Actors who played teenagers way past their expiration date

Olivia Newton-John (30) and John Travolta (20's)"Grease"; Lorna "Grease 2" Luft (29); Sissy Spacek in "Carrie" (26)...

http://cineplex.media.baselineresearch.com/images/126961/126961_large.jpg

Sissy was believable as a teen though, both in Carrie and Coal Miner's Daughter. I thought in Grease the ridiculous ages were intentional.
Wasn't Gabrielle Carteris in her FORTIES when she was cast in "Beverly Hills 90210"???
The entire cast of "Glee" owns this thread.
Sugar
Ann-Margret in BYE BYE BIRDIE playing a sixteen year old. However, the movie was a hit and it made her a star.
She wasn't quite that old, r2. Born in 1961, she was still technically in her 20s when cast and in her 30s during the series run. Old to be playing a teen but she was more believable to me than Luke Perry with his wrinkled face and receding hairline.
Ralph Macchio owns this thread. Karate Kid (23) Karate Kid II (25) Karate Kid III (28)
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Cory Monteith - Glee Stockard Channing - Grease (she was even older than ONJ) Minka Kelly - Friday Night Lights Anyone on 90210
Norma Shearer, 34, playing Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" (1936). Leslie Howard was 43 playing Romeo.
Dennis Day. Doris Day. New Year's Day....
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R9 Have you forgotten what day it IS?
S. Valentine
Diana Ross in "The Wiz." I guess she wasn't supposed to be a teenager in the movie, but the original character certainly was.
Diana Ross (34) playing a teenage Dorothy in "The Wiz"
Of course, r10, ST. VALENTINE'S DAY, YAY!
Mo (short for Mohammed)
OP you mention Olivia & Travolta in Grease, but wasn't Stockard Channing in her 40s when she played Rizzo?
Kenickie
Diana was not playing a teenager in "The Wiz." They changed it to a shy schoolteacher. Stupid idea, but she doesn't fit into this thread. My pick would be the guy who played Patty Lane's boyfriend Richard on the Patty Duke show. He was thirty-two when the show ended.
R8 wins
Madonna in the Papa Don't Preach video.
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Henry Winkler in "Happy Days" - was supposed to be 'right out of high school' in the early years, but he looked 35.
Michael J Fox was 24 when he started the Back to the Future pictures.
r18, maybe he played some retard kid who flunked alot of grades. I could imagine a misbehaving Henry in 9th grade at cute age of 25 still getting whacked with the principal's paddle.
anonymous
R15, but he was a cutie. I always thought he was adorable when I was gayling.
In the 1952 film "Member of the Wedding", Barbara Harris reprised her stage role as a gawky 12-year-old girl. She was 26, playing a 12-year-old in a movie! That's up there with Norma Shearer playing a 14-year-old.
"In the 1952 film "Member of the Wedding", Barbara Harris reprised her stage role as a gawky 12-year-old girl. She was 26, playing a 12-year-old in a movie! That's up there with Norma Shearer playing a 14-year-old." I guess you mean JULIE Harris. God knows she's a talented actress, but I never bought her for a moment as a 12 or 13 year old. Frankie was supposed to be tall for her age, but Harris looked nothing like a 12/13 year old. In fact, in the movie she looks like a grown woman with a bad haircut. When she says the lines that are supposed to be coming from the mouth of a 12 year old child it sounds ridiculous. She comes across as a mentally disturbed woman rather than a child. Winona Ryder was 27 when she played Susanna Kaysen, a 12 year old. She looked and sounded the part; played neurotic teenagers was her forte. She never stopped sounding like a teenager. She's in her early forties now; she looks oddly like an old teenager.
Bianca Lawson spent almost 20 years playing teenagers. She does look younger than her age, but on Pretty Little Liars, she wasn't believable playing a 17 or 18 year old girl.
Minka Kelly as Lila Garrity. The girl playing the coach's daughter and the new quarterback both looked like they could be in HS. Minka looked more sophisticated.
Stockyard Channing owns this thread. She looks middle aged in Grease.
On Friday Nigh Lights, Scott Porter looked too old to play a teen. The actress who played Smash's girlfriend in the first season was in her early 30s at the time and she looked younger than Minka, Scott, and Taylor Kitsch.
Linda Darnell? I don't really know who she is but it sounded like a good answer.
I think the John Hughes teen movies were very guilty of this, and the issue was highlighted by the mixed casting. The authentic teens made you notice the older actors all the more. In Sixteen Candles, Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall seemed more "real" because they were actual teenagers. In Some Kind of Wonderful, the actress playing Eric Stoltz's teenage sister was one of my favorite parts of the movie because she was obviously right on the money for that role.
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47-year-old Mary Martin as Peter Pan. Do I win?
In La Strada the actress, whose name escapes me, Fellini's wife anyway, is obviously well into her 30s and playing a girl barely out of childhood. You never believe she's that young, she just seems special.
The one that comes to mind is the Datalounge webmaster every time he starts a thread with " I'm a 23 year old student".
"Winona Ryder was 27 when she played Susanna Kaysen, a 12 year old." Oops! She was playing a 17 year old. Sorry for the typo.
Just about the entire casts of [italic]Beverly Hills 90210[/italic] and [italic]Glee[/italic].
"Madonna in the Papa Don't Preach video." Or Pat Benatar in Love is a Battlefield
Celia Keenan-Bolger in everything and the cast of Newsies.
