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Age Inappropriate Casting

What are some examples of people who were too young/old for the roles they were cast for? And did they work or not?

by Anonymousreply 406May 22, 2021 3:56 PM

Stockard Channing was 53 years old when she played high school teen Rizzo in Grease.

by Anonymousreply 1November 28, 2020 4:12 AM

Lol R1 I don’t mind though. She was my favorite part of the movie.

by Anonymousreply 2November 28, 2020 4:13 AM

William Hickey in Prizzi's Honour.

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by Anonymousreply 3November 28, 2020 4:13 AM

Sally Field as Mary Lincoln

by Anonymousreply 4November 28, 2020 4:15 AM

Robert Redford as a love interest to Kristin Scott Thomas in The Horse Whisperer.

by Anonymousreply 5November 28, 2020 4:15 AM

Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle was a good 20 years too young for her role as a bored housewife.

by Anonymousreply 6November 28, 2020 4:15 AM

Armie in anything. Bitch looks old.

by Anonymousreply 7November 28, 2020 4:15 AM

John Amos was only 8 years older than JJ and 19 years younger than Florida on Good Times, and it worked perfectly.

by Anonymousreply 8November 28, 2020 4:15 AM

16 year old Sarah Michelle Gellar played Susan Lucci’s 23 year old daughter on All My Children and stole every scene out from under her, and then won an Emmy 4 years before Susan won one.

by Anonymousreply 9November 28, 2020 4:15 AM

I’m sure you are exaggerating r1 , but for the record she was 33.

by Anonymousreply 10November 28, 2020 4:16 AM

3/4 of the 90210 cast.

by Anonymousreply 11November 28, 2020 4:17 AM

Sherman Hemsley was 21 years younger than Isabel Sanford. Very believable.

by Anonymousreply 12November 28, 2020 4:17 AM

37 year old Vanessa Redgrave as a young student at Oxford. She got away with it though, didn't she?

This is Vanessa's young and innocent expression.

I think she could pass for 20 actually.

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by Anonymousreply 13November 28, 2020 4:17 AM

The wooden bitch in the queens gambit can’t pass for a teen.

by Anonymousreply 14November 28, 2020 4:18 AM

I have never been able to wrap my brain around Leslie Howard as Ashley in Gone with the Wind.

by Anonymousreply 15November 28, 2020 4:20 AM

Stephanie Beacham was only 37 in season 1 of The Colbys, which was only 5 years older than her daughter on the show and 11 years older than her son on the show. They tried to make her look older. Then they de-aged her on Dynasty a few years ago when they had her get knocked up by Dex.

She was still the best part of The Colbys and of season 9 of Dynasty in spite of her character being age-fluid.

by Anonymousreply 16November 28, 2020 4:20 AM

R10 there were worse things she could do.

by Anonymousreply 17November 28, 2020 4:21 AM

Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy. Bitch was nearly 50 when she became a first time mother. A young, wacky housewife she was not.

by Anonymousreply 18November 28, 2020 4:23 AM

Did anyone see The Morning Show? I thought Reese Witherspoon was 10 years too old. The character was mentioned as 40, but I suspect she was written much younger, then the age changed to 40 once Reese signed on.

by Anonymousreply 19November 28, 2020 4:24 AM

Meredith Baxter and Michael Gross were born on the exact same day and are only 14 years older than Michael J. Fox. Why mess with success in this case?

by Anonymousreply 20November 28, 2020 4:25 AM

80 year old Ahhhndrea Zuckerman.

by Anonymousreply 21November 28, 2020 4:30 AM

Who can forget foolish ingenue Christina Crawford attempting to replicate her mother’s success on The Secret Storm?

by Anonymousreply 22November 28, 2020 4:33 AM

Dorothy Zbornak’s son and daughter both looked like they were 30-35 years old and the tall ass bitch supposedly got knocked up at 17 years old, wtf.

by Anonymousreply 23November 28, 2020 4:33 AM

Armie looked like a pedophile in Call Me By Your Name

by Anonymousreply 24November 28, 2020 4:34 AM

G in Hillbilly Elegy, apparently playing a 50ish woman, but is really 73!

by Anonymousreply 25November 28, 2020 4:35 AM

R25 Most 50 year old hillbillie women can pass for 70 plus years old. Brilliant casting, Sit your flat ass down M.

by Anonymousreply 26November 28, 2020 4:38 AM

Kathleen Turner was 32 when she was cast in the DL classic PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED. She so solidly plays the part that she can reasonably pass as a teenager as well as a grown women. She's even amazing with Coppola's awkward daughter, who for once was perfectly cast as her awkward kid sister. Great performance, great film.

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by Anonymousreply 27November 28, 2020 4:44 AM

R24 I'm gonna go you better. Armie made a 24yr old character look 32, and Timothy Chalamet was 20 playing 17 but looking 14.

by Anonymousreply 28November 28, 2020 4:44 AM

Armie's going to be brought into everything forevermore, isn't he?

by Anonymousreply 29November 28, 2020 4:46 AM

R28 Oh how generous of you, bitch looked 38.

by Anonymousreply 30November 28, 2020 4:47 AM

Armie trolls ruin everything.

by Anonymousreply 31November 28, 2020 4:47 AM

Kirsten Dunst was about 23 trying to pass as 14 year old Marie Antoinette in Sofia’s film, but she didn’t.

by Anonymousreply 32November 28, 2020 5:02 AM

In his last Bond film, Roger Moore was FIFTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD, playing actino scenes and having twenty-somethings act like he's a hot piece of ass.

And with all the tanning he'd done, he looked more like sixty-five or seventy.

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by Anonymousreply 33November 28, 2020 5:02 AM

I couldn’t even tell their was an age difference, maybe cast an actor that does not look old as shit for their age.

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by Anonymousreply 34November 28, 2020 5:07 AM

The older daughter in Poltergeist. Not really a casting mistake but a script mistake. They she is 16 and the mother is 34 I believe. So she was a teenage mom? That goes against everything the movie was trying to paint about the typical suburban family.

by Anonymousreply 35November 28, 2020 5:08 AM

R23 and weren’t she and Rose supposed to be 55 when the show started? Mmmmkay.

But he was still hot r33.

by Anonymousreply 36November 28, 2020 5:14 AM

R27 I love that movie.

by Anonymousreply 37November 28, 2020 5:19 AM

R33 is that A View to A Kill? What a delightful disaster that movie is.

by Anonymousreply 38November 28, 2020 5:21 AM

In Alexander, Angelina Jolie (born 1975) played Colin Farrell (born 1976)’s mother.

by Anonymousreply 39November 28, 2020 5:25 AM

Pretty Little Liars is the winner in the TV category for this thread with ages all over the map.

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by Anonymousreply 40November 28, 2020 5:27 AM

Angela Lansbury got an Oscar nomination playing the mother of Laurence Harvey in [italic]The Manchurian Candidate[/italic] when she was only three years older than he was!

by Anonymousreply 41November 28, 2020 5:28 AM

Judy Davis was cast to play older Judy Garland in Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. When she found out that she was going to play Judy as young as Meet Me In St. Louis her response was "How far back can you get the camera?" Judy Davis was 46 playing Judy Garland at 22 portraying a character that was 16/17. Watch the comparison below starting at 1:11

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by Anonymousreply 42November 28, 2020 5:31 AM

R35 Most ladies had babies very going in 1965.

by Anonymousreply 43November 28, 2020 5:32 AM

"Kirsten Dunst was about 23 trying to pass as 14 year old Marie Antoinette in Sofia’s film, but she didn’t."

She was only supposed to be a teen in the early scenes, in the later parts of the movie she was playing older. I believe her more as Marie Antoinette than 35-year-old Norma Shearer in the 1938 film

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by Anonymousreply 44November 28, 2020 5:33 AM

He WAS a hot piece of ass.

by Anonymousreply 45November 28, 2020 5:33 AM

I think I'm wrong then with my math r43. They must say the mother is 32. I know it stands out that she would have been a teenage mother.

by Anonymousreply 46November 28, 2020 5:35 AM

R41 didn’t Harvey go on to fuck Lansbury look alike Hermione Baddeley.

by Anonymousreply 47November 28, 2020 5:35 AM

Maureen Stapleton was convincing as Dick Van Dyke's mom in Bye Bye Birdie even though they were roughly the same age. She wore a grey wig.

by Anonymousreply 48November 28, 2020 5:42 AM

"American movie star and sex symbol Marlo Manners," played by Mae West, on her honeymoon with Timothy Dalton in "Sextette" She was 84. EIGHTY-FOUR!!!

Timothy Dalton had mixed feelings about the film, but complimented West. "I admired her nerve, and enjoyed working with her - I was even interviewed by Rona Barrett in the picture! It was a real stretch for me, and, frankly, after making love to a woman in her mid-80s, I knew I could handle any assignment!"

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by Anonymousreply 49November 28, 2020 5:50 AM

Suzanne Somers as as teenage Suzanne Somers in her biopic TV movie.

by Anonymousreply 50November 28, 2020 6:06 AM

Yeah, you’re right. I remember thinking it was weird too.

by Anonymousreply 51November 28, 2020 6:08 AM

At 33, Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was fifteen years too young for the part. The unsuccessful ‘aging’ make up, which included crows feet drawn on her face with what looked like an eyebrow pencil, didn’t help.

by Anonymousreply 52November 28, 2020 6:22 AM

All guest stars on the Love Boat. I said this in the other thread, but Nanette Fabray was 60 when she played a woman who discovers she's pregnant on the cruise. There are many, many others.

by Anonymousreply 53November 28, 2020 1:03 PM

59 year old Cary Grant as 33 year old Audrey Hepburn's love interest in Charade. Grant initially turned down the part because he felt he was too old.

by Anonymousreply 54November 28, 2020 1:09 PM

54-year-old Glenn Close playing Nellie Forbush in South Pacific owns this thread.

by Anonymousreply 55November 28, 2020 1:20 PM

Lucy was 40 looked younger and was in reality pregnant. You're an idiot.

by Anonymousreply 56November 28, 2020 1:35 PM

r54, if you're going to count leading men who are old enough to be the fathers/grandfathers of their leading ladies, that's most of the history of the performing arts right there.

by Anonymousreply 57November 28, 2020 2:06 PM

Mrs. Mondello on Leave it to Beaver.

by Anonymousreply 58November 28, 2020 2:28 PM

Rachael Griffiths as Johnny Depp's mother in Blow.

by Anonymousreply 59November 28, 2020 2:50 PM

Lucy. Mame.

She was 63.

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by Anonymousreply 60November 28, 2020 4:05 PM

Barbra. Dolly.

She was 27.

While Lucy was too old for Mame and Barbra too young for Dolly, both movies are fun and really hold up.

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by Anonymousreply 61November 28, 2020 4:13 PM

I love certain aspects of "Funny Face," but Audrey Hepburn + Fred Astaire =/= a believable love match in the least. At least Buddy Ebsen made sense as hillbilly child bride Holly's husband.

Audrey H. had a long parade of age-inappropriate costars as her romantic interests, some more plausible than others. FA was the biggest & worst stretch of the imagination compared to the rest.

by Anonymousreply 62November 28, 2020 4:55 PM

Humphrey Bogart came across like her dad in Sabrina

by Anonymousreply 63November 28, 2020 5:55 PM

Bea and Betty were 63 when golden girls started, I don’t think it was that unusual they were playing 55 year old women in 1985.

by Anonymousreply 64November 28, 2020 6:13 PM

Any young starlet they put in the role of a nuclear physicist or other scientist/academic. So stupid. Get Glenn Close or Dianne Wiest FFS.

by Anonymousreply 65November 28, 2020 6:32 PM

R65, why does it have to be a white biddy?

by Anonymousreply 66November 28, 2020 6:38 PM

A then 43 year old Meryl Streep as the 18 year old Clara in The House of the Spirits owns this thread.

by Anonymousreply 67November 28, 2020 7:06 PM

Lol, R33 and R38.

I remember my friend at the time being so excited to see A View, but I never cared for Bond films. I went anyway, and 36 years later the only things I remember are Grace Jones's pubes poking out of her swimsuit and Tanya Roberts in a helicopter.

And three days or so after seeing the film, after spring finals, I had a thing with our state's schools' French teachers I'd volunteered for (through my French professor), where they asked me questions and I answered, all conversationally. After 36 years all I remember is them asking how the movie ended, and (remember, I don't care for Bond films) I just rolled my eyes, sighed and said "Il est reussi, comme toujours!" The French teachers collapsed in laughter, and I headed home.

by Anonymousreply 68November 28, 2020 7:19 PM

The first one of you who mentions my name gets my foot up your ass.

by Anonymousreply 69November 28, 2020 7:19 PM

Joan Fontaine as a teen girl in Letter From an Unknown Woman

by Anonymousreply 70November 28, 2020 8:33 PM

Everytime they cast Tammy "AARP" Cruise in an action movie!

by Anonymousreply 71November 28, 2020 8:36 PM

Kevin Spacey as Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea

by Anonymousreply 72November 28, 2020 8:46 PM

[quote] I'm gonna go you better

Oh, dear R28

by Anonymousreply 73November 28, 2020 8:49 PM

The BBC's The Trial Of Christine Keeler really fucked up the casting.

