# Greatest age disparity between actor/character? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 21, 2019, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776 "2019-11-21T15:18:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/61 "2019-11-22T14:10:21Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > I know none of you saw this since it was a local community theater production of _1776_. The actor playing Edward Rutledge, the youngest of the representatives in that Congress, was at least in his 50s, if not his 60s, with gray hair and many wrinkles. They might have gotten away with it if not for the line that specifically mentions he’s the youngest. Yeah, I know, community theater works with what it has, but there were younger men in the cast and they could have shifted some roles… The community theater production of _1776_ that I was in had the same situation, although the age difference was not quite so stark. Our Rutledge was in his mid-forties, and looked it. Meanwhile, right across the aisle from this “youngest” member of Congress, was another actor who was eighteen, and looked even younger! The thing about Rutledge is that you’ve got to find a singer good enough to perform “Molasses to Rum,” which is a challenging tenor song. I know that eighteen-year-old, nice as he was, couldn’t have handled it. The mid-forties guy nailed it every night. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/62 "2019-11-22T14:20:48Z")
Sally Field was 66 when she played Mary Lincoln in _Lincoln_. Mary Lincoln was 48 during the period the movie depicted. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/63 "2019-11-22T14:44:41Z")
James Cagney was about 43 years old when _Yankee Doodle Dandy_ came out. He played George M. Cohan both as a newborn (43 years difference, infinite difference in percentage terms) and as a 61-year-old man (18 year difference, 42 percent older), and almost every age in between. ---
**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:** [November 22, 2019, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/64 "2019-11-22T16:35:41Z")
The great James Hong plays David Lo Pan in the movie _Big Trouble in Little China_. When the movie came out Hong was 57 and he played a character who was cursed by an Emperor who ruled in the 200s BC. So 2200 years diff plus or minus. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/65 "2019-11-22T19:31:24Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Dustin Hoffman was 33 in 1970 when he played 121 year old Jack Crabb in **Little Big Man**. That’s 88 years’ difference Someone should mention _Benjamin Button._ > [@CalMeacham](#): > > Harrison Ford is only twelve years younger than Sean Connery, who played his father in **Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade** Hey, it’s Sean Connery. That’s believable. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/66 "2019-11-22T23:35:57Z")
Ruby Dee was 72 when she played 108 year old Mother Abigail Freemantle in, “The Stand.” ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/67 "2019-11-22T23:46:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The astonishing one in that movie was Abe Vigoda. He already looked ancient. But he was only fifty. I suspect Abe Vigoda looked like that since he was 15. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/68 "2019-11-25T03:32:52Z")
I could have swore that Cary Grant’s mother in North by Northwest was younger than him, but Jessie Royce Landis was at least a few years older, even being born in a different century. Am I confusing it with something else similar? ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/69 "2019-11-25T06:46:45Z")
James Cagney was 56 when he played Lon Chaney in _Man of a Thousand Faces_ from the age of 22 through 47. Joe Pesci was 46 when he played Tommy DeSimone (as Tommy DeVito) from the age of 17 to 28 in _Goodfellas._ ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/70 "2019-11-25T07:47:58Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Franchot Tone as Roger Byam in the original screen adaptation of _Mutiny on the Bounty_ (1935). The character, a midshipman, is supposed to be **fifteen** in the beginning. Though he does age a few years during the course of the voyage and return (to **nineteen** , I believe), that’s still a long way off from Franchot Tone, who was in fact **thirty years old** when he portrayed the character. What made it especially cringeworthy is that they didn’t just up-age the character in GoT fashion, they actually portrayed him as an adolescent, living with his mother and having a boyish demeanor at the start of the film. It was so jarring that it completely derailed the entire the film for me. Similarly, I was very confused by Taken 3. (I think it was 3, but it may have been 2.) In the first Taken, 25-year-old Maggie Grace plays Liam Neeson’s 17-year-old daughter, and it goes downhill from there. in one of the sequels – Grace was 29 for Taken 2 and 31 for Taken 3 – her dad teaches her how to drive a car because she’s playing a teenager. The whole time I was confused. I never realized her character was supposed to be a teenager. I just kept thinking “Why is this 30-year-old woman getting driving lessons from her dad?” ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/71 "2019-11-25T16:16:25Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Peter Capaldi at age 59 portrayed the alien Time Lord Doctor Who, a character that, depending on how you look at it, was either about 2000 years old or _four and a half billion_ years old (some time travel and other weirdness involved). Peter Capaldi was a bit jarring in the series, because it seemed like every transformation of the Doctor took on a more or less younger appearance than his predecessor, with a couple exceptions, but Capaldi did not fit well in the progression. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/72 "2019-11-25T16:35:55Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > In the category of Magically Ageless Persons, there’s David Bennent in [The Tin Drum](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078875/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1) and Tilda Swinton in about half the films she’s made to date, including _Orlando, Doctor Strange_ and the Narnia movies. As soon as you said magically ageless, my mind read David Tennant, Which gave me a spit take thinking “Oskar was David Tennant!?” ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/73 "2019-11-25T16:39:56Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Peter Capaldi was a bit jarring in the series, because it seemed like every transformation of the Doctor took on a more or less younger appearance than his predecessor, with a couple exceptions, but Capaldi did not fit well in the progression. They had to do something to break the pattern, otherwise you’d have to follow Matt Smith with an actual teenager, and that would have just been awkward. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/74 "2019-11-25T16:55:10Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > They had to do something to break the pattern, otherwise you’d have to follow Matt Smith with an actual teenager, and that would have just been awkward. 🙂 And now the doctor is a woman, prompting the question, is she bigger on the … uh, nevermind. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/75 "2019-11-25T18:31:22Z")
Has nobody mentioned Mickey Rooney yet? I mean, in any of his movies I only remember him always playing a child. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/76 "2019-11-25T20:04:02Z")
Thelma Harper on Mama’s Family was played by Vicki Lawrence, who was 16 years younger than Ken Berry and Carol Burnett, who played her children, Vinton and Eunice. She was born in 1949, but played a character who graduated high school before or during the war years and remembered them fondly. Lawrence was 34 when the show started but Thelma/Mama was ~60. I see her on daytime TV ads sometimes dressed as Mama, and it amuses me that she used to be a young woman playing a much older woman, but now she’s playing the same character who at this point is younger than she is. ---
**Author:** ![TimfromNapa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TimfromNapa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimfromNapa)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/77 "2019-11-25T21:20:46Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > My wife and I started watching - and are enjoying - Atypical. 2 of the main characters are HS students - an 18 yr old senior and his sophomore sister. > > The actor who plays the 18-yr old is 25, and the sophomore actor is 23. I assumed the actors were older than their characters, but for some stupid reason, it sorta niggles at me now that I know these are grown-ups well into their 20s, portraying teenage emotions/situations. (Yeah - I know - ACTING!) > > Made me wonder what were some of the greatest disparities between the age of the actor and the character played. I guess it could be measured either in years or as a percentage of the character’s age. So my examples are both approx 7 years older than their characters, and the younger is 43.75% older than her character’s age. I’m sure those are nowhere near the most extreme. And I assume some younger actors have played considerable older with aging make-up/tech. > > For purposes of this thread, I’m thinking about “human” characters. Tho if you find it entertaining, feel free to point out some biblical or SF character that is hundreds or thousands of years old. And I’m thinking about visual portrayals - not voiceovers. Among the cast of “high school teenagers” in Napoleon Dynamite, Jon Heder (Napoleon) was 27 and Effren Ramirez (Pedro) was 31. I’d say they both pulled it off very well. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/78 "2019-11-25T21:23:05Z")
One that works the other way: Shirley Henderson was 40 when she played Moaning Myrtle in _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_. That’s not too far off, for the character’s “magical age” of 50ish. But Myrtle is a ghost, and so her appearance was fixed at the time of her death… at the age of 12. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/79 "2019-11-25T23:35:27Z")
King Richard III of England was 33 when he died. The actors who play him on stage and screen are usually considerably older: Laurence Olivier, 48; Ian McKellan, 56. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776/80 "2019-11-26T11:53:25Z")
First exclude actors playing somebody older than themselves. That is relatively easy, with makeup. The other way round is much harder, but many high school movies are made by actors who are old even for university students. The need to use established stars means that many war films have soldiers (mainly the grunts and very junior officers) who would be a bit too old for military service. In _Operation Daybreak_ Anton Diffring (age 59) played Reinhard Heydrich (age 38). And Diffring was Jewish, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-age-disparity-between-actor-character/843776.md?page=5)