Broadway thread
Newsies...yum...can you just imagine how much cum the janitor has to clean off the men's dressing room floor after that show?
I was already in menopause by the last season!
Gabrielle Cateris
Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes. Ashley was supposed to be around 19 or so. Leslie was 48.
Jesse eisenberg playing 19yr old mark zuckerberg,He was 26 at the time.
Gabrielle Union (27) in Bring It On
R14, Stockard Channing wa thirty when she played Rizzo, I believe.
Stacey Dash - 28 playing 16ish in the "Clueless" movie. She was 32 when "Clueless" the tv series ended.
The guys from Brideshead. Anthony Andrews often seems 30-something (he was) and sometimes seems 18 (he was supposed to be).
R42, she was 33 during filming and 34 when it was released.
The actress who played teen-aged Angela in BOY MEETS WORLD was a 28 married mother of 3 by the time the show ended.
Mia
On that same token, R46, Jason Earles was 29 when cast as Miley Cyrus' 16-year-old brother in HANNAH MONTANA. He was 34 when it went off the air, still playing 16 'cause the characters never aged.
Not a teenager but Judy Garland in A Star Is Born. I couldn't buy her as an ingenue. She looked like a middle aged woman who lived a hard life.
Eldergay thread.
R49 Asshole reply
There is nothing in the screenplay of A Star Is Born that tells us Judy Garland's character is trying to pass herself off as an ingenue. When we first meet her, if you remember correctly r48, she is singing torch songs in a depressing saloon. Of course, when we FIRST meet her, she's just part of the stage entertainment at the Hollywood premiere, but still......... And if it matters, in the original A Star Born filmed with Janet Gaynor in 1937, she ain't no spring chicken either. So for whatever reason, her middle-age seems to be a part of the character.
But R50, nothing in this thread is of interest to anyone under the age of 50 (minimum).
[quote]But [R50], nothing in this thread is of interest to anyone under the age of 50 (minimum). I'm well under fifty and I'm hugely interested in this thread. You're just an asshole.
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[quote]I'm well under fifty and I'm hugely interested in this thread. 47 isn't "well under," hunty.
I don't understand how this just an eldergay discussion. They've been casting twentysomethings/thirtysomethings as teenagers or kids since the dawn of film (i.e. 28-year-old Mary Pickford playing a tween Pollyanna) and it's still happening now (i.e. 27-year-old Corey Monteith and Mark Salling as high school sophomores on GLEE), so it's a timeless tradition.
Leonardo di caprio
Nick Nolti playing 18 when he was 35 on Rich Man Poor Man.
[R55] Good points, it is a timeless tradition and it going to continue in the industry. Child labor laws are a huge part of why, 20 somethings or 30 somethings are cast as a teenagers in movies or shows. Studios and networks hate being limited in filming time because of actors. An actor over the age of 18 or an emancipated minor can work at any time. I used to see people whining about casting practices for teen roles on the IMDB boards, quite a bit. I remember checking out those boards during the first season of Glee and some IMDB posters whined about it and others wisely pointed out that FOX had to cast over 18 actors because of the shooting schedules. Another annoying IMDB poster whined on the Friday Night Lights boards after someone pointed out that a 28 year old was playing one of the East Dillon Lion players. That poster whined about how that revelation turned her off from the show. It was hilarious when other posters also pointed out that some of the original teen characters were played by 20 somethings.
Vic Morrow (25) and Sidney Poitier (27) in Blackboard Jungle. Ironically, Anne Francis (24) played the wife of 37-year old Glenn Ford Richard Crenna (26) in Our Miss Brooks
Thirty-eight year old Red Buttons playing a 19- or 20-year old GI in Sayonara, Yes, I know he won an Oscar. And yes in the movie, his character's age isn't mentioned. But in the novel ...
I don't know how old william Holden was in Picnic, but e looked 45 and was supposed to be playing a guy in his early 20's. He looked old enough to be Kim Novak's father.
Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! The ENTIRE cast of "Welcome Back Kotter" Also, Judy Garland was too old to be Dorothy (there, its been said!) And Barbara Streisand in Yentl was ludicrous casting in every single way, including age.
[quote]I don't know how old william Holden was in Picnic, but e looked 45 and was supposed to be playing a guy in his early 20's. He looked old enough to be Kim Novak's father. I'm not sure how true this is, but: of all people, Jennifer Jones wanted Kim Novak's role in "Picnic". And had her husband, David O. Selznick tell the director, Josh Logan that she'd be perfect for the part. [quote]Also, Judy Garland was too old to be Dorothy (there, its been said!) You could get an onslaught of nasty responses for that, R62.
Sort of on topic: In the new movie THE COMPANY YOU KEEP, the ages are all screwy. Robert Redford and Susan Sarandon play radicals from the 1970s but they both have either grammar or high school kids. Seemed odd, but not out of the realm of possibility. And then they meet up with other friends their age: Richard Jenkins, Nick Notle, Julie Christie. All along the same age as Redford and Sarandon. Then they show the cop that investigated one of the crimes of the group, and it's...Brendan Gleason. Brendan Gleason? Madeye Moody from Harry Potter? Maybe Maggie Smith or Michael Gambon as the cop, but Gleason is at least 20 years younger than any of the actors mentioned above. Now back to your regularly scheduled post.
Avigdor%2C%20Wait.