Keeler was 18/19 for most of the story, and she was played by 29 year old Sophie Cookson. Keeler's pimp Stephen Ward (50) was played by James Norton. 36.

Individually the performances were fine, but trying to convey the creepiness of a 30 year age gap between a rich older man and a naive young woman just didn't work. When Joanne Whalley and John Hurt played the roles in Scandal, Whalley was 10 years older than Keeler but John Hurt was the same age as Ward.

by Anonymousreply 74November 28, 2020 9:08 PM

R68 lol, you sound fun.

by Anonymousreply 75November 28, 2020 9:12 PM

Maggie Smith in the earlier part of Travels with my Aunt. Oh those pigtails. Cringe.

by Anonymousreply 76November 28, 2020 9:13 PM

R62 I'm gonna say "Love in the Afternoon" was even worse. I love the film but Gary Cooper was almost dead and looked it-she looked 16.

by Anonymousreply 77November 28, 2020 9:33 PM

R74, I felt the same way about the recent version of Rebecca - you don't really feel the power imbalance when Max and Mrs de Winter are close in age. He's supposed to be old enough to be her dad.

by Anonymousreply 78November 28, 2020 10:18 PM

The leads in he original Broadway cast of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.

by Anonymousreply 79November 28, 2020 10:40 PM

Jennifer Lawrence as Joy Mangano in Joy.

by Anonymousreply 80November 28, 2020 10:43 PM

I read the book and don't remember much of the movie, but I though Meryl was miscast as the Carrie Fisher character in Postcards from the Edge. Not young and cute enough, IMO.

by Anonymousreply 81November 28, 2020 10:47 PM

Mary Martin was 46 when she played youthful postulant Maria Rainer in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Her leading man, Theodore Bikel was 35. The wise Mother Superior, Patricia Neway was only 40

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by Anonymousreply 82November 28, 2020 11:17 PM

"Mary Martin was 46 when she played youthful postulant Maria Rainer in THE SOUND OF MUSIC"

Yeah, well she was 37 when she played Peter Pan on national TV, and he's supposed to be about 12.

by Anonymousreply 83November 28, 2020 11:37 PM

Mamma Mia - the Meryl Streep character was supposed to have gotten knocked up when she was young and dumb but she would have been 35+ when Amanda Seyfried was born

by Anonymousreply 84November 28, 2020 11:59 PM

Jeanette Nolan as Rock Hudson's mother in Avalanche

by Anonymousreply 85November 29, 2020 12:44 AM

Gene Kelly as a 40-year-old "struggling young artist" in An American in Paris, paired with a 19-year-old Leslie Caron

by Anonymousreply 86November 29, 2020 12:46 AM

[quote]Barbra. Dolly. She was 27.

Barbra was years too young to play the widowed Dolly Levi, but the overblown movie would have been deadly without her to bring it to life. So, yes, the casting worked.

by Anonymousreply 87November 29, 2020 12:59 AM

[quote]Mary Martin was 46 when she played youthful postulant Maria Rainer in THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

[quote]Yeah, well she was 37 when she played Peter Pan on national TV, and he's supposed to be about 12.

She was actually 43 the first time she played Peter Pan on television in 1955. But Peter Pan is also not supposed to have tits, so why quibble about age?

by Anonymousreply 88November 29, 2020 1:04 AM

Andrea McCardle in the original cast reunion of Annie.

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by Anonymousreply 89November 29, 2020 1:07 AM

R39. Ah, Angelina Jolie as Alexander's mother, Olympia. Not only was she the same age as her son, she spoke in a Romanian accent a la Dracula.

by Anonymousreply 90November 29, 2020 1:55 AM

Every time Titanic is on TV my mother says she looks too old for him.

by Anonymousreply 91November 29, 2020 4:08 AM

Leo is actually older than Kate.....he just looked like a 14-year-old lesbian and she looked like a 20-something woman

by Anonymousreply 92November 29, 2020 4:10 AM

I can remember when Leo first appeared on Growing Pains. I was like is that a boy or a girl?

by Anonymousreply 93November 29, 2020 4:15 AM

R91 Leo is older though? Kate was just frumpy dumpy.

by Anonymousreply 94November 29, 2020 4:20 AM

I could live with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade because he was - Cary Grant. I could live with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina because he was - Humphrey Bogart. But what I could never stand or could force myself to imagine working was Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn in Love In The Afternoon.

by Anonymousreply 95November 29, 2020 4:39 AM

R94 Please, Kate is the anthesis of dumpy in Titanic.

by Anonymousreply 96November 29, 2020 4:43 AM

Well I spelled that word wrong. Kate is opposite of frumpy dumpy I meant.

by Anonymousreply 97November 29, 2020 4:44 AM

Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook & American Hustle - too young.

by Anonymousreply 98November 29, 2020 4:50 AM

Yeah in the book Silver Linings Playbook the woman is actually like 10 years older than the man. That is why he is repelled when she starts stalking him basically. Having a 20ish Jennifer Lawrence stalk a recently dumped guy made no sense. Most guys would be happy to be stalked by Jennifer Lawrence.

In the book he has to get to know her and finds a connection in their suffering.

by Anonymousreply 99November 29, 2020 4:52 AM

Fred Astaire in Funny Face was Grandpa Old but chasing 20-something Audrey.

Yikes.

by Anonymousreply 100November 29, 2020 4:54 AM

Wasn’t Renee many years past Judy’s death age when she starred in the movie?

by Anonymousreply 101November 29, 2020 4:56 AM

Renee actually looked younger than Judy to me. Judy looked 60 when she was 40

by Anonymousreply 102November 29, 2020 4:59 AM

I'm not saying Renee was all that great in JUDY, but you kinda root for her as she too was making a comeback. It worked. Well enough.

by Anonymousreply 103November 29, 2020 5:02 AM

Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard playing horny teens in Romeo and Juliet. They were 34 and 43

THREAD CLOSED.

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by Anonymousreply 104November 29, 2020 5:08 AM

They look like Romeo and Juliet's grandparents

by Anonymousreply 105November 29, 2020 5:17 AM

[quote] Kathleen Turner was 32 when she was cast in the DL classic PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED. She so solidly plays the part that she can reasonably pass as a teenager as well as a grown women. She's even amazing with Coppola's awkward daughter, who for once was perfectly cast as her awkward kid sister. Great performance, great film.

People kept commenting at the time that she looked too old to be a teenager — but she didn’t need to look like a teenager, she’s playing a woman in her 30s who goes back in time to relive her high school years. It was fine for the audience to see her as a woman while the people in the movie saw her as a girl..

by Anonymousreply 106November 29, 2020 5:29 AM

Emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility. Bitch, please.

by Anonymousreply 107November 29, 2020 5:33 AM

R106 Yes the suspension of disbelief worked. Actually, that's what made Yentl work as well.. The other characters believed it.

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by Anonymousreply 108November 29, 2020 5:36 AM

33 year old cute, perky Sally Field and grouchy. worn out 60 year old James Garner, Murphy's Romance.

by Anonymousreply 109November 29, 2020 5:47 AM

I think Lawrence worked in SLP. She could have married at 17 or whatever, they were tacky people. The Oscars think she worked too.

by Anonymousreply 110November 29, 2020 5:50 AM

She was 39 r109.

by Anonymousreply 111November 29, 2020 5:52 AM

R111 The character was 33.

by Anonymousreply 112November 29, 2020 5:54 AM

[quote] So, yes, the casting worked.

No, it didn't.

Dolly is not only supposed to be middle-aged, but is supposed to be an Irish-American woman who married a Jewish man and then survived him.

by Anonymousreply 113November 29, 2020 5:54 AM

oh ok r112

(oh vain of Sally. Who does she think she is CZJ?)

by Anonymousreply 114November 29, 2020 5:56 AM

Florence Pugh as young Amy in Gerwig’s Little Women. Wtf.

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by Anonymousreply 115November 29, 2020 8:01 AM

Ann Margret in Bye Bye Birdie looked like she could smother Bobby Rydell.

by Anonymousreply 116November 29, 2020 8:41 AM

Lol Florence Pugh is gross.

by Anonymousreply 117November 29, 2020 8:51 AM

Patricia Bruder and John Colenback as mother/son Ellen and Dan Stewart on As The World Turns mid 60's. John was five years older.

by Anonymousreply 118November 29, 2020 9:17 AM

Julie Andrews in that movie she won an Oscar for. The character she played is supposed to be much, much, much older.

by Anonymousreply 119November 29, 2020 9:37 AM

Entrapment. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery. He was old enough to be her grandpa.

by Anonymousreply 120November 29, 2020 9:37 AM

[quote] Ann Margret in Bye Bye Birdie looked like she could smother Bobby Rydell.

Along those same lines, who made the call to make Hugo Peabody cuter than Conrad Birdie?

by Anonymousreply 121November 29, 2020 9:42 AM

A 49-year-old Madonna playing Eva Peron, who was only 32 when she died.

Babs as Yentl, the yeshiva boy. She'd have been more successful turning it into gay porn and calling it, "Bentl, the yeshiva boi" with Avigdor as his dom daddy top.

by Anonymousreply 122November 29, 2020 9:43 AM

Oh Madonna wasn’t that old in 95/96. Is that a joke?

by Anonymousreply 123November 29, 2020 9:54 AM

Babs was more convincing as a middle-aged yenta than as a teenage boy.

by Anonymousreply 124November 29, 2020 10:04 AM

Michel Lucas starring in his own movies.

by Anonymousreply 125November 29, 2020 10:09 AM

Ricky Schroder after his 18th birthday

by Anonymousreply 126November 29, 2020 10:14 AM

Entrapment. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery. He was old enough to be her grandpa.

Great, great, great grandpa, thankyou!

by Anonymousreply 127November 29, 2020 11:04 AM

I don’t get the Flo Pugh love. I thought she was way too hammy and contemporary in Little Women. Watching her boss fey Timmy around made it look like a lavender marriage.

by Anonymousreply 128November 29, 2020 12:35 PM

Diana fucking Ross in "The Wiz".

by Anonymousreply 129November 29, 2020 12:58 PM

Her advanced age was not the only thing wrong with that movie. Sidney Lumet’s surprisingly poor pacing and insistence on covering the dancers from the cheap seats does not help matters much.

by Anonymousreply 130November 29, 2020 1:03 PM

I think Barbra used the fact that she was too young to play Dolly as a justification for being able to play Yentl. In the same way there are carbon offset, she had banked years from playing too young, so in cinematic terms she was now allowed to be too 9ld, but play the role.

by Anonymousreply 131November 29, 2020 1:09 PM

Glenn Close as Norma Desmond in the upcoming film version -- NO.

Let's think about this: the Swanson film takes place c. 1949. Gloria Swanson was 50 that year, which would have made her 26 in 1925. Let's assume that we transpose the ages -- Glenn Close is now 73. That would make her Norma Desmond 48 in 1925. We are to believe a 48-year-old was a silent-film icon alongside Clara Bow, Lillian Gish, and Louise Brooks? These women were in their 20s (Lillian Gish would have been an elderly 32 in 1925).

I can't suspend my belief to such a degree.

by Anonymousreply 132November 29, 2020 1:19 PM

Yet people will willingly pay to hear you butcher ABBA’s greatest hits.

by Anonymousreply 133November 29, 2020 1:24 PM

Melissa Joan Hart in the Sabrina the Teenage Witch tv series. Was in her thirties, looked it, but we were all supposed to believe that she was sixteen years old anyway.

"Cougars" in tv and movies that are no more than two years older than the "young guy" whom they're trying to seduce, or who is trying to score with them.

Freddie Prince Jr. in teen movies. That era of teen movies was excellent, but he should've been going for older roles because he looked like he was in his early thirties by the year 1999. The same applied to Selma Blair back then.

by Anonymousreply 134November 29, 2020 1:37 PM

r134 Melissa John Hart was born in 1976. The series ran from 1996-2003. Thus, she was 20-27 during its run.

by Anonymousreply 135November 29, 2020 1:40 PM

Mea culpa

by Anonymousreply 136November 29, 2020 1:42 PM

Not one of the Sweathogs looked a day under 25.

by Anonymousreply 137November 29, 2020 1:42 PM

Helen Hunt in "World On Fire." Especially laughable when her young Nazi handler tries to blackmail her into sleeping with him: she with haggard looks, sunken eyes, Botoxx-paralyzed face. He had a mummy fetish, I guess.

by Anonymousreply 138November 29, 2020 1:45 PM

[quote]Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy. Bitch was nearly 50 when she became a first time mother. A young, wacky housewife she was not.

