In the sequel miniseries, War and Remembrance, Robert Mitchum was 70 and overweight while playing Pug Henry, a trim 50-ish naval officer, and 84 year old John Gielgud and 53 year old Topol played first cousins who knew each other in childhood. (In the book Aaron Jastrow was about 65 and his cousin about 5-10 years younger, so it was Gielgud who was the wrong age, though he was brilliant in a very physically demanding part for an old man.)
In the godawful movie Elizabeth, Sir Richard Attenborough played Sir William Cecil; Attenborough was 75 and Cecil was about 35 when the movie began. While I never saw the sequel, 37 year old Cate Blanchett reprised the role even though the movie took place at the time of the Spanish Armada when Elizabeth was 55 (and a survivor of smallpox and a woman of the 16th century, which would tack on a good ten years probably to her appearance).
In the 1936 version of Romeo and Juliet, 34-year old Norma Shearer played the not-quite-14-year old Juliet, and 43-year old Leslie Howard played Romeo.
True, Shakespeare didn’t seem to care that much about this stuff (witness Lady Capulet, who apparently ages several decades between Act I and Act V!), although he does seem to have taken some pains to establish Hamlet’s age in this particular scene.
I realize that this comes close to the OP’s ban on “Flashback/flashforward” appearances, but I saw Richard Harris onstage in a revival of Camelot circa 1983. At the beginning of the play he portrays himself as a 17 year old or so. At the time, Harris would’ve been about 53. I had a seat up front – he looked a LOT older*.
Harris had played Arthur in the 1967 screen version, when he was only 37, and in that movie, with the re-arranging of the plot, it was a flashback.
*I’ll be 53 in a few months. I don’t think I look anywhere near that shop-worn. But i haven’t kept up with my boozing as well.
Wow. I’m sold, and that changes lots of things about the play. I wonder if I’ll ever get to see the play performed with a roughly age-appropriate Hamlet.
Well, yeah, but in that same story, Pierce Brosnan (who, like the other two “boys”, is waaaay past the 40-45 of their characters) is supposed to have gotten married and had sons who are out of college already… after 20yo Sophia was born. That whole movie goes down the drain if you try to think about it with more brains that those contained in a large tub of popcorn with extra salt and butter.
(I enjoyed Mamma Mia, but that’s cos I know where my brain’s “big red button” is)
Similarly, in A Beautiful Mind, Russell Crowe (age 37 at the time of release) portrayed John Nash in college at age 20 up to John Nash receiving the Nobel Prize at age 66.
Well, if you want to play that game, look at Dustin Hoffman, in Little Big Man – he played Jack Crab from a pre-teen to a circa 100 year old guy when he was 33. That’s circa -20 to +67 or so.
But I don’t really think that’s what the OP was really after. I think they were looking for the biggest spread in age between the actor’s real age and the part he was nominally playing. Kinda like the 58 year old Roger Moore playing James Bond (who realy ought to be about 35 or so) in A View to a Kill
That’s what I came in here to say. And he was actually only 24 during pre-production and 25 when he directed and starred in it. A lot of people remember theseimages of Kane and forget that Welles actually looked like this at the time. Just one more great thing about that movie . . . I don’t think the makeup has been matched since, in 67 years.
