Sorry, missed the edit window before I added: though Oldman’s looking, uh, older, makes sense for Sirius, considering his time at Azkaban. In fact, I do seem to remember Rowling stating that this whole generation tended to look a bit more bedraggled, considering the first war against Voldemort and what they’ve all been through. Peter should probably look the youngest since he spent the least time aging as a human.
Nope. They aren’t immortal, but Tolkiens’ books definitely state that hobbits live longer lives and age less rapidly than humans. At the outset of “Fellowship”, Bilbo has a party to celebrate his eleventy-first birthday. No-one is surprised that he lived that long, just that (thanks to possession of the ring) he still looks like a youthful fifty years of age. Also, at the same time Frodo is celebrating his 33rd birthday, which is stated to be the hobbit ‘coming of age’ date, which (IMO) is equivalent to a bar-mitzvah. It also says that a toddler-sixed Frodo came to live with Bilbo when he (Frodo) was 21!
As for weird age discrepencies - british actor Matt Smith, who is 27, is set to take over the ‘title’ role of “Doctor Who” - a character whose age is over a thousand years old!
Just an observation after reading this far in the thread. Perhaps worth another thread for discussion.
Unless there is some physical abnormality that permits somebody to look considerably older ot younger than their “calendar age” I suggest it’s hard to tell exactly where in one of these age ranges someone falls:
- newborn
- toddler
- pre-school
- grades 1-3
- grades 4-7
- grades 8-10
- grades 11&12
- 18-20
- 21-25
- 26-34
- 35-45
- 46-53
- 54-60
- 61-70
- 71-80
- 81-90
- 91-up
For that reason I believe actual age plus clothing, hair, makeup and other disguises can let people operate in the ranges either side of their own.
Those are obviously not hard and fast ranges, but I think the point should be pretty clear.
If somebody wants to start a thread on the topic, be my guest.
In the television show Maverick, James Garner as Bret Maverick is the exact same age as the actor who played “Pappy” Maverick, his father.
This is not correct. “Eleventy-one” is exceptionally old even for a hobbit, but yes also he was well-preserved, “unchanged.” Hobbits occasionally lived to be 100, but rarely more than that. Merry reached 102 and Pippin 95.
According to Tolkien, “Hobbits are relatives of ours.” They age more slowly, sure, but not drastically more slowly (not twice as slowly.) I see no evidence in the text for that. The “tweens” are the “irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty three.” It does not make sense to me that “coming of age” would be equivalent to a bar mitzvah; that would be equivalent to beginning the tweens at best. I might accept humans turning 21 as an equivalent to a hobbit coming of age, but it seems to me that a hobbit at 33 is more mature than a human at 21. Frodo certainly was (in the books).
Frodo kept the ring on a chain at all times, and I suppose I can concede that this was enough to “preserve” him, but surely not as much as if he regularly wore it. But we don’t know how much he used it before leaving the Shire." It appears though that Gandalf assumed Frodo had never used it. “As long as you never used, I did not l think the Ring would have any lasting effect on you…”
The text reads, “outwardly he retained the appearance of a robust and energetic hobbit just out of his tweens.” Tweens != teens. I still agree that Frodo in the Jackson movies looked too young.
Where?
See Knorf’s post immediately before your own for a pretty good discussion of aging in hobbits and Men in the Tolkien universe.
LOTR also has a couple of other interesting age differences between actor and character: Hugo Weaking, 43 at the time the movies were made, carried off the role of the over-7,000-year-old half-elf Elrond and made us believe in the character; Andy Serkis, 39, was an equally credible over-500-years-old Gollum.
The whole ‘identifying a plain gold ring as a millenia-old artifact of evil’ research took a while. 
The only real expert was Saruman, and he and Gandalf were already having trust issues (even before Saruman kidnapped him), which made the hunt for information slow going. In the movie, Gandalf heads straight for the archives at Minas Tirith; in the book, only Saruman knew that Isildur had even gone to Minas Tirith before heading back home to Arnor, and he wasn’t about to share that information. And that wouldn’t even come up until Gandalf started suspecting that Frodo’s Ring was the One, which (with Saruman arguing that it was impossible) took some time for him to start seriously considering.
And I still think he looked about right for the age he was supposed to be at Bilbo’s party. I’d absolutely agree that he looked way to young at the time he set out on his journey for the number of years to have passed in the movie timeline as had passed in the book timeline; but to me, that’s just one piece of evidence that much less time is supposed to have passed in the movie between those two events. (Another piece of evidence is the dialogue in the scene where Gandalf turns back up, apparently expecting when he asks Frodo if he’s followed his parting admonition, that Frodo will remember what it was, and not just say, “What the hell are you babbling about, you crazy old coot?!”* Another is that Merry and Pippin are still immature troublemakers–there’s no way they wouldn’t have gotten themselves killed somehow over that amount if time if they hadn’t grown up a bit.)
*This is #2 on the list of ‘top ten things the audience wishes the hero had said to the old wise man’. #1 is, “‘From a certain point of view’? What kind of bullshit is that?”
That’s quite a mystery as to how that could occur. You ought to hire Jim Rockford to get right on it. 
Fair enough.
I think Freaks & Geeks had age-appropriate actors.
I think Elijah fits the part. You want your Frodo to be a wide-eyed innocent-the role wouldn’t have worked with a middle-aged actor.
Speaking of Dick van Dyke, in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang his father is played by Lionel Jeffries – who’s six months younger than van Dyke
On Joan of Arcadia, 30 year old Becky Wahlstrom played a high school student. It must have felt odd to have make out scenes with 17 year old Michael Welch.
“Wide-eyed innocent” imo contradicts the descriptions of Frodo in the books. “Perky chap with a bright eye” says Barliman Butterbur. Frodo shows considerable wisdom in his travels as well, even before reaching Rivendell. He was 50, even if he appeared to almost cease aging out of his mid-30s.
Some were and some weren’t. Linda Cardellini was 24; James Franco was 21; Busy Philipps was 20; Jason Segel was 19; Samm Levine, Seth Rogan, and Martin Starr were 17; Sarah Hagan and Natasha Melnick were 15; and John Francis Daley was 14.
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.
The Degrassi kids were/are age-appropriate. From what I understand, they were even age-appropriate in relation to the original series (Emma was born in the original series and 12 years later, Degrassi: TNG starts with 12-year-old Emma). They even had most of the same actors from the original series playing the same characters as adults in the newer one.
The Gossip Girl kids are, too. That one seems weird because they all look and act like they’re immature 35-year-olds, but nope- they’re all about the right ages.
So cool to post right below SurrenderDorothy, Glinda the Good Witch was 54 y/o Billie Burke. If you get a chance to see it on a big screen it kinda shows. Granted there’s not reference to The Witchs age that I recall, but still…
Off topic, but I hated Degrassi: TNG, because in the original series the actors/actresses LOOKED like actual kids. They weren’t all beautiful and made up. They looked like kids I see in Chicago coming out of public schools.
Anyway back to the original thread.
Here’s an interesting site regarding child labor lawa from Children In Film (dot) Com
In The Mountain Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner played brothers. IRL the two were 30 years apart in age and looked 40 years apart.
In the western The Sons of Katie Elder the title characters, all of them brothers were John Wayne (b.1907), Dean Martin (b.1917), Earl Holliman (b. 1928) and Michael Andrews, Jr. (b.1943). Judging by the ages, appearances and accents of her sons Katie must have been that rarest of creatures- a Vulcan whore who only mated once a decade but when she did it was always a different looking father.
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).