R18 She was 40, and it was her second child. And she looked good.

by Anonymousreply 139November 29, 2020 1:45 PM

James Stewart was 46 when he played 25-year old Lindbergh in The Spirit Of St. Louis. John Kerr turned down the part, Lindbergh wanted Tony Perkins to play him. Stewart eventually got it because he wanted it so bad and for other reasons, he lost weight, dyed his remaining hair blond and wore a blond rug. He didn't exactly pull off looking 25, or even 35, but he was really great anyhow.

by Anonymousreply 140November 29, 2020 1:49 PM

Lucy Ricardo was supposed to be about 10 years younger than Lucille Ball.

by Anonymousreply 141November 29, 2020 3:49 PM

[quote]Dolly is not only supposed to be middle-aged, but is supposed to be an Irish-American woman who married a Jewish man and then survived him.

Maybe that's why all references to Dolly's maiden name as Gallagher were dropped from the movie, you yucklehead. Whatever Thornton Wilder's reasons for making Dolly Irish in "The Matchmaker," her ethnicity is hardly a major plot point in "Hello, Dolly!" Not even on stage, where Pearl Bailey seemed to do rather well with the role.

by Anonymousreply 142November 29, 2020 3:59 PM

The film Murphy's Romance is literally about an older man and a younger woman falling in love despite their age difference. No one was trying to pass off 39 yo Sally and 56 yo James as contemporaries-although, that's not much of an age difference really.

by Anonymousreply 143November 29, 2020 4:03 PM

[quote]Lucy Ricardo was supposed to be about 10 years younger than Lucille Ball.

Was this really "age inappropriate casting"? At 42, she looked almost the same as she did when she was 32, or 52. for that matter. Desi Arnaz was 6 years younger than her, but he wasn't playing a character 6 years younger than his wife.

This was just pretty normal casting.

by Anonymousreply 144November 29, 2020 4:20 PM

"Florence Pugh as young Amy in Gerwig’s Little Women. Wtf."

She came across way too old in the early scenes - isn't Amy supposed to be 12 when the movie begins? She certainly didn't come across as 12 with that whiskey voice

by Anonymousreply 145November 29, 2020 5:51 PM

Kate Nelligan (born 1950) playing the mother of Nick Nolte (born 1941) in "The Prince Of Tides". Sure, there's a reason they call it "acting", but she's a complete fucking joke in that shitshow of a pile of garbage film. The bad wigs and makeup don't help.

I may actually detest this cunt's "performance" in this film, more than anything Debra Winger turned out.

by Anonymousreply 146November 29, 2020 6:15 PM

Lucille Ball in YOUR, MINE AND OURS. Her character was supposed to be in her thirties and pregnant. But Lucy was fifty-seven.

by Anonymousreply 147November 29, 2020 6:20 PM

A Botoxed-out Nicole Kidman, 47 and looking it, as 32-year-old Princess Grace of Monaco.

by Anonymousreply 148November 29, 2020 6:51 PM

R42 I will never understand why they didn’t have Tammy continue to play young adult Judy.

by Anonymousreply 149November 29, 2020 6:56 PM

Stockard Channing in Grease! She looked like everyone's mother instead of their HS classmate!

by Anonymousreply 150November 29, 2020 7:01 PM

LOL - I just noticed #2 beat me to it. Yep! First person who sprang to mind!

by Anonymousreply 151November 29, 2020 7:02 PM

Jessie Royce Landis was only 7 years old when she gave birth to Cary Grant (NORTH BY NORTHWEST).

Cathleen Nesbitt was about 8 years old when she gave birth to one of Cary Grant's parents, who was 7 when Cary Grant was born (AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER).

Doris Day was a 40 year-old virgin fending off a 58 year-old (Cary Grant) who wanted to nail her (THAT TOUCH OF MINK)

by Anonymousreply 152November 29, 2020 8:07 PM

Mandy Patinkin was hot!!

by Anonymousreply 153November 29, 2020 9:21 PM

Hunky Nick Robinson, though boyishly handsome, is currently playing a seventeen year old who turned 18 on The Teacher, but in real life he is 25 He has sworn that this will be his LAST teen role.

by Anonymousreply 154November 29, 2020 9:26 PM

R148, I really wish they would've given the role of Grace to somebody younger, talented and up-and-coming.

by Anonymousreply 155November 29, 2020 9:35 PM

"Emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility. Bitch, please."

I'm going to defend this one, and the habit of casting all Austen characters with actors who are significantly older than the characters in the books.

Thompson played Eleanor Dashwood, who was 19-21 in the books, which to modern audiences is too young to be getting married, but in Regency times a girl of 20n was edging into old maid-hood and would be urged to find a husband while she still could. In those days, for a girl to hit 20 was like a modern girl hitting 30, so if we want modern audiences to understand an Eleanor Dashwood I'd cast an actress of 30. It's the same for all Austen adaptation, nobody actually casts Lizzie Bennet or Emma Woodhouse with an actress of 20 or 21*, they cast someone around 30. Thompson was 36, which makes her about 5 years too old, not 15.

by Anonymousreply 156November 30, 2020 12:02 AM

Barbara Stanwyck in SORRY WRONG NUMBER. Her flashback scenes as a young college coed and bride were hysterical, since she was forty when she filmed this. Love her, but she looked FORTY. And in the scene when she meets Burt Lancaster at the dance. She says, “Mind if I cut in? It’s an old Spanish custom, the hag line!”. You can say that again. She didn’t even try to look younger.

by Anonymousreply 157November 30, 2020 2:33 AM

[quote] Hunky Nick Robinson, though boyishly handsome, is currently playing a seventeen year old who turned 18 on The Teacher, but in real life he is 25 He has sworn that this will be his LAST teen role.

At least he's eminently less repulsive than Timmeh.

by Anonymousreply 158November 30, 2020 2:35 AM

The younger Jonathan Rhys Meyers playing the older, obese, disgusting Henry VIII.

by Anonymousreply 159November 30, 2020 2:39 AM

Robert Redford as a college boy in The Way We Were, Babs at least looked younger than Redford though she was on the old side for a college character, too

by Anonymousreply 160November 30, 2020 2:45 AM

[quote]Barbara Stanwyck in SORRY WRONG NUMBER. Her flashback scenes as a young college coed and bride were hysterical, since she was forty when she filmed this. Love her, but she looked FORTY. And in the scene when she meets Burt Lancaster at the dance. She says, “Mind if I cut in? It’s an old Spanish custom, the hag line!”. You can say that again. She didn’t even try to look younger.

Yes, this is a good one. I agree. I thought that was absurd.

by Anonymousreply 161November 30, 2020 3:13 AM

A character in Female on the Beach addresses Joan Crawford as "young lady" - she was 50-ish

by Anonymousreply 162November 30, 2020 3:14 AM

Timothy Granarderos (Not sure that's how it's spelled) on 13 Reasons Why. The show just ended, and he just turned 35. He was playing a high school student. He was actually old enough to be the father of the character he was playing. Ross Butler was 30.

by Anonymousreply 163November 30, 2020 3:16 AM

Minka Kelly and Scott Porter on Friday Night Lights. They looked way too old to be in high school

by Anonymousreply 164November 30, 2020 3:18 AM

The character of Hal in "Picnic" was 21 years old. In the movie version he was played by 37 year old William Holden, who looked even older.

The real life character in "Dog Day Afternoon" that was played by John Cazale was 18 years old. John Cazale was 39 years old and he too looked older than his actual age.

by Anonymousreply 165November 30, 2020 3:23 AM

R165 "Hal Carter (William Holden) is a former college football star, adrift and unemployed after army service and a failed acting career in Hollywood."

How can he be only 21? He went to college with Alan, who has already graduated college and is in his father's grain business. Then, as I think Hal says, he joined the Army, and tried Hollywood. I always figured he was about 30.

by Anonymousreply 166November 30, 2020 4:51 AM

Faye at Forty playing late teen Evita Duarte Peron

And she pulls it off

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by Anonymousreply 167November 30, 2020 6:35 AM

Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets. When I see his gnarly old hand on Helen Hunt's back, I cringe.

And basically any romantic French movie not about teenagers.

by Anonymousreply 168November 30, 2020 8:37 AM

Both the male leads in the Audrey Hepburn "Sabrina". Holden was handsome, but even he looked too old for Hepburn. And Bogart just looked like a creepy lecherous grandpa pawing his young granddaughter in his romantic scenes.

Harrison Ford was similarly creepy in the remake but Greg Kinnear at least looked young enough to make his romancing Sabrina not look ludicrous.

by Anonymousreply 169November 30, 2020 8:47 AM

James Stewart paired with Kim Novak in Bell, Book and Candle.

Dustin Hoffman was only a few years younger than Anne Bancroft in The Graduate.

by Anonymousreply 170November 30, 2020 8:50 AM

Woody Allen and Helena Bonham Carter in Mighty Aphrodite.

by Anonymousreply 171November 30, 2020 8:51 AM

R156 Pffft. Keira Knightley was 19.

by Anonymousreply 172November 30, 2020 10:15 AM

Any Robert Redford movie with a way too young female lead: Michelle Pfeiffer, Debra Winger, Kristin Scott Thomas.

by Anonymousreply 173November 30, 2020 11:41 AM

VERTIGO: James Stewart (aged 50) and Barbara Bel Geddes (aged 36) were supposedly "going steady" together in college.

by Anonymousreply 174November 30, 2020 11:48 AM

[quote]Kate Nelligan (born 1950) playing the mother of Nick Nolte (born 1941) in "The Prince Of Tides". Sure, there's a reason they call it "acting", but she's a complete fucking joke in that shitshow of a pile of garbage film. The bad wigs and makeup don't help.

The character Kate Nelligan plays is required to age around 40 years. She was 40 at the time, they made her look younger for the flashback scenes when Nick Nolte's character was 13 and much older older for the modern days scenes. Other than casting 2 different actresses I'm not sure what they could have done.

by Anonymousreply 175November 30, 2020 12:06 PM

Even though there isn't much difference in their ages, Hugh Grant looks like he is in his mid-70s and Nicole Kidman looks no more than 45 in The Undoing. Hugh's horny old goat routine is especially jarring.

by Anonymousreply 176November 30, 2020 12:13 PM

[quote]Even though there isn't much difference in their ages, Hugh Grant looks like he is in his mid-70s and Nicole Kidman looks no more than 45 in The Undoing. Hugh's horny old goat routine is especially jarring.

Watching the final episode now, it does stretch plausibility that someone Hugh Grant's age was able to fuck 2 different women within hours.

by Anonymousreply 177November 30, 2020 12:18 PM

11 year old Kirsten Dunst was far too old to play Claudia in Interview With The Vampire. Rice's Claudia was 5.

by Anonymousreply 178November 30, 2020 12:54 PM

IMITATION OF LIFE (34): Louise Beavers was 3 years old when she gave birth to Fredi Washington.

by Anonymousreply 179November 30, 2020 12:58 PM

r9, what were the casting directors thinking? Something dodgy going on behind ze scenes for sure.

by Anonymousreply 180November 30, 2020 3:21 PM

[quote]Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets. When I see his gnarly old hand on Helen Hunt's back, I cringe.

This is a good one R168. The premise of the story basically works, but Nicholson is 26 years older than her, and he looked it at the time. Same age to slightly older (within 10 years) would have been a lot more believable.

by Anonymousreply 181November 30, 2020 3:34 PM

The 1966 Lincoln Center production of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, dubbed 'Granny Get Your Gun'.

Not only was 58 year old Ethel Merman playing a 20-something Annie Oakley, her leading man, Bruce Yarnell was 30.

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by Anonymousreply 182November 30, 2020 4:51 PM

I haven't seen it (of course) but I gather that G is appearing in some hillbilly movie where she is playing something much too young and pretty for her actual age and appearance.

Makeup can only do so much.

Anyone who cares for her must feel sad for her. Perhaps some member of her family?

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by Anonymousreply 183November 30, 2020 5:17 PM

There has been a dearth of Daddy/Boy porn where there’s nary a 10-15 year age between them, and I for one am outraged about this!

by Anonymousreply 184November 30, 2020 5:27 PM

[quote]R9, what were the casting directors thinking? Something dodgy going on behind ze scenes for sure.

