s mama. No aging makeup, just a wig. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-playing-older-roles/686010.md?page=1)