Examples:
Hugh Connor played the young Daniel Day-Lewis in “My Left Foot”
Gaby Hoffman played the young Demi Moore in “Now and Then”
Can you name some more films in which a fairly well-known young actor plays a role for part of a film, and gives way to a fairly well known older actor later?
Freddy Bartholomew played **David Copperfield **as a boy, with Frank Lawton playing him as a man. The movie made Bartholomew in to a major star.
A bunch of actresses played the older versions of the characters in A League of Their Own. I actually liked the fact they sued older actresses instead of putting the stars in old age makeup.
I dislike it when the two actors don’t look a thing alike. That’s one of my pet peeves, along with people in films still wearing underwear during sex. Of all the people I’ve known for years and years, not one looks THAT unrecognizable from earlier days.
Ewan MacGregor and Albert Finney played younger and older versions of the same guy in Big Fish.
Darn you. Stole my answer.
Ryan Gosling plays a young James Garner and Rachel McAdams plays a young Gena Rowlands in The Notebook.
In the movie Tous les matins du monde, Gérard Depardieu plays an older Marin Marais while his son, Guillaume, plays the same character at a younger age.
Are there other examples of father-son, mother-daughter pairs tackling the same role?
River Pheonix and Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
In the mini series the Count of Monte Cristo Gerard Depardeiu played Edmond Dantes. His younger self for the origin flashback was played by Guilliame Depardeiu, his son. (His daughter is also in it as Valentin).
Tom Hanks and Dabbs Greer in “The Green Mile.” Well, I think Greer was a fairly well-known face, if not name.
Sir Rhosis
In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, there were many Spocks at a variety of ages, in addition to “original” Spock.
As listed on Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki:
And in the upcoming Star Trek movie, Zachary Quinto will be younger Spock and Leonard Nimoy will be older Spock.
(The word Spock stops sounding real in about five repetitions.)
In Once upon a Time in America Jennifer Connelly and Elizabeth McGovern play the young and adult Deborah.
This probably hardly counts, but in *The Ten Commandments * a three month old Frasier Heston played the infant Moses, while his father Charlton of course went on to play the adult Moses.
If the Godfather Saga/Trilogy each count as a movie, then technically Marlon Brando and Robert DeNiro were both portraying Vito in the same movie. They don’t look all that similar. But I read that Coppola wanted Brando to reprise the role of Vito for the second one, thinking that he could pull it off. (Glad he changed his mind and cast DeNiro.)
Christina Ricci, known from her Addams Family roles, played a young Rosie O’Donnell in the same film.
If you want to count body-switching type films, then you have examples like the two Freaky Friday films (Jodie Foster and Lindsay Lohan playing their mothers inside their, the daughters’, bodies), Fred Savage playing his body-swapped father in Vice Versa, Kirk Cameron playing his body-swapped dad in Like Father Like Son, Charlie Schlatter (although he wasn’t that well-known at the time and indeed may still not be) playing his body-swapped grandfather in 18 Again! and so on.
And if you want to get really esoteric then you have examples like Steve Martin (born 1945) playing the same character played by Lily Tomlin (born 1939) in All of Me and in the same film a younger woman plays Tomlin’s character as well (although since I can’t identify her with certainty from the IMDB listing how well-known she was is debatable).
In the made-for-TV movie Empire Falls , Josh Lucas and Paul Newman played the same character at different times in his life. I appreciated how much they look alike.
Remember the VISA check card commercial where Charlie Sheen is trying to cash a check? The clerk futzes around and around getting approval and when he finally comes back to the counter. Martin Sheen is standing there.
Clerk: You don’t look like your ID photo.
Martin: I did when I came in here.
David Tennant gives way to Peter O’Toole in Casanova.
Luis Bunuel That Obscure Object of Desire had both Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina playing the same character at the same age, despite the fact they didn’t much like each other.
And yet, based on the small sample of people I know who’ve seen the film, it’s only well into the movie that people realize it.
Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me, has Rob Lowe as young #2, and Robert Wagner as old #2.