I don't remember the details (perhaps someone else does), but, as I recall, the original intention was for Erica's surprise daughter to be a teenager. Hence the casting of Sarah Michelle Gellar. But apparently the timeline for when Gellar's character was supposedly born was absurd in terms of the show's history, and fans objected, so the character was aged. I also think the writers may have decided to develop storylines for Gellar's character that would have been inappropriate for a teenager.

by Anonymousreply 185November 30, 2020 5:39 PM

r176, Kidman hasn't looked 45 since 1845

by Anonymousreply 186November 30, 2020 5:42 PM

Everyone's always bagging on Kidman, but I think she looks great. Amazing skin, no pillow cheeks or absurd lip filler, enough movement in her forehead. Looks like she's gone back to her roots with the long red corkscrew hair in that tv show.

by Anonymousreply 187November 30, 2020 5:49 PM

How about a 60 + Joan Collins portraying a 20 year old fleeing Nazi occupied France in Sins?!

by Anonymousreply 188November 30, 2020 6:06 PM

Meryl Streep as a thirty something Julia Child trying to get pregnant in JULIE AND JULIA.

by Anonymousreply 189November 30, 2020 6:23 PM

Arlene Francis as an expectant mother in The Thrill of it All

by Anonymousreply 190November 30, 2020 6:30 PM

Maureen O'Sullivan as an expectant mother in "Never Too Late." She was 54. (Her late-in-life pregnancy was the catalyst for the plot.) Arlene Francis was 55 when she played an expectant mother in "The Thrill of It All."

by Anonymousreply 191November 30, 2020 6:49 PM

45-year-old Sarah Bernhardt as Joan of Arc.

by Anonymousreply 192November 30, 2020 7:00 PM

Ingrid Bergman was 33 years old when she portrayed Joan of Arc. Joan was 17 when she lead the army into battle and 19 when she got torched.

by Anonymousreply 193November 30, 2020 7:08 PM

Robert Mitchum in Farewell, My Lovely. I liked him as an actor, but he looked so embarrassed in this to be such a decrepit specimen and supposedly hot for Charlotte Rampling.

by Anonymousreply 194November 30, 2020 7:26 PM

You're stretching the point, R193. The question isn't about age-differential casting. It's about age-inappropriate casting.

Few people know of Jeanne d'Arc's relative youth. Her birth year is a guess, by the way.

As a character in semi-fictional or semi-historical works (e.g. Shakespeare's "Henry VI Part 1") her youth is stressed without a specific age. Attempting to place her as a teenager would represent a dramatic error in most such contexts because a 19-year-old woman in 14th c. France was not the same as a teen who is 19 today. It would be interesting to see someone responsibly attempt it.

Bergman played the innocence, bluster, confusion, stubbornness and conviction quite well, and matured as she went but kept a youthful feeling.

Literalists. Pffft.

by Anonymousreply 195November 30, 2020 7:32 PM

I love that Pola Negri at 52 refused to be considered for the role of Norma Desmond because, at 50, the character of Norma was too old for Pola to portray it convincingly.

Ha!

by Anonymousreply 196November 30, 2020 7:35 PM

Shut up r195. She was still pushing it. Most historians have said that Joan was most likely a teenager. Get off my case. Pedantic prick.

by Anonymousreply 197November 30, 2020 7:41 PM

". I always figured he was about 30."

Hal wasn't 30. Neither was Alan. They were young men in their early twenties. Madge, the love interest, was nineteen. They were all really YOUNG. The character of Hal was that of a vital, rebellious young man who kept moving from place to place. As played by the aging Holden he came across as an old loser drifter. William Holden was a fine actor but he was SO wrong for that role. If James Dean had lived he would have been perfect for it. Or Paul Newman. Somebody young and beautiful.

by Anonymousreply 198November 30, 2020 8:22 PM

[quote]If James Dean had lived he would have been perfect for it. Or Paul Newman. Somebody young and beautiful.

Paul Newman made his Broadway debut in "Picnic," playing Alan, Hal's college friend. Newman eventually took over the role of Hal (played originally by Ralph Meeker).

by Anonymousreply 199November 30, 2020 8:30 PM

R197, I agree. People may not know her EXACT age, but it's pretty clear she wasn't 35.

by Anonymousreply 200November 30, 2020 8:54 PM

R198 I don't know, it was my parents' favorite movie and when they saw it they were in their 20's I guess, so it didn't bother them. I notice that people have started talking about this more recently like, the past ten years. It never used to be an issue. But people are absolutely obsessed with ages in old movies, now. Back then people didn't even know how old actors were. There was no internet and you would have to go to the almanac or encyclopedia or something.

I mean Chris Hemsworth or Bradley James, Eddie Redmayne are all 36-38, or close to that. It isn't that old. James Dean would have been horrible in that part. He was like a boy. He was 5' 8". Hal was a studly, manly, football player.

by Anonymousreply 201November 30, 2020 8:55 PM

Jessie Royce Landis played Cary Grant's mother in "North by Northwest" when she was a year [italic]younger[/italic] than he was.

by Anonymousreply 202November 30, 2020 9:03 PM

Facts get in the way of MY OPINIONS!!! Begone with them!

by Anonymousreply 203November 30, 2020 9:05 PM

R201, fan magazines would print actors' ages. Granted, sometimes those ages were bullshit since it was easier to get away with shaving off a few years back then, but still. In 1955, William Holden had been famous for 15 years or so, people knew he was over 30, no one thought of him as a kid.

by Anonymousreply 204November 30, 2020 9:34 PM

Doris Day, about 29, playing a 15-16 year old tomboyish girl in On Moonlight Bay and By the Light of the Silvery Moon.

by Anonymousreply 205November 30, 2020 9:41 PM

[quote]fan magazines would print actors' ages. Granted, sometimes those ages were bullshit since it was easier to get away with shaving off a few years back then, but still. In 1955, William Holden had been famous for 15 years or so, people knew he was over 30, no one thought of him as a kid.

I don't think my parents ever had a fan magazine in the house. I don't see little wiseass bitch James Dean as Hal, no matter what. He was similar in build to Nick Adams, who played the paperboy, Boomer. Not rugged or virile.

The only description I found of Hal's age was "20's". Inge describes him in the play as "an exceedingly handsome youth". But the funny thing is, Ralph Meeker was 33 when he originated the role on the stage, Gregory Harrison was 36 in the first TV version, and Josh Brolin was 32 in another TV version. So in casting, they always go older.

One movie (from the same year) where everyone is too old is Mister Roberts. Though it's a great movie. Henry Fonda was 50 in 1955. Roberts was, at most, 30. James Cagney was 56, William Powell was 63. Ward Bond was 52. Jack Lemmon as Pulver was more or less age appropriate at 30.

by Anonymousreply 206November 30, 2020 10:18 PM

I can't believe nobody has mentioned all those thirty something juvenile delinquents in the first film version of West Side Story.

by Anonymousreply 207November 30, 2020 10:49 PM

"James Stewart paired with Kim Novak in Bell, Book and Candle."

Yeah, that movie had two beautiful women in their twenties fighting over fifty-year-old Jimmy Stewart. I like the movie, but that's harder to believe than the existence of witches in New York!

The age difference worked in "Vertigo", where the principals are bound together by desperation, guilt, and batshittery, so the age difference doesn't really matter. But in "BB&C" the women are just after the man because they think he's hot! That's... problematic.

by Anonymousreply 208November 30, 2020 10:54 PM

"One movie (from the same year) where everyone is too old is Mister Roberts. Though it's a great movie. Henry Fonda was 50 in 1955. "

Actually, that's true of war movies in general. Through much of history armies have been made up of very young men, for most of the 20th century armies were made of up men and boys in their teens and twenties, with officers hardly older. Movies never cast actors in their teens or early twenties as soldiers, they always cast older, manlier men, they'll put a fortyish John Wayne to play the sort of soldier who would have been 19 in real life.

by Anonymousreply 209November 30, 2020 10:59 PM

"James Dean would have been horrible in that part. He was like a boy. He was 5' 8". Hal was a studly, manly, football player."

He would have captured Hal's restless, rebellious spirit perfectly. And there have been football players who were 5'8. If he'd bulked up a little he would have been fine. And oh my God, what he would have done with that dance scene. Holden had trouble doing that scene; he was stiff and uncomfortable. The director, Josh Logan, told him "shake your ass!" To which Holden reportedly replied "if you want ass shaking get Marlon Brando", which I thought was pretty funny. Anyway, I keep imagining James Dean in that sensual dance scene; he wouldn't have had any problem shaking HIS ass.

I've got a copy of the play "Picnic." Hal is described "an exceedingly handsome, husky youth dressed in a t-shirt, dungarees and cowboy boots." He's referred to throughout the play as "the boy" or "young man." William Holden was a mature man. I guess he got the role because he was a big name movie star but he was just so wrong for that part.

by Anonymousreply 210November 30, 2020 11:02 PM

The child labor laws were pushed to the limit when Catherine Zeta-Jones was cast as Velma in Chicago.

by Anonymousreply 211November 30, 2020 11:02 PM

43 year old Leslie Howard and 34 year old Normal Shearer playing Romeo and Juliet. They were both big stars, having them play teen lovers was so ridiculous.

Also the forty-something Leslie Howard playing Ashley Wilkes The character was, at the beginning of the movie, only 19 or 20 years old.

by Anonymousreply 212November 30, 2020 11:11 PM

Vertigo is a very layered film and one of my all time favorites. But it is indeed a very flawed one for many reasons Hitch couldn't completely control. Nonetheless, in several interviews, Hitch publicly laid the blame for its initial failure on Stewart's aging appearance and they never worked together again.

Meanwhile, Novak developed an infatuation with Stewart and they allegedly had a brief affair. Some girls like daddies. So do some guys.

by Anonymousreply 213November 30, 2020 11:19 PM

Jimmy Stewart at nearly 60 playing the love interest of the 30 something and spectacularly upholstered Kim Novak in Bell, Book, and Candle. Ditto Gary Cooper in Love In The Afternoon. Both men knew they were too old for the roles. More recently, the 47 year old Sophie Okonedo playing the 19 year old French princess Margaret of Anjou, and her age was just one issue. Ann-Margret as a suspiciously well developed 15 year old in Bye Bye Birdie - she looked like she could have Bobby Rydell for breakfast and spit out the pits.

by Anonymousreply 214November 30, 2020 11:23 PM

Do we know if the cast of Thirty Something were all age appropriate and remained so during the run of the show?

by Anonymousreply 215November 30, 2020 11:25 PM

R214 Jodie Turn Smith will be playing Anne Boleyn. The age is correct, but there are other issues.

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by Anonymousreply 216November 30, 2020 11:28 PM

Ashley Wilkes was supposed to be around the same age as Melanie and Scarlett. Leslie Howard was 20 years older than Dear Livvie!

by Anonymousreply 217November 30, 2020 11:29 PM

[quote]He would have captured Hal's restless, rebellious spirit perfectly. And there have been football players who were 5'8. If he'd bulked up a little he would have been fine. And oh my God, what he would have done with that dance scene. Holden had trouble doing that scene; he was stiff and uncomfortable.

Well we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm a Dean fan. But he sets off my gaydar. He was somewhat androgynous. And his personality was offbeat and weird. A loner, shambling and introverted. Besides, he played a high school boy in this first two films. He just wasn't that manly. Hal was a simple, unquestionably straight dude, who was so hot the town beauty and the schoolteacher both want him. Very naturally masculine. Which Holden was. He was also a lot better looking than James Dean.

by Anonymousreply 218November 30, 2020 11:38 PM

I have no problem with Kim Novak liking James Stewart. I'm sure there are a lot of 20s women who would go out with Di Caprio, Brad Pitt, Clooney, or Rob Lowe.

by Anonymousreply 219November 30, 2020 11:40 PM

"Ashley Wilkes was supposed to be around the same age as Melanie and Scarlett."

No, he was more the Tarleton twins' age, which was 19. At the beginning of the novel Gone With The Wind, the twins are 19 and Ashley is that age or maybe a year old. Scarlett is 16. Melanie is 17. Ashley was slightly older than they were.

by Anonymousreply 220November 30, 2020 11:45 PM

R219 - Please. Stewart didn't look like those men. He looked like an old man with old man hands, scraggly neck, and quavering voice. The studio had to do extensive work and filtering to get him to look even remotely feasible as the object of longing of the voluptuous young witch downstairs.

by Anonymousreply 221November 30, 2020 11:49 PM

Geez, I said "around the same age" not "exactly the same age"

by Anonymousreply 222November 30, 2020 11:50 PM

"Which Holden was. He was also a lot better looking than James Dean."

Uh, NO. Dean was gorgeous. Hal was greatly sought after by women and James Dean certainly would have fit the bill. He was super sexy. Onscreen you couldn't take your eyes off him. And he was A GOOD ACTOR. He definitely had the talent to be a superb Hal. And I never sensed any lack of "masculinity" on Dean's part. He projected sensitivity in his roles but that doesn't equal being limp wristed.

Holden was attractive in his youth but by "Picnic" he was definitely showing his age. He looked like an old man next to Kim Novak.

by Anonymousreply 223November 30, 2020 11:53 PM

[quote][R219] - Please. Stewart didn't look like those men. He looked like an old man with old man hands, scraggly neck, and quavering voice. The studio had to do extensive work and filtering to get him to look even remotely feasible as the object of longing of the voluptuous young witch downstairs.

The men I mentioned just look good to you because they aged before your eyes, gradually. In 30 years people will look at One Upon A Time In Hollywood and say, how could that young chick be flirting with that grizzled old guy (Brad)? Jimmy Stewart was the top box office star of the time and he was coming to the end of his romantic leading man period. But it was actually Kim Novak who was a bit young for her part.

