# I guess making young people look older with makeup is very difficult **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 23, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664 "2015-05-23T18:48:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/21 "2015-05-27T12:14:09Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > What about Estelle Getty on _The Golden Girls_? That was makeup? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/22 "2015-05-27T12:16:07Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > That was makeup? Look at her as she appeared out of makeup in 1989: > **[Estelle Getty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estelle_Getty)** > > Estelle Gettleman (née Scher; July 25, 1923 – July 22, 2008), known professionally as Estelle Getty, was an American > actress and comedienne. She was best known for her portrayal of Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls (1985–1992), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She reprised the role in Empty Nest (1993–1995), The Golden Palace (1992–1993), Blossom (19... Vs. in makeup as Sophia Petrillo: > **[Sophia Petrillo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Petrillo)** > > Sophia Petrillo is a character from the sitcom television series The Golden Girls and its spin-offs The Golden Palace and Empty Nest. She also appeared in episodes of Blossom and Nurses. The character was played by the actress Estelle Getty for 10 years and 258 episodes. Getty was also the only actress from the original show to be part of the main cast in all three shows of the franchise. > Sophia Grisanti was born in Sicily to Don Angelo, Sr. and Eleanor Grisanti. She had two sisters, Angela and ... ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/23 "2015-05-27T12:42:28Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Look at her as she appeared out of makeup in 1989: > > [Estelle Getty - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estelle_Getty) > > Vs. in makeup as Sophia Petrillo: > > [Sophia Petrillo - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Petrillo) Yeah, I thought the Sophia was just Estelle _without_ makeup. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/24 "2015-05-27T12:53:13Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Yeah, I thought the Sophia was just Estelle _without_ makeup. Well, to be honest, they’re both “in makeup.” Just different kinds of makeup. Estelle Getty was actually a year younger than Bea Arthur, who played her daughter in the series. \* \*Just like Lionel Jeffries was six months younger than Dick van Dyke, even though Jeffries played van Dyke’s father in _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_. Of course, there are a LOT of cases where actors playing parents of other actors’ characters are ju7st barely older – Sean Connery and Harrison Ford in the third Indiana Jones movie, Jessie Landis and Cary Grant in _North by Northwest_, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/25 "2015-05-27T13:08:52Z")
The best aging makeup I ever saw was in _I, Claudius_. I started watching in the middle of the series, and never saw Brian Blessed (Augustus) without the makeup until I went back and saw the early episodes. He was totally convincing. Sian Phillips (Livia), is now about the age her character was, and looks very much like she did in makeup then. In about ten years, I’d like them to reshoot the epilogue from Harry Potter, with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, and Bonnie Wright reprising their 40ish characters (Tom Fenton, too). You’d have to recast the kids, though. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/26 "2015-05-27T13:20:30Z")
(Felton) ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/27 "2015-05-27T13:58:55Z")
I’m on my phone, which makes it very hard to post a link, but twenty-something Karen Gillan was transformed into a mid-forties middle-aged woman in the _Doctor Who_ episode “The Girl Who Waited”. I thought that was one of the best age makeups I’d seen. (Granted, twenty-five to forty-five is probably easier than twenty-five to eighty-five.) Let’s see if I can make this work: She went from this: [http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--XkWKIgDn--/17zuiz1m62tljjpg.jpg](http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--XkWKIgDn--/17zuiz1m62tljjpg.jpg) to this: [http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/girl-who-waited.jpg](http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/girl-who-waited.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/28 "2015-05-27T15:38:06Z")
Part of the problem is that very often all they do with the hair is sprinkle it with flour. OK, they may be using something other than flour, but that’s what it looks like. No streaks, no all-white hair, just the actors’ dark hair with a sprinkling of flour, looking nothing at all like salt-and-pepper hair. ---
**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:** [May 27, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/29 "2015-05-27T22:28:57Z")
Look at Clive Dunn, especially his role as Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army. Dunn was very good at portraying older people. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/30 "2015-05-28T13:19:19Z")
I still like Max Von Sydow in The Exorcist. He was only in his mid-forties, but Fr. Merrin still looks older than Von Sydow does now. I guess casting out demons really does age one prematurely. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/31 "2015-05-28T15:24:39Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Mannerisms are a big part of seeming aged: trembling, tics, dry mouth, stooped over. As much as people might hate it, Bill Shatner’s part in [The Deadly Years](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708459/?ref_=ttep_ep12) was very well done. In the last episodes of the 2002 version of [The Forsyte Saga](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0260615/), Damian Lewis did a phenomenal job of playing an elderly man. He did have makeup to wrinkle his skin and grey out his hair, but as you say, a huge part of the convincining-ness his performance was his posture and mannerisms. He just transformed his whole self into a brittle old man; it was amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/32 "2015-05-28T16:47:22Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Dustin Hoffman (as a very young man) was very convincing in “Little Big Man”. Just what I came in to say. Best-ever old-age makeup on a young actor, I think. From this, [https://d166p16y7lrz7l.cloudfront.net/media/3d95cb9a8eae139749971b63eccc06cb.png](https://d166p16y7lrz7l.cloudfront.net/media/3d95cb9a8eae139749971b63eccc06cb.png), to this: [The Golden State: Image](https://goldenstate.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/jack-crabb.jpg). Utterly convincing. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664/33 "2015-05-28T17:13:08Z")
Makeup can help, but looking old has a LOT to do with the way an actor carries himself. In the movie _ **Mr. Saturday Night** _, both Billy Crystal and David Paymer play elderly men. Crystal had a ton of latex on his face, but he never FELT like an old man, because he never MOVED like an old man. By contrast, with minimal makeup, Paymer was a much more believable old-timer because he walked and comported himself like an old man. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-making-young-people-look-older-with-makeup-is-very-difficult/720664.md?page=1)