I was thinking of a couple of “Playing Gertrude” examples in this thread:
In Forest Gump, Sally Field (as Mama Gump) is only ten years older than her “son” Tom Hanks (Forest).
In Alexander, Alexander’s Mom (Angelina Jolie) is only a year older than him (Colin Farrell)
In 1968, sixty year old Joan Crawford briefly played a 24 year old(!) character. Why? Because her daughter, who regularly played the role, had to leave for an emergency surgery.
That’s the one that I was going to post.
In 1937, 43-year-old Sam Jaffe played a 250-year-old lama in “Lost Horizon”. A 90-year-old actor was originally cast, but he died within hours of being notified. :eek:
Steve McQueen was in his early 30s when he played a high school student in “The Blob”, and most of the “Porky’s” actors were about that age too.
And wasn’t Henry Winkler about 30 when he started playing 19-year-old Fonzie?
Going the other way, 33 year old Dustin Hoffman played 121 year old Jack Crabb in 1970s Little Big Man, with an assist from Dick Smith’s wonderful makeup.
Smith did a similar makeup job for David Bowie in The Hunger, but he was preternaturally long-lived because of his vampiric liaison, and I’d like to leave out such cases.
Christopher George, age 48 at the time, played one of Julie McCoy’s Love Boat class reunion ex-schoolmates who would have been around age 28.
My guess is that the largest differences will be found in radio acting, where children and teens are often played by adults, some of whom may be quite elderly. Boys are quite often played by women.
There probably isn’t much radio acting done in America there days (except on Garrison Keillor’s show), but the BBC still puts out quite a lot of it.
Heck, on that note Nancy Cartwright (56) and Yeardley Smith (49) voice Bart and Lisa Simpson, 10 and 8.
Though I guess Elizabeth Taylor (then 60) voicing Maggie Simpson (<1, I guess) beats them, for now.
Now, now. I explicitly said no “trick” characters and make-up enhanced actors. Right now I think it’s a tie between Moaning Myrtle and Diana Ross’ Dorothy.
Space Mutiny, of MST3K fame. I don’t think the character’s age is stated explicitly, but I think she is supposed to be about 30, when the actress is clearly in her 50’s.
I’d be curious to know specifically the oldest actor to portray a high school student. (Excluding Amy Sedaris whose character in Strangers With Candy was in her 40s.)
Werner Herzog has said in interviews that he disregarded the age of the real Kasper Hauser in the casting, and in the context of the film, that charcater was not supposed to be perceived as 17. Herzog he had more important considerations for the character, and didn’t think he could find an actor under 22 (or so) who could play the role the way he wanted it played.
In the US, as someone playing it straight, and not playing a character briefly as a teen that the actor will play later as an adult (such as Ingrid Bergman’s brief appearance of her character as a child in Gaslight), then probably Mary Pickford as a 14-15 year old in *Sparrows *when she was 34. However, the age of the character is never stated. She can’t possibly be older than 16, though, and Pickford is entirely convincing.
More recently, and in color (which is less forgiving than B&W) is Stockard Channing in Grease. She plays a high school senior, so 17-18, possibly 19, at age 34. Not terribly convincing, but all the teens are played by ridiculously old adults, and Channing does a better job than some of the younger adults.
Julie Harris played a 12-year-old when she was 27. She had done the part to acclaim on the stage, where it apparently worked just fine, but it didn’t work in the movie, not even in B&W. It’s painful. The movie is* A Member of the Wedding*, 1952.
Wilford Brimley was just 51 when he played one of the old guys in “Cocoon”.
In 1981 I saw Rex Harrison at the age of 73 in My Fair Lady.
I’m sure they’re not the oldest ever, but Mark Salling (Puck) and the late Cory Monteith (Finn) of Glee may be some of the oldest actors to have starring roles as high school students on a TV series. They were cast at age 27 to play characters who were 15-16 year old high school sophomores in the first season of the show. By the time his character graduated from high school, Monteith had already turned 30.
Ted Neeley did a revival of Jesus Christ, Superstar, on stage a few years ago, when he was in his mid-late 60s, so he was about twice the age of the guy he was portraying. Packed in the audiences, though. It mostly got good reviews, but someone I know who saw it said that at the end, when they crucified Neeley, with the loin cloth, all he could think of were Depends commercials.
Dana Carvey was 38 at the time he did Wayne’s World 2, which has an early scene in which Wayne breathlessly announces that Garth “got pubes”.
That was a real weirded-out moment for me (in a movie that had no lack of them).
Bryan Ekers - The funny thing is that Yeardley Smith really does talk like that. I watched her for four seasons on Herman’s Head, and she sounded exactly like a strong-willed, somewhat cynical preteen girl. I could never buy Nancy Cartwright as a boy, though; I actually thought she was more convincing as Mindy on Animaniacs.
Gabrielle Carteris was 29 when she was cast as a 16 year old on Beverly Hills 90210.
Whoopi Goldberg was 30 when she played 14 year old Celie at the beginning of The Color Purple