Jimmy was funny in the role, who should have played it? Tab Hunter? Robert Wagner? It was supposed to be a sophisticated older man, a publisher. Not a 25 year old.

by Anonymousreply 224November 30, 2020 11:58 PM

R178 Yeah, try finding a 5 year old who can act as well as she did.

by Anonymousreply 225December 1, 2020 12:08 AM

Regarding "Picnic"... Yes, Holden looked too old. If the character was in his twenties, drifting around not knowing what to do with himself after leaving college, well, sometimes young men drift for a while, and one way they straighten out and start to build lives for themselves is when they fall in love. So there's a sympathy for Hal there, but only as long as he's *young*. Because if a man is apparently forty-five and STILL doesn't know what to do with himself after leaving college decades ago, he's just a fucking loser.

As for casting James Dean or Paul Newman? No. The character had to be extremely masculine, the embodiment of masculinity, charging into a feminized environment where women ruled and the few men didn't want to marry their hags, setting everyone's genitalia aflutter. James Dean was far too sensitive and androgynous, and Paul Newman was never able to butch it up to the level the part requires. The role required the dangerous masculinity of a Burt Lancaster, although of course Lancaster was also too old, I would have cast Marlon Brando.

by Anonymousreply 226December 1, 2020 12:26 AM

Brando would have been over 30, too

by Anonymousreply 227December 1, 2020 1:10 AM

Brando would have been 31 when the film was released, with the help of a decent cinematographer he could have passed for mid-twenties. But the real problem with casting Brando is that he wouldn't have wanted to take the role, everyone would have seen it as a retread of his triumph as Stanley Kowalski, and he'd have been right. The two roles have a strong basic similarity, they are both the fantasies of old-queen writers, about masculinity causing havoc among the feminine.

I really don't have a backup suggestion for the role, except to say that Tab Hunter would have been a better fit. He was young, and even if he couldn't act, he was handsome and kind of butch, not that that'd have been enough.

by Anonymousreply 228December 1, 2020 1:57 AM

Tab Hunter could play Madge

by Anonymousreply 229December 1, 2020 2:56 AM

^ Someone should do a gay version! I'd watch it.

by Anonymousreply 230December 1, 2020 3:00 AM

...hot, cute guy though

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by Anonymousreply 231December 1, 2020 3:01 AM

Nice review of the re-release (incorrectly stating Arthur O'Connell got an Oscar)

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by Anonymousreply 232December 1, 2020 3:08 AM

Wow, Holden looks at least 45 in that pic at R231. He was a very old Hal, Hal as an old loser drifter.

by Anonymousreply 233December 1, 2020 3:09 AM

Holden's being too old for the part really stuck out in his scenes with Cliff Robertson, who's supposed to be the same age but looks years younger than Holden.

by Anonymousreply 234December 1, 2020 3:15 AM

In the novel [italic]Les Liaisons dangereuses[/italic] the marquise and the vicomte are in their 20s; in the 1988 film Glenn Close and John Malkovich are pushing 40 and look it.

by Anonymousreply 235December 1, 2020 3:47 AM

M. trying to playing a teenager in the opening scenes of House of the Spirits.

What a laugh - she has never been so funny. I had to carry that dog of a film and was the only person to receive any acclaim.

by Anonymousreply 236December 1, 2020 4:03 AM

You dementia-ridden bitches are slipping: 200+ replies and not a single mention of Steve McQueen playing a teenager in The Blob?! He didn't look a day over 46 in that film.

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by Anonymousreply 237December 1, 2020 4:12 AM

The two leads in HOLDING THE MAN. Loved their performances, but when I first saw it, I saw that they attended Xavier University (?) so they were believable. But when I realized that it was a high school, I understood why some people thought that they were not believable as teenagers. I still love the movie, however.

by Anonymousreply 238December 1, 2020 12:13 PM

R224 - Your post is absurd. Tab Hunter?

How about Gregory Peck? Rex Harrison? Robert Ryan, whose dour aspect but at least allied with some semblance of virile appeal would have been perfect?

Rex Harrison and his wife, Lili Palmer, played the roles onstage in London in 1954-1955. Harrison also directed it. Can you imagine the difference?!

Stewart himself was appalled when he saw the rushes, and more or less said it would be his last "romantic" role. Oh, that drawling, quavering voice! The studio dyed his hair, experimented with different filters to make him look less wan . . .

It barely worked. Stewart was a pro and did what he had to do, but it was absurd casting - in case you missed the title of this thread. He was 25 years older than she and it showed. If it had been Peck or Harrison or Ryan or someone like that, it would have been better.

You obviously are a fan of Stewart's. I rather like him myself - his closest heir these days was Tom Hanks. But here, he was miscast and that's all there is to it. He thought so himself. As did Cooper at the 60 year old lover of what was clearly supposed to be a virginal 18 year old Audrey Hepburn.

Both men, in these roles, realised they were past this stage of their careers and weren't happy with how they looked or came across.

Directors, of course, are perfectly happy using way older leading men with fresh ingenues so the directors, including Billy Wilder (who made the same point with the dour Bogart and the dewy Hepburn in "Sabrina" as he did with Cooper in "Love in the Afternoon") can live out their fantasy of the lovely ingenue who sees past their jowls, veiny hands, and receding hairlines to fall passionately in love with them.

I say it's dated and I say the hell with it.

by Anonymousreply 239December 1, 2020 12:27 PM

[quote]It barely worked. Stewart was a pro and did what he had to do, but it was absurd casting - in case you missed the title of this thread. He was 25 years older than she and it showed. If it had been Peck or Harrison or Ryan or someone like that, it would have been better.

I never miss a Robert Ryan romantic comedy! Oh wait, there weren't any. Because he was not a comic actor. Also, he was born in 1909. Stewart was born in 1908. Rex Harrison was also born in 1908. Gregory Peck (1916) had no comedy talent, either. The closest he came to an actual romantic comedy with no dramatic overtones was Designing Woman (1957), which was originally supposed to star James Stewart. Peck wasn't funny in it.

by Anonymousreply 240December 1, 2020 1:47 PM

The biggest problem with REAR WINDOW was believing that a stone fox like Grace Kelly would pine for some skinny geek like Stewart.

by Anonymousreply 241December 1, 2020 3:25 PM

R241 I sound like the Jimmy Stewart apologist or something, but I took my old boyfriend to see Rear Window in a revival theater. He never saw Jimmy Stewart before, and said several times how handsome he thought he was. In real life, Grace mostly went for much older men, including Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, Ray Milland (their affair almost broke up his marriage).

by Anonymousreply 242December 1, 2020 4:07 PM

Maybe she did r242, but they looked mismatched onscreen. I could not get why Stewart was a leading man in the movies.

by Anonymousreply 243December 1, 2020 4:12 PM

23 year old Josh Hartnett playing a US Army Staff Sergeant in Black Hawk Down. And that film had various actors older than him playing lower ranking soldiers, like Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner.

by Anonymousreply 244December 1, 2020 4:42 PM

Ashley Wilkes in GWTW has finished university and done his grand tour (where wealthy young men went to Europe for a couple of years to become cultured--and also fuck their brains out). I think he's supposed to be mid-20s.

That part should have been Errol Flynn's. You can understand Vivien Leigh being obsessed with young Errol. Ashley was supposed to look like a blond fairytale prince, hence Scarlett's idealization of a very conflicted, flawed man. Errol was 30 in 1939 and could have played the character from his mid-20s to his late 30s, as the role required.

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by Anonymousreply 245December 1, 2020 4:58 PM

Errol had too much charisma for Ashley. You'd be rooting for Scarlett to get with Ashley, not Rhett

by Anonymousreply 246December 1, 2020 6:01 PM

The difference was that Peck and Ryan and Grant all remained handsome into their fifties. Stewart didn't.

As for comic acting: Shep is the "straight man" in this movie. It's Lemmon and Gingold and Elsa Lanchester and Ernie Kovacs who are there for the laughs.

Gillian and Shep are the straight romantic leads.

However, if I were looking for a dream cast for this film, I would have cast Shirley Maclaine and Robert Mitchum.

We will just have to agree to disagree. In my view, Stewart was the weak link in the casting.

And a last note: a shout out to what a wonderful job the late Janice Rule did on Merle, the bitchy ex-schoolmate of Gil's.

by Anonymousreply 247December 1, 2020 6:11 PM

[quote]16 year old Sarah Michelle Gellar played Susan Lucci’s 23 year old daughter on All My Children and stole every scene out from under her, and then won an Emmy 4 years before Susan won one.

And looked like a child playing dress up, especially with her scenes with Anton.

by Anonymousreply 248December 1, 2020 6:17 PM

I would have tried to cast Tyrone Power as Ashley Wilkes. He was young and lovely in those days, officially 25, and Ashley was supposed to be a looker in his mid-20s, plus Power could play a man as dreamy, quiet, and still a chick magnet. So what if he wasn't blonde!

I think he would have made a nice contrast to Gable, he was actually better looking as well as younger, but less masculine and more civilized. Audiences would have totally understood why Scarlett preferrred Ashley to Rhett, and we'd still be debating which one was hotter.

by Anonymousreply 249December 1, 2020 6:22 PM

Sometimes an actor or actress can pull off looking playing a character much younger or older than themselves. Winona Ryder was 27 playing a 17 year old in "Girl, Interrupted) but she looked the part and of course she could always play the part of a neurotic, twitchy teenager to perfection. Too bad that even to this day she has a teenage vibe to her despite being in her forties.

by Anonymousreply 250December 1, 2020 8:45 PM

[quote]As for casting James Dean or Paul Newman? No. The character had to be extremely masculine, the embodiment of masculinity, charging into a feminized environment where women ruled and the few men didn't want to marry their hags, setting everyone's genitalia aflutter. James Dean was far too sensitive and androgynous, and Paul Newman was never able to butch it up to the level the part requires. The role required the dangerous masculinity of a Burt Lancaster, although of course Lancaster was also too old, I would have cast Marlon Brando.

Ralph Meeker was only a couple of years younger than Holden when he created the role of Hal on Broadway, but he looked perfect. And it seems he was a much better dancer than Holden -- at least he could find the beat. And those hips!

Extremely rare footage of the original cast (perhaps the *only* footage).

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by Anonymousreply 251December 1, 2020 9:48 PM

R244 To become a staff sergeant, you need 84 months of service. If you enter the service at 17, you can absolutely become a s sergeant at 23. Most staff sergeants I knew were 24-26.

by Anonymousreply 252December 1, 2020 9:58 PM

Picnic was on Broadway in 1953. Madge was played by Janice Rule (born in 1931), Millie, the younger sister, was played by Kim Stanley (born in 1925). Ralph Meeker (Hal) was born in 1920. Eileen Heckart (Rosemary Sidney) was born in 1919.

Film (1955): Kim Novak (Madge) born 1933. Susan Strasberg (Millie) born 1938. William Holden (Hal) born 1918. Rosalind Russell (Rosemary) born 1907.

by Anonymousreply 253December 1, 2020 11:02 PM

Kim Stanley was playing the YOUNGER sister of Janice Rule? Maybe it worked on stage....

by Anonymousreply 254December 1, 2020 11:06 PM

I don't see what the problem is!

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by Anonymousreply 255December 1, 2020 11:17 PM

[R255] Sorry, wrong image!

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by Anonymousreply 256December 1, 2020 11:18 PM

Well, as long as Bell, Book and Candle was brought up:

Shep, telling his ex-fiancee, Merle, that the woman he dumped her for (Kim Novak) on the eve of their elopement, is a WITCH.

"Oh, Shep, you just never learned to spell," Merle purrs.

by Anonymousreply 257December 1, 2020 11:40 PM

R253, and Paul Newman (1925) played Alan, who was portrayed by Cliff Robertson (1923) on film.

by Anonymousreply 258December 1, 2020 11:48 PM

"Daddy Long Legs" has the creepy premise of fifty-something millionaire, Fred Astaire (who looked to be in his 60s), wooing college girl, Leslie Caron, whom he first met at an orphanage and had secretly been paying for her education.

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by Anonymousreply 259December 2, 2020 12:20 AM

R259 Based on that screengrab he looked 70.

by Anonymousreply 260December 2, 2020 12:27 AM

R260, I was being kind.

by Anonymousreply 261December 2, 2020 12:35 AM

Its a terrible movie (B) AND it stars Mademoiselle Caron (A).

