# Where do they get the pictures of characters in movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 17, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078 "2015-01-17T17:28:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/21 "2015-01-18T02:22:27Z")
When (not _if_) I become famous, I will be glad to supply my publicist a video (8mm film) of me as a 3 year-old, throwing a baseball (badly), tuning a radio (loudly), and being a jerk (surely), many, many decades ago. It’s authentic as you can get. I’m waiting… ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/22 "2015-01-18T02:43:42Z")
Another way this is done is by using the actor’s earlier movies. In _Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?_, they showed a couple of film clips of a young Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) acting to indicate she was a terrible film actress. The clips were from two of Davis’s early films _Parachute Jumper_ (the film she hated the most) and _Ex-Lady_. _The Sin of Harold Diddlebock/Mad Wednesday_ uses footage from star Harold Lloyd’s silent film _The Freshman_. _Arrested Development_ used a joke where Michael was dating Charlize Theron. He was told she had had plastic surgery to look so beautiful, and there was a quick cut to her in her role in _Monster._ ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/23 "2015-01-18T05:39:59Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Another way this is done is by using the actor’s earlier movies. In _Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?_, they showed a couple of film clips of a young Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) acting to indicate she was a terrible film actress. The clips were from two of Davis’s early films _Parachute Jumper_ (the film she hated the most) and _Ex-Lady_. > > _The Sin of Harold Diddlebock/Mad Wednesday_ uses footage from star Harold Lloyd’s silent film _The Freshman_. > > _Arrested Development_ used a joke where Michael was dating Charlize Theron. He was told she had had plastic surgery to look so beautiful, and there was a quick cut to her in her role in _Monster._ Won’t that cost a lot of money in royalties, legal fees drafting the contracts? Thanks for the answers. Keep them coming.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/24 "2015-01-18T06:19:09Z")
Here are some of the examples I could think of offhand where they used a parent or child in a flashfoward or flashback (or something similar) scene. In _The Monuments Men_, George Clooney in the second to last scene (set in 1947) speaks of how he’s sure he will be proud thirty years in the future of what he did in World War II. In the last scene, his character in 1977 is touring a church where one of the art works he saved is kept. The character is played by Nick Clooney, George’s father. In _Dead Man Walking_, there’s a flashback to when Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) was a young girl, where the character is played by Eva Amurri, Sarandon’s daughter. In _Blade Runner_, when the movie was re-edited the second time in 2007, twenty-five years after it was released, most of the re-editing was done just using footage shot at the time of the original filming. There were several brief shots though that require some reshooting. They got Ben Ford, Harrison Ford’s son, to play Ford’s character in those shots. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/25 "2015-01-18T06:24:36Z")
Fraser Heston played the baby Moses in The Ten Commandents. In another Biblical Moses miniseries. Burt Lancaster played the adult Moses, while his son played Moses as a young man. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/26 "2015-01-18T06:49:19Z")
In the film Chaplin, with Robert Downey Jr in the title role, Charlie’s mother is played by Charlie’s daughter [Geraldine Chaplin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Chaplin). Which is a nice bit of symmetry, I think, playing your actual grandmother. Bonus trivia; Geraldine Chaplin is the mother of [Oona Chaplin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oona_Chaplin) who played Mrs Robb Stark in Game of Thrones. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/27 "2015-01-18T13:00:07Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Won’t that cost a lot of money in royalties, legal fees drafting the contracts? > > Thanks for the answers. Keep them coming.😉 Do you know how much s movie costs? The standard Hollywood film doesn’t get made for less than tens of millions. Licensing for music and other things I’d s routine part of that process. The people funding big studio movies are already paying lawyers full time and they have standard contracts for all these things. If you’re making a film on your own, then yeah, negotiating snd paying for licenses is time-consuming and costly. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/28 "2015-01-18T13:01:34Z")
From the IMDB page: The mugshots of a young-looking Morgan Freeman that are attached to his parole papers are actually pictures of Morgan’s younger son, Alfonso Freeman. Alfonso also had a cameo in the movie as a con shouting “Fresh fish! Fresh fish today! We’re reeling 'em in!” ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/29 "2015-01-18T13:46:58Z")
In “Boston Legal” they used a number of clever tricks - including lengthy flashbacks to “Denny Crane’s” early career created from excerpts of an early William Shatner performance in “The Defenders,” and I think home movies of Candice Bergen’s youth used as memories of “Shirley Schmidt” ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/30 "2015-01-18T19:02:38Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The photo Weird Al Yankovic tears up in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWhpk-8QLFQ) is a picture of one of his ex-girlfriends. Hah! I knew which song that was going to be before I clicked. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/31 "2015-01-18T20:06:50Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Won’t that cost a lot of money in royalties, legal fees drafting the contracts? > > Thanks for the answers. Keep them coming.😉 In those cases, no. **Baby Jane** was produced by Warner Brothers. **Parachute Jumper** and **Ex-Lady** were produced by Warner Brothers when Davis was a contract player there. No problem using those films. For **The Sin of Harold Diddlebock** , the movie was owned by Harold Lloyd, who was starring the the new film. He contacted himself by mental telepathy and got permission. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/32 "2015-01-18T22:08:02Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I suspect that in a few cases they used a picture of the child of the actor as a picture of the actor’s character at a younger age. Certainly there are a few cases where it was necessary to have a flashback with the actor at a younger age, and the filmmakers just got the child of the actor to appear briefly playing their parent’s character. Of course, this requires that the child reasonably resemble the actor. The introductory scene to \*The Persuaders \* tv series featured Roger Moore’s son as the young Brett Sinclair . ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/33 "2015-01-18T23:59:00Z")
There’s this little thing called Photoshop. Maybe you’ve heard of it. You bring in pictures of you from when you were a kid, and if you need to add the other members of the family – ta da! Just like magic! ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/34 "2015-01-19T00:03:10Z")
> [@Damfino](#): > > The introductory scene to \*The Persuaders \* tv series featured Roger Moore’s son as the young Brett Sinclair . On the other hand, the photos of Tony Curtis as a kid in NYC and a sailor in the US Navy were 100% genuine. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/35 "2015-01-19T02:49:46Z")
Liza Minnelli played Judy Garland’s daughter in the final shot of **In the Good Old Summertime** ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/36 "2015-01-19T04:34:11Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Won’t that cost a lot of money in royalties, legal fees drafting the contracts? Not if the movie being used belongs to the same people. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/37 "2015-01-19T13:00:08Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Not if the movie being used belongs to the same people. You’d be surprised. I used to work for a major Hollywood studio, in their interactive division. We had to pay licensing fees to the movie side of the company when we made a game based on one of their properties. Lots of money gets moved from one pocket to the other. Still comes out of your production budget. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/38 "2015-01-19T13:40:41Z")
I really enjoy the opening sequence of the TV show Parenthood, which includes what I assume must be actual childhood photos and home movies of the four actors who play the Braverman siblings. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/39 "2015-01-25T06:43:32Z")
> [@Crotalus](#): > > I really enjoy the opening sequence of the TV show Parenthood, which includes what I assume must be actual childhood photos and home movies of the four actors who play the Braverman siblings. The pictures of Carrie as a young girl in the Homeland opening are actual pictures of Claire Danes as a child. ---
**Author:** ![chiquitita](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@chiquitita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiquitita)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078/40 "2015-01-25T20:43:53Z")
In Jim Jarmusch’s _Ghost Dog_, the eponymous character is played by Forest Whitaker. In a flashback, his younger self is played by Forest’s son, Damon Whitaker, who looks a lot like his dad, minus the drooping eyelid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-they-get-the-pictures-of-characters-in-movies/710078.md?page=3)