# Weirdest Age Discrepancy Between Characters and the Actors Who Play Them **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 4, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-age-discrepancy-between-characters-and-the-actors-who-play-them/534920 "2010-04-04T17:11:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-age-discrepancy-between-characters-and-the-actors-who-play-them/534920/81 "2010-04-06T02:25:50Z")
> [@Shawn1767](#): > > Does my math work here? This is about Harry Potter movies: Alan Rickman was approximately 55 when he appeared in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” If we go by Hogwart history, Severus Snape was a contemporary of the Potters who were around 21 when they were killed. By the time Harry joins Hogwart’s at age 11, Snape should be around 31 or so since Harry was around 1 when his parents were killed. So he’s about 24 years too old. Most of the adults cast in the Harry Potter movies as Lily and James’ contemporaries are way older than they should be. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-age-discrepancy-between-characters-and-the-actors-who-play-them/534920/82 "2010-04-06T02:49:31Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Most of the adults cast in the Harry Potter movies as Lily and James’ contemporaries are way older than they should be. To some extent this can be handwaved away as a difference between the books and the movies. In the books you can work out that the Potters must have been in their early 20s when Harry was born, but since the movies don’t give their ages then they might easily have been several years older. Alan Rickman is still obviously old enough to be Daniel Radcliff’s grandfather, but if we imagine that the Potters were closer to 30 when Harry was born then the actors cast as the other Marauders aren’t THAT far off. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-age-discrepancy-between-characters-and-the-actors-who-play-them/534920/83 "2010-04-06T02:58:58Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Phil Harris played the 147-year old Flaming Arrow on an episode of _F Troop_. He was 63 at the time, so that would be 84 years. > > The flipside of the age discrepancy was the character of Tabitha Stephens. The duaghter of Samantha and Darren on _Bewitched_, Tabitha was born in 1966 and just starting first grade when the show ended in 1972. In 1977, Tabitha had her own series, “all grown up,” even though she should have been 11 years old. That doesn’t really count, as there’s no reason a new show has to follow the chronology of an older one. In fact, there’s no reason to assume a show follows our chronology. Time can work differently in the shows universe: see [Comic Book Time](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ComicBookTime). I don’t think it should count unless the person is expressly said to be a certain age. And it should be based on what age the character is supposed to look like. So stuff like [Really Seven Hundred Years Old](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReallySevenHundredYearsOld) shouldn’t count, or, at least, should be a separate category. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-age-discrepancy-between-characters-and-the-actors-who-play-them/534920/84 "2010-04-06T03:06:24Z")
From IMDB’s trivia on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: > [@](#): > > It has also been suggested that since both John Wayne and James Stewart were playing characters thirty years younger than they actually were (Wayne was 54 when the movie was filmed in the autumn of 1961 and Stewart was 53), the movie needed to be in black and white because they would never have got away with it in color. The age difference was particularly noticeable in Stewart’s case, since he was playing a young lawyer who had only just graduated from law school and had moved West without even practicing law back East. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-age-discrepancy-between-characters-and-the-actors-who-play-them/534920/85 "2010-04-06T03:09:05Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > On _The Cosby Show_ Heathcliff was college sweethearts with Claire. IRL, Bill Cosby was born in 1937, Phylicia Rashad is 11 years younger, their oldest daughter Sabrina La Beauf was born in 1958, and Cliff’s parents were played by Earl Hyman (b. 1926) and Clarice Taylor (b. 1927). If only someone had mentioned this earlier! [QUOTE=elfkin477] Most of the adults cast in the Harry Potter movies as Lily and James’ contemporaries are way older than they should be. [/QUOTE] If only someone had mentioned _this_ earlier! (What the hell, am I posting in invisible ink or something?) ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-age-discrepancy-between-characters-and-the-actors-who-play-them/534920/86 "2010-04-06T03:49:25Z")
In the 1974 disaster movie Earthquake, Loren Greene played Ava Gardner’s father, even though he was only 7 years older than her (and 8 years older than his son-in-law, Charlton Heston). ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-age-discrepancy-between-characters-and-the-actors-who-play-them/534920/87 "2010-04-06T04:02:13Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > The hobbits have human-scaled lifespans. Frodo should appear middle-aged. Hobbits mature at age 33, and so should look 20-something at 40. They live to an _average_ span of 100, which is more than human-scaled, especially for a pre-industrial society. > [@](#): > > Aragorn in the books was supposed to look like a man of 40-something, since the Dúnedain, being descending from both elves and humans, as a result have much longer lifespans than ordinary men. Aragorn is decended from elves and humans, but the rest of the Dúnedain were not, except those in Aragorn’s family tree. The Dúnedain were the remnants of the fallen kingdom of Arnor, who were decended from Numenorians who were decended from the Edain, who were given the island of Numenor and a lifespan thrice that of other Men as a reward for their participation in the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age. \ For the OP: any show on Teen Disney features young actors and actresses playing characters much younger than themselves, and its not at all unusual to see someone in their 20’s playing a high school kid or even younger. Also, Daniel LaRusso in the first Karate Kid movie was played by Ralph Macchio at age 23. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-age-discrepancy-between-characters-and-the-actors-who-play-them/534920.md?page=4)