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by Anonymousreply 262December 2, 2020 12:45 AM

R259, that looks like a shot from one of those daddy/daughter purity balls. Execs thought those two would make a good couple?

by Anonymousreply 263December 2, 2020 12:52 AM

Ava Gardner and Rachel Ward were both miscast in their respective versions of ON THE BEACH, based on Nevil Shute’s 1959 novel about Australia in the aftermath of a nuclear war. In the book, Moira Davidson was a wispy twenty something blonde. Ava Gardner was thirty seven and Ward was forty three. At least Ward had an Australian accent. And Fred Astaire as Julian......wayyyyyy too old. Julian was thirty in the novel, Astaire was twice that age. And Byron Brown was fifty three.

by Anonymousreply 264December 2, 2020 1:12 AM

1957, not 1959.

by Anonymousreply 265December 2, 2020 1:13 AM

Sandra Bullock in BIRD BOX - her pregnancy is about as plausible as Lucy's in YOURS, MINE AND OURS.

by Anonymousreply 266December 2, 2020 1:15 AM

27 year old Julie Harris playing 12 year old Frankie in THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING (1952).

by Anonymousreply 267December 2, 2020 1:22 AM

R264 On the Beach was a good movie despite the bad casting. I liked the book and thought the movie covered it well.

by Anonymousreply 268December 2, 2020 1:32 AM

Joan Crawford in anything she made from the mid-50s onward.

by Anonymousreply 269December 2, 2020 1:36 AM

[R269] I don't see any problem!

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by Anonymousreply 270December 2, 2020 1:41 AM

Sasha Baron Cohen in the Chicago 7 movie triggered me. 20 years too old

by Anonymousreply 271December 2, 2020 1:55 AM

Julie Harris played 12 year old Frankie Adams in the Broadway stage production of "The Member of the Wedding." The character was a very tomboyish, unfeminine 12 year old girl, tall for her age (she smokes cigarettes to stunt her growth), with a short mannish haircut. I guess she could have pulled that off on a Broadway stage, but it didn't really work on film. In the movie version she looks like what she is, a grown woman, a grown woman behaving like a disturbed 12 year old. It was kind of hard to watch.

by Anonymousreply 272December 2, 2020 3:26 AM

272 That's funny, I saw this on the big screen and I loved it, my date did, and most of the people in the audience seemed to. I thought of this film when I came across the thread, but then I thought, it wasn't really age inappropriate, it actually worked. But I guess for some people, it didn't.

by Anonymousreply 273December 2, 2020 4:08 AM

Billy Wilder originally wanted Cary Grant for the Bogart role in Sabrina. He went with Bogart when Grant couldn't make up his mind about the part. A shame, since Cary Grant, even at 50, was a stone hottie. It would have made sense that Hepburn fell for him, even if he was old enough to be her father.

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by Anonymousreply 274December 2, 2020 1:39 PM

It's funny reading this thread how people think a person (especially a woman) can't fall in love with someone unless he's gorgeous.

by Anonymousreply 275December 2, 2020 1:40 PM

Missed opportunities: Cary Grant playing Maxim de Winter in Sabrina. Sadly, his partnership with Hitchcock didn't begin until a year after Rebecca premiered (he starred in Suspicion).

by Anonymousreply 276December 2, 2020 1:42 PM

A twentysomething woman falling in love with a fiftysomething man is unusual. Money, daddy issues, AND looks are all usually involved.

by Anonymousreply 277December 2, 2020 1:44 PM

*Maxim de Winter in REBECCA.

by Anonymousreply 278December 2, 2020 1:44 PM

27 year old Natalie Wood playing a 15 year old in Inside Daisy Clover.

by Anonymousreply 279December 2, 2020 1:51 PM

Joan Fontaine playing a young teen in The Constant Nymph. She overdid it a little but it worked overall. I think she was only in her mid 20s.

by Anonymousreply 280December 2, 2020 2:06 PM

I've just watched an early episode of Cheers, "Coach Returns to Action", where Coach (Mr Colasanto was nearly 60) has a crush on his new neighbour, Nina (played by a woman in her early 30s), inexplicably Diane encourages him to ask her out, Coach's crush was believable but not Diane egging him on, such a strange choice, forget father, Coach is like a grandfather, loveable, just not in that way.

I think the show runners of Cheers et al had the Nina character put on a slightly cartoony voice, I've noticed they did that whenever a character wouldn't believably be paired with another, like a goofy voice redresses the balance.

by Anonymousreply 281December 2, 2020 3:25 PM

R281 I'm always baffled by what's so wrong with any people who are over the age of consent going out or sleeping with each other, or whatever. Is it the way now to treat women in their early 30s as if they were virgins or young teens, or something? These aren't children, so who really cares? I don't get it when I hear people saying eww when someone in their fucking THIRTIES wants to date an older person.

by Anonymousreply 282December 2, 2020 3:36 PM

Joan Fontaine had a girlish figure, with small breasts and slim hips. She also had an almost elfin beauty and in THE CONSTANT NYMPH and LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN she’s quite believable as a teenager.

by Anonymousreply 283December 2, 2020 3:41 PM

oh shut up, r282, don't be so sensitive. I didn't go on some diatribe, I simply stated that Diane encouraging Coach to make a move on Nina wasn't believable, it was like a cruel joke on Coach - so please don't put words in my mouth.

by Anonymousreply 284December 2, 2020 3:44 PM

No you shut up R284.

[quote]I simply stated that Diane encouraging Coach to make a move on Nina wasn't believable, it was like a cruel joke on Coach

You actually didn't state that. But I was talking generally, based on your post. Not directing it at you. That's why I didn't put your post number in my replay. So don't think it's all about you.

by Anonymousreply 285December 2, 2020 4:28 PM

No, you, r285

[quote] Coach's crush was believable but not Diane egging him on, such a strange choice

Close enough for most, I think.

by Anonymousreply 286December 2, 2020 4:33 PM

If she'd been alive in the md-1920s, Grand Duchess Anastasia would have been in her mid-20s. Ingrid Bergman was 41 in her Oscar-winning performance of the character.

by Anonymousreply 287December 2, 2020 5:05 PM

Most people have more in common with people who are within 10 years of their own age--looks, income, cultural touchstones, sex drives--the basic traits all line up. Falling in love with someone of your own generation just makes sense. Consenting adults can do what they want, but when the age difference is more than that, people start to wonder if there isn't gold-digging and/or a mid-life crisis involved.

by Anonymousreply 288December 2, 2020 5:26 PM

R288 I'll let you know when I begin to care about people starting to wonder. Gay people should have moved beyond worrying about societal norms and what people are going to say? Some of the posts on DL really surprise me with their judgmental ideas about sex.

by Anonymousreply 289December 2, 2020 6:05 PM

I love how judgmental you are about our judgementalness.

by Anonymousreply 290December 2, 2020 6:21 PM

I said they surprise me, not judging y'all

by Anonymousreply 291December 2, 2020 6:40 PM

[quote] 11 year old Kirsten Dunst was far too old to play Claudia in Interview With The Vampire. Rice's Claudia was 5.

R178 true. That ageing-up makes sense from a cinematic storytelling perspective, however - it was near-impossible, as well as borderline-inappropriate, to have a child of eleven saying Claudia's dialogue and acting her role (involving blood-drinking and flirting with grown men), let alone a preschooler. It is easier and more acceptable to present loss of innocence and relative moral depravity on the page than on screen.

If we are following literary purism, then Antonio Banderas was even more inappropriately cast in INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, in terms of both age and origin. In the book his character, Armand, is a Varangian adolescent redhead (described as looking like a curly-headed Cupid from Botticelli), who has a gift for sacral iconographic painting and is destined for a life of a monk. He is turned-vamp when he is mortally injured as a disaffected 17-year old artist living as a kept boy in 1948 Venice, a place to which he fled to escape Tartar slavery. None of this backstory is alluded to in the movie, though in the book Armand suffers amnesia so perhaps this is an accurate omission.

In the film, however, Armand is clearly a middle-aged Spanish man, who more resembles an alluring fallen angel or Satanic priest than a cherub, meaning he was turned later in life and probably later in time than his book counterpart. In fact, the film makes reference to this change, when in a conversation with Louis, Armand claims that he is around 400 years old; in the book, Armand is a century older.

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by Anonymousreply 292December 4, 2020 10:46 AM

^^that should say ‘1498 Venice’.

Post-war vampires would have been an interesting watch, though.

by Anonymousreply 293December 4, 2020 5:32 PM

Shirley Temple was scandalously young when she was cast as Mae West.

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by Anonymousreply 294December 5, 2020 4:55 AM

Can we talk about age inappropriateness for a song, such as Anna Kendrick in Camp singing The Ladies Who Lunch?

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by Anonymousreply 295December 5, 2020 1:01 PM

I love Ingrid Bergman and like Anastasia and it was a good comeback movie for her, but she was around 40 playing Anastasia when she would have been in her early to mid-twenties. I suppose at the time Audrey Hepburn or Leslie Caron would have been right, not that they would have been right for the part.

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by Anonymousreply 296December 5, 2020 1:28 PM

meant to type I suppose at the time Audrey Hepburn or Leslie Caron would have been right AGE-WISE, not that they would have been right for the part. Caron especially probably would not have had developed the dramatic chops at that point in her career.

by Anonymousreply 297December 5, 2020 1:30 PM

Regarding the strange choice of Diane egging Coach on for his much younger crush -- Diane did not exactly make smart relationship decisions and was dating a married, older professor when the show started.

by Anonymousreply 298December 5, 2020 1:39 PM

I love Ingrid Bergman and like Anastasia and it was a good comeback movie for her, but she was around 40 playing Anastasia when she would have been in her early to mid-twenties. I suppose at the time Audrey Hepburn or Leslie Caron would have been R296 I think the only other actress seriously considered for it was Jennifer Jones. She was around the same age as Bergman. Viveca Lindfors played it on Broadway, she was also in the same age range.

by Anonymousreply 299December 5, 2020 7:03 PM

Oh, those Baby Burlesks, r294.....

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by Anonymousreply 300December 5, 2020 7:11 PM

R176, few 45 year olds have had that much plastic surgery.

Kidman looks like she is in her early to mid 60s in the show. That would be the youngest age at which the character would credibly have had that much work done.

Had she opted for more realistic looking proceedures,she might look 45.

by Anonymousreply 301December 5, 2020 7:35 PM

Vivian Leigh in Streetcar owns this thread.

No way she passed for 30. Not even 35.

by Anonymousreply 302December 5, 2020 7:36 PM

R302 She was only 38

by Anonymousreply 303December 5, 2020 7:45 PM

Seriously? R303? She looked a lot older than that!

by Anonymousreply 304December 5, 2020 8:12 PM

R304 She was born in 1913, the movie came out in 1951.

She had tuberculosis, and she was bipolar, before there was medication. I'm sure that could age a girl.

Filming Elephant Walk (1954), in which Elizabeth Taylor replaced her - w/Peter Finch:

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by Anonymousreply 305December 5, 2020 8:29 PM

E. T. in the same costume:

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by Anonymousreply 306December 5, 2020 8:31 PM

Ralph Bellamy in The Winds Of War was old to play FDR, who died in his early 60s. I think Bellamy was 79. Rod Taylor playing Churchill during WWII in Inglorious Basterds was 78 or 79, Churchill during the war was a bit younger, in his late 60s, early 70s. I guess that was ok and he was good.

by Anonymousreply 307December 5, 2020 9:48 PM

No, we can't, r295. She was playing a kid at a drama camp. You can't expect them all to sing songs from Annie, can you?

by Anonymousreply 308December 5, 2020 9:59 PM

46 year old Amy Sedaris played a high school freshman at Flatpoint High in Strangers with Candy.

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by Anonymousreply 309December 5, 2020 10:08 PM

There are a few long shots in Elephant Walk, esp. the scene where Finch shows Taylor around the plantation, that weren't retaken when Taylor took over the part. The difference between the women's height and waists is obvious if you're looking for it.

Leigh and Finch were having an affair at the time. That was fine with Finch's friend Olivier as it gave him an occasional respite from the high drama of dealing with Leigh.

by Anonymousreply 310December 5, 2020 10:14 PM

Yes, Leigh was such a handful that when she took up with John Merivale as a serious partner, Olivier was sad but relieved to let her go. Merivale stayed with her until her death from TB (which always amazed me, that any woman of wealth living in a first-world country died of TB in 1967)>

by Anonymousreply 311December 5, 2020 10:35 PM

"Vivian Leigh in Streetcar owns this thread."

I thought she looked very right for the role. Blanche is quite shopworn by the time she comes to New Orleans. She never goes out with Mitch unless it's some place that "not lighted much." She lies about her age, saying she's "slightly" younger than Stella. She laments about how her youth has "gone up the spout." It was very right that she looked middle-aged.

In the play Blanche is said to be thirty. I suppose Tennessee Williams thought for a woman age 30 was over the hill, but it's still a ridiculously young age. But throughout the play it makes it seem like Blanche is much older than that, which is why practically every actress who has played her has looked much older than that age. An actress who actually did look only thirty would probably sound pretty silly uttering some of the lines of the play.

by Anonymousreply 312December 5, 2020 10:41 PM

I'm watching White Christmas right now. Rosemary Clooney is playing Vera Ellen's OLDER sister even though she was 7 years younger. Dean Jagger addresses Bing Crosby as "son" even though they were the same age

by Anonymousreply 313December 5, 2020 11:57 PM

[quote]There are a few long shots in Elephant Walk, esp. the scene where Finch shows Taylor around the plantation, that weren't retaken when Taylor took over the part. The difference between the women's height and waists is obvious if you're looking for it.

Yes there are actually a lot of long shots of Vivien. The airport, the plantation, the temple ruins, etc. The reason Taylor was cast was the resemblance, so they could use the long shots that were made in Ceylon. They took background footage, to use later in the studio, which was fortunate, because Elizabeth Taylor never set foot in Ceylon. I like the movie but it probably would have been better with Vivian, and it would have had more on-location scenes, which would have helped with the atmosphere.

I don't think it helped her to be back where she grew up, and when she went to Hollywood, Stewart Granger wrote about him and David Niven trying to help Vivien on a weekend when she was acting very crazy - I think Niven wrote something about it, too.

[quote]I'm watching White Christmas right now. Rosemary Clooney is playing Vera Ellen's OLDER sister even though she was 7 years younger. Dean Jagger addresses Bing Crosby as "son" even though they were the same age.

But somehow Rosemary Clooney seemed like the older sister, and they tried to age Dean Jagger with a white toupee. I notice the more they restore these films the older some actors look. I think we used to think Bing looked younger when he was on an older TV with a somewhat less sharp image. Although VistaVision was a sharp image anyway.

by Anonymousreply 314December 6, 2020 1:44 AM

Vivien on location in Ceylon

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by Anonymousreply 315December 6, 2020 2:04 AM

"Vivian Leigh in Streetcar owns this thread. No way she passed for 30. Not even 35."

She could pass for an exhausted alcoholic in her early 30s, which is what she was playing.

by Anonymousreply 316December 6, 2020 2:46 AM

Blanche is someone whose been a round the block a couple times and probably had made a stop or two to "the bin" as Williams called it. Leigh seemed really well cast. She and Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction" are probably the best cinematic "Borderline personality disorders" ever, and they did it w/o the general public knwing what a borderline was.

by Anonymousreply 317December 6, 2020 2:52 AM

R317 Glenn Close, yeah, Vivien Leigh, I don't see it. How?

by Anonymousreply 318December 6, 2020 3:20 AM

Neither Kazan nor most of the cast (who had created their roles on Broadway) wanted Leigh in the film. But she had been the original Blanche in London (directed by Olivier, who never understood Williams) and, most importantly, she would be big BO. The only other actress the studio seriously considered was Olivia de Havilland, who passed on the role before it was even formally offered because she found the material distasteful.

Kazan and Leigh fought a lot over her performance in the beginning because what he wanted was very different from what she had done for Olivier in London and she was reluctant to change. Eventually they were both very happy with what they achieved.

by Anonymousreply 319December 6, 2020 4:43 AM

Thank god it wasn't Olivia de Havilland. Vivien was brilliant.

by Anonymousreply 320December 6, 2020 5:06 AM

Agreed r320. Olivia would have ruined it.

by Anonymousreply 321December 6, 2020 7:42 AM

I'll respectfully disagree with r319 and r320. Olivia was a fine and strong actress who was willing to stretch her limits and take chances with a good script and director. She wouldn't have ruined the film. But I'll easily admit I'm glad she wasn't interested and Vivien got the part.

by Anonymousreply 322December 6, 2020 8:57 AM

^ Sorry, I meant r320 and r321 above, not r319 and 320, But I;ll stand by my assessment that de Havilland might have been an interesting but not ideal Blanche and I'm glad she had the sense to know it wasn't really quite right for her.

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by Anonymousreply 323December 6, 2020 9:23 AM

On Hulu’s new Hardy Boys series, Frank looks old enough to be Joe’s father.

by Anonymousreply 324December 6, 2020 9:37 AM

[quote]Shirley Temple was scandalously young when she was cast as Mae West.

Was Shirley Temple ever considered for Madame Rose in "Gypsy"? I think she could have brought a lot of subtext to the book scenes. As a child she was the quintessential Baby/Dainty June, not to mention the most successful. However her subsequent film career as an adult had to have been a disappointing letdown. She could have tapped into that to add dramatic heft to lines like "If I coulda been I woulda been and that's show business."

by Anonymousreply 325December 6, 2020 10:35 AM

de Havilland got an Oscar nom for playing psychotic in "Snake Pit", but that was basically a straightforward "disease of the week" film that any number of actresses could have played well. Streetcar is a memory play and filled with subtext and impressionism. It required actual madness, not a sympathetic portrayal of madness that gets wrapped up in the end. Leigh knew real madness---whether Olivier "got" Williams is almost irrelevant.

by Anonymousreply 326December 6, 2020 10:59 AM

Temple's adult performances were wooden and lacked depth. Her experience as a child star wasn't as bad as many of her counterparts. Anyway you look at it, there wasn't much there.

by Anonymousreply 327December 6, 2020 11:01 AM

Simone Signoret played "Madame Rosa" at age 56.

Sophia Loren plays the same character at age 85.

Signoret is closer in age to the character in Romain Gary's novel, set in 1975.

by Anonymousreply 328December 6, 2020 1:01 PM

Kirsten Dunst didn’t play a 14 year old Marie Antoinette the entire film, R32. She was in her 20s for most of it.

Same with Florence Pugh in Little Women, R115. She was a child in the early section of the film but clearly an adult by the end.

by Anonymousreply 329December 6, 2020 1:16 PM

[quote] Meanwhile, Novak developed an infatuation with Stewart and they allegedly had a brief affair.

R213 Not according to Novak...

[quote]Peter Bogdanovich had written that Stewart had an affair with Kim Novak while they were making “Bell, Book and Candle” and “Vertigo.” Eliot checked it out with Novak. “She said she had been in love with Richard Quine, the director of ‘Bell, Book and Candle,”’ Eliot remarked. “She added that Jimmy was married, and there was no way that she would have an affair with a married man.”

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by Anonymousreply 330December 6, 2020 3:42 PM

[quote] Same with Florence Pugh in Little Women, [R115]. She was a child in the early section of the film but clearly an adult by the end.

It’s a stretch at the beginning but I think it was better for the role and the movie to have the same actress playing Amy all the way through. The Winona Ryder version has different actresses playing young Amy and older Amy and it doesn’t work as well.

by Anonymousreply 331December 7, 2020 7:28 AM

Bravo, r325.

by Anonymousreply 332December 7, 2020 7:37 AM

Most of the Glee cast

by Anonymousreply 333December 7, 2020 8:40 AM

The 25 year age difference between Hepburn and O'Toole in THE LION IN WINTER has always bugged me. One of them was not age appropriate for his or her role.

by Anonymousreply 334December 7, 2020 11:34 AM

R334, The Lion in Winter is set in 1183, when Eleanor of Aquitaine was 61 and Henry II was 50. The movie came out in 1968, when Hepburn was 61 and O'Toole was 36, making O'Toole the one who was age inappropriate. But this doesn't bother me because O'Toole is done up to look older than his years.

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by Anonymousreply 335December 7, 2020 12:44 PM

Thanks for the info, R 335. I shall quit my bitchin' now.

by Anonymousreply 336December 7, 2020 1:08 PM

In the movie O'Toole had some dialogue about being fifty years old, which made him the oldest man he knew.

In real life Eleanor was ten years older than Henry, so if he was playing fifty and she was playing sixty... well, they put it over. He really was too young for the role, but I'll forgive him because who can't love a top actor who really wanted to play Henry II for the second time?i Henry II was such an interesting monarch, and he's been sadly neglected by popular culture.

by Anonymousreply 337December 7, 2020 6:16 PM

O'Toole looked prematurely aged by that point, anyway---too much drinking and carousing.

by Anonymousreply 338December 7, 2020 6:48 PM

It’t been too long since I’ve seen ALIW, but was the Queen the lion and not the King? Maybe I didn’t understand it at the time?

by Anonymousreply 339December 7, 2020 7:35 PM

Kim Stanley as Millie was much more ridiculous than Holden as Hal.

by Anonymousreply 340December 7, 2020 8:04 PM

R339, Henry II was the lion. Not only is the barbary lion the symbol of England, but lions adorn the Arms of Planteganet (Royal Arms of England). And in the play/movie, Henry is 50 years old. In six years he would be dead, so he really was a lion in his winter years.

by Anonymousreply 341December 8, 2020 1:25 AM

Sidebar, the 00s remake of THE LION IN WINTER is well worth a watch.

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is really great and really gay in it, as Philippe Auguste. I don't think his age was that far off the mark, though.

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by Anonymousreply 342December 8, 2020 4:21 PM

This has happened frequently on daytime soaps. Mostly it's actors cast in parent/child roles where the difference in ages are only a few years. Dozens if not hundreds of examples.

But especially for the NYC shows, they were cast like plays (and often with theater people) and in that sort of theater mindset, you can be a bit flexible in that casting approach - as long as the actors looked right together, or looked like family, it was OK.

I think the two most severe cases was the original actor who played Ridge on B&B was only 2 or 3 years younger than the man who played his father, Eric. And then on General Hospital, when actor Jed Allen took over the role of patriarch Edward Quartermaine, the actor playing his son, Stuart Damon, was actually older than him by a year or so.

A few recasts were clearly waaaaaayyyyy too old for the role they were stepping into, and for the most part were quickly fired.

by Anonymousreply 343December 8, 2020 4:30 PM

Glenn Close as Nellie Forbush.

by Anonymousreply 344December 9, 2020 2:24 PM

Ali McGraw and Jan Michael Vincent in The Winds Of War. He was 39 years old playing 23.. She was a 45 playing a 30 year old.

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by Anonymousreply 345December 9, 2020 8:43 PM

Even Jane Seymour, at 37, was on paper, too old, but she could get away with playing younger. Plus, I believe that she's a better actress than Ali. Ali is a terrible actress.

by Anonymousreply 346December 10, 2020 12:02 AM

I thought the age similarity as opposed to distance in Glenn's South Pacific worked well and didn't hurt the film (although I disliked it intensely for other reasons, including the bad musical arrangements and cuts).

Making Nellie older gave a poignancy to Nellie's wanting a partner. Seemingly inspired by Arthur Laurence's The Time of the Cuckoo, starring Shirley Booth on Broadway and Katherine Hepburn on film (Summertime).

by Anonymousreply 347December 10, 2020 3:24 PM

Has anyone examined the Sound of Music film children to make sure there is adequate time between them to actually be siblings, even allowing for Irish twins?

by Anonymousreply 348December 10, 2020 4:04 PM

Rachel McAdams was 28 (26 if you ask her) when she played a high schooler in Mean Girls, and she’s only a handful of years younger than Amy Poehler, who played her mother.

by Anonymousreply 349December 10, 2020 9:26 PM

R349 But Amy’s an old hag so that’s not a problem.

by Anonymousreply 350December 10, 2020 9:34 PM

Actors are always playing characters much younger or older than themselves. Sometimes they can pull it off. Sometimes they can't.

by Anonymousreply 351December 11, 2020 12:42 AM

351 Well it's a thread called Age Inappropriate Casting

by Anonymousreply 352December 11, 2020 5:19 AM

Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some Anna Camp and she does look preternaturally youthful, but girl was 30 playing a college student in the first Pitch Perfect!

by Anonymousreply 353December 12, 2020 9:19 AM

Mean Girls was a comedy/satire of those formative years in high school, there's nothing wrong with having the parts played by adult actresses and actors, I'd have a tough time watching it if the parts were played by high school age actors.

by Anonymousreply 354December 12, 2020 9:30 AM

*Tina Fey's comedy/satire, that is

by Anonymousreply 355December 12, 2020 9:38 AM

Sandy as a pregnant woman in ‘Bird Box’. Let the old girl rest.

by Anonymousreply 356December 12, 2020 11:43 AM

R349 Because she's not a regular mom, she's a cool mom.

by Anonymousreply 357December 15, 2020 4:18 AM

In Broken Arrow, 40-something Jimmy Stewart falls for a 16-year-old Debra Paget

In Susan Slept Here, Dick Powell is playing a 35-year-old screenwriter who falls for teen runaway Debbie Reynolds. He was 50 and looked it, giving a creepy vibe to the movie

by Anonymousreply 358December 19, 2020 6:20 PM

the whole movie sounds creepy

by Anonymousreply 359December 19, 2020 6:53 PM

I saw a community theater production of White Christmas a few years ago. The ensemble had several teen males, and several older, mature looking women. During one scene where the ensemble is dancing as couples, just seeing these awkward teenage boys being waltzed around the stage by women in their 50s was just odd. Like, nearly all the couples were Harold/Maude matchups.

by Anonymousreply 360December 19, 2020 7:20 PM

Fred Astaire and any of his leading ladies after 1940 or so

by Anonymousreply 361December 19, 2020 7:29 PM

Girl, Interrupted. Winona HS senior in ‘89 (Heathers) AND ‘99? Ugh.

by Anonymousreply 362December 19, 2020 7:33 PM

R62 Hollywood in that era made matches like that all the time: the pretty, young woman with the middle-aged guy. How about Grace Kelly being madly in love with old, ailing Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window? This probably seemed reasonable to the middle-aged men running Hollywood, a world according to their own fantasies. Unfortunately, it makes most of those movies distasteful and unwatchable now so it was a bad decision on their part. Much less common today. At least some things have changed for the better in the film industry.

by Anonymousreply 363December 19, 2020 7:55 PM

Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennett looked a bit long in the tooth to be an ingenue in 1940's Pride & Prejudice. She was actually 36 and a few years older than Olivier who was 33.

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by Anonymousreply 364December 20, 2020 3:00 AM

William Holden strutting around like some crummy Apollo in Picnic.

by Anonymousreply 365December 20, 2020 4:30 AM

Greer Garson shaved four or five years off of her birthdate when she signed up with MGM. Her real age wasn’t discovered until her death. Same with Jean Arthur.

Garson was another actress from the Golden Age that I couldn’t stand. Those nostrils and her high handed manner people mistook for acting. Like she had suppositories inserted into her anus before she did her scenes.

by Anonymousreply 366December 20, 2020 8:27 PM

Irene Dunne and Joan Crawford were two more classic movie actresses who shaved years of their real age

by Anonymousreply 367December 20, 2020 8:43 PM

Another vote for Greer's Bennett to Olivier's Darcy.

by Anonymousreply 368December 20, 2020 8:56 PM

As long as Logan Lerman keeps dying his hair to cover the grey, he'll be cast as 18 year olds until he's 50.

by Anonymousreply 369December 21, 2020 12:52 AM

Wilford 'Diabeetus' Brimley was only 50 when he played the nursing home resident in "Cocoon."

by Anonymousreply 370December 21, 2020 2:55 AM

I think Wilford popped out of the womb looking 70

by Anonymousreply 371December 21, 2020 3:13 AM

Good god, there are too many to even list.

by Anonymousreply 372December 21, 2020 3:14 AM

For that matter, the "youth gang" members in "West Side Story" weren't exactly teens, either.

Chakiris: 27

Tamblyn: 27

Moreno: 30

Wood and Beymer were each a few years younger, mid-twenties.

Although hardly so far on they looked middle-ages. absolutely none of them looked like the mid- to late teens they were portraying, even Wood and Beymer.

by Anonymousreply 373December 21, 2020 11:10 PM

Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford playing college students in The Way We Were

by Anonymousreply 374December 27, 2020 2:14 AM

Oh Lordy that was a classic R374. Redford's face looked like a catchers mitt. A handsome catchers mitt but a catchers mitt still the same.

by Anonymousreply 375December 27, 2020 2:46 AM

R374 -- I see your "Redford playing a college student in The Way We Were" and raise you "Redford playing a 19-year-old baseball rookie in The Natural".

There's not enough soft-lighting in the world, Bob.

by Anonymousreply 376December 27, 2020 8:02 PM

What about Streisand, though? She used that young, girly voice as college student Katy that sounded ridiculous coming out of her old face.

by Anonymousreply 377December 27, 2020 8:30 PM

The Way We Were was a syrupy spectacle that strained believability to the point of absurdity.

by Anonymousreply 378December 27, 2020 8:50 PM

Age inappropriate casting can sometimes seem ridiculous but it actually broadens the appeal of the movie or TV show. Younger people identify with the period of life and setting while older people see themselves in the characters more easily.

by Anonymousreply 379December 27, 2020 9:05 PM

Most high school set movies are like this. A lot of the actors are in their mid 20's or early 30's. I've grown so used to this that when I see an actual high school kid, I have to do a double take. They look like babies compared to the ones on the big screen. It also gave me an unrealistic expectation of how I was supposed to look as a teenager.

by Anonymousreply 380December 27, 2020 9:08 PM

Scarlet Johansson was way too young for Bill Murray in Lost in Translation.

by Anonymousreply 381December 27, 2020 9:32 PM

R129 wins. Madonna at 38 playing Evita who died at 33 can't compare to a nearly 40 year old Diana Ross playing Dorothy Gale.

by Anonymousreply 382January 5, 2021 6:53 PM

Millie Perkins in "The Diary of Anne Frank." During her time in hiding Anne Frank went from 13 to 15 years old. Perkins was 20 or 21 when she played her. In the film Perkins speaks in a wee, little girl voice and the script had her behaving like a silly little girl. but it's quite obvious she's a fully developed young woman. A young woman acting like a little girl...the Anne Frank in this movie seemed like a retard.

Audrey Hepburn was a serious contender for the role of Anne Frank in this movie. She was even older than Perkins; when the film was released in 1959 she would have been 29 or 30 years old.

by Anonymousreply 383January 8, 2021 12:20 AM

Hepburn would have been perfect as Anne Frank.

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by Anonymousreply 384January 8, 2021 12:25 AM

"Ashley Wilkes in GWTW has finished university and done his grand tour (where wealthy young men went to Europe for a couple of years to become cultured--and also fuck their brains out). I think he's supposed to be mid-20s."

Let's say he graduated high school at age 17. He went to Europe for a "Grand Tour" but it's not specified how long that was. It was never said that he was a college graduate. I think after high school (or the equivalent of it in those days) he kicked around Europe a bit and then intended to study something in college. But Ashley was a dreamer not a doer; he may never have completed college at all. At any rate, I think he was maybe nineteen or twenty at the beginning of GWTW. I think he around the same age as the Tarleton twins, who were nineteen. The Tarleton twins never went on a Grand Tour (Europe? Who wants to go there?) and were kicked out of several colleges.

by Anonymousreply 385January 8, 2021 12:28 AM

Miss Ava Gardner in Earthquake. She was way too old to play Lorne Greene’s daughter.

by Anonymousreply 386January 8, 2021 12:29 AM

Ralph Macchio, cast younger than he was in almost every project he ever did.

Off the top of my head, the most egregious and well-known examples were THE OUTSIDERS, in which Macchio was 21 playing a young teen, and THE KARATE KID movies where he was solidly into his 20s (27 by the final film) playing a highschool student. In CROSSROADS and DISTANT THUNDER he was in his mid-late 20s and still playing teenagers. Though iirc, he was around the same age as his character on EIGHT IS ENOUGH.

Macchio only got his first role playing an adult when he was 28 years old, in TOO MUCH SUN (with Robert Downey Jr.). Following that, he only booked five or six movies and a couple of tv series in his early-mid 30s, before essentially going into semi-retirement to raise his two kids.

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by Anonymousreply 387January 8, 2021 1:12 AM

31 year old Tanya Roberts as a top model in Charlie's Angels.

by Anonymousreply 388January 8, 2021 1:15 AM

Ava Gardner played Lorne Green's daughter in "Earthquake." Pulleeze!!!

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by Anonymousreply 389January 8, 2021 1:22 AM

I just watched the 1968 Burton/Taylor flop "Boom!" based on Tennessee Williams' flop play "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore". It concerns a dying millionairess Flora "Sissy" Goforth who flails about screeching, ranting and raving on her private island denying that she is one foot in the grave. Burton plays Christopher Flanders, a hunky young failed poet who has a penchant for latching on to rich, elderly dying women. It has given him the nickname "The Angel of Death". The stage productions featured Hermione Baddeley and Tallulah Bankhead as Flora (with Tab Hunter as Chris).

Well, Liz is in her mid-thirties and still one of the most beautiful women alive (although the body is starting to get soft and the double chin is occasionally visible). Liz shrieks her way through the part in one petulant key coming off like a spoiled bimbo not a monstrous grande dame facing mortality. Unlike "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", no attempt is made to give her gray streaks in the hair or wrinkles - she looks like a thirty something woman. Very little vulnerability or ruined grandeur. Meanwhile, Burton as the young stud poet/gigolo is in his mid-40's and a tired paunchy alcoholic who looks older than Mrs. Goforth. Beautiful voice and those blue eyes but Burton looks tired and dissipated. Taylor though she is supposed to be dying is full of youth and vitality. So you don't get the cougar/boy toy thing that Williams was aiming for. Both are so miscast and the balance is really off.

It needed a pairing like Joan Crawford and Alain Delon to make it work.

by Anonymousreply 390January 8, 2021 2:43 AM

They should have flipped the genders and had Liz as the Angel of Death.

by Anonymousreply 391January 8, 2021 12:36 PM

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

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by Anonymousreply 392January 8, 2021 5:53 PM

In most versions of "The Glass Menagerie" I've seen Tom, Laura and the Gentleman Caller are all much older than the character's actual ages. Tom is 21; Laura and the gentleman caller are 23. But the actors who play them are almost all much older. I've seen gentleman callers who look at least 40. There's a version where Sam Waterston and Joanna Miles played Tom and Laura. They both look like they're at least in their mid-thirties. Has there EVER been a version where age appropriate actors played them?

by Anonymousreply 393January 8, 2021 7:33 PM

Norma Desmond is 50 and joe is early 20s.

In what world have we ever seen that

by Anonymousreply 394January 8, 2021 11:18 PM

[quote]Off the top of my head, the most egregious and well-known examples were THE OUTSIDERS, in which Macchio was 21 playing a young teen, and THE KARATE KID movies where he was solidly into his 20s (27 by the final film) playing a high school student.

Is it really "age inappropriate casting" though, when an actor looks the age of the character and gives a convincing performance? He played a 16 year old, not really a young teen, in The Outsiders, and he looked more like a 16 year old than many of the actors today who play 16 years old high school students on TV. He was pretty perfect as Johnny. He was also convincing in The Karate Kid, and it was a massive hit, so who objected? Maybe in the last movie he was too old, I didn't see it. Patrick Swayze was 30, I think, playing the older brother in The Outsiders who was supposed to be about 19.

I think one of the oldest actors playing a teen on TV recently was Timothy Granaderos, on 13 Reasons Why, wo played Monty. He was 34 on the final season. Though truthfully he looked 23 at most.

by Anonymousreply 395January 8, 2021 11:28 PM

[quote]Norma Desmond is 50 and joe is early 20s. In what world have we ever seen that

You being sarcastic? Because: young, broke man, who falls into a relationship, and is being kept, by an older, rich woman, and he has a young girlfriend on the side...nah that NEVER happens.

by Anonymousreply 396January 8, 2021 11:32 PM

R396 It does in the MOVIE version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

by Anonymousreply 397January 8, 2021 11:51 PM

Andrea from 90210.

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by Anonymousreply 398January 9, 2021 1:57 AM

Tom Holland, who by recent pictures seems to have finally hit puberty, was already 21 when he filmed the first of the Chaos Walking films in 2017 where he’s supposed to be playing a 13 year old. The film has continually been delayed and is only coming out in March. That doesn’t bode well for the two remaining books being adapted, especially if he looks like an adult now. Daisy Ridley who was 25 at filming, plays a character in the film who is usually referred to as girl.

by Anonymousreply 399January 9, 2021 2:17 AM

R399 Stupid. He can’t play 13.

by Anonymousreply 400January 11, 2021 4:59 PM

[quote] Scarlet Johansson was way too young for Bill Murray in Lost in Translation.

To be fair, they both recognize this and nothing sexual happens between them.

by Anonymousreply 401February 2, 2021 3:53 PM

[quote] Tom Holland, who by recent pictures seems to have finally hit puberty, was already 21 when he filmed the first of the Chaos Walking films in 2017 where he’s supposed to be playing a 13 year old. The film has continually been delayed and is only coming out in March. That doesn’t bode well for the two remaining books being adapted, especially if he looks like an adult now

They’ve obviously aged up the characters (as they did in Game of Thrones for example).

I doubt there is much danger of the other books being adapted, given that the movie has sat unreleased for years.

by Anonymousreply 402February 2, 2021 3:56 PM

R402 The problem is that the character is on the verge of puberty and it’s central to the story. He also lives in an all male society and has two dads in the book.

by Anonymousreply 403February 2, 2021 4:07 PM

[quote] Off the top of my head, the most egregious and well-known examples were THE OUTSIDERS, in which Macchio was 21 playing a young teen, and THE KARATE KID movies where he was solidly into his 20s (27 by the final film) playing a high school student.

Well Ralph is an unusual case — he had some kind of growth disorder that kept him looking like a boy until he was in his 30s. It’s disconcerting to watch the third KK movie knowing he was married by then, as he scarcely looks any older than he did in the first one.

by Anonymousreply 404February 2, 2021 4:08 PM

[quote]Off the top of my head, the most egregious and well-known examples were THE OUTSIDERS, in which Macchio was 21 playing a young teen, and THE KARATE KID movies where he was solidly into his 20s (27 by the final film) playing a high school student.

In The Outsiders, Ponyboy is 14 and Johnny (Ralph) is 16. Though Johnny was supposed to look younger than his age. But I don't think it's all that unusual for 21 year olds to be cast as 16 year olds. Currently on the Freeform series two of the lead teen roles are played by 23 year olds, and their age range on the series (which takes place over 3 years) seems to be from about 15 or 16, to 17 or 18.

by Anonymousreply 405May 22, 2021 3:55 PM

*The Freeform series, Cruel Summer

by Anonymousreply 406May 22, 2021 3:56 PM
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