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4 hours ago, methodwriter85 said:

Anyway, I've been saying for awhile now that I think Jennifer Lawrence playing so many characters older than her is going to bite her in the ass someday...I talked to someone who thought Haley Bennett looked like a "much younger" Jennifer Lawrence.

Lawrence is an interesting case to me, because I think that playing Ree Dolly and Katniss Everdeen in such close succession has led to her being typecast, which isn't necessarily a bad thing since IMO she's very good at playing old-before-their-times characters. But Winter's Bone came out two years before the first Hunger Games movie, and given how few movies get made in a year, that's hardly any time at all. The franchise ended last year, and I think industry types are going to see her as a forty-year-old woman in the body of someone much younger for a fair while. My prediction is that if she's still acting when she actually is forty, the complaint will have become the opposite of what it is now, that no one wants to cast her because she's 'Hollywood old'.

6 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Lawrence is an interesting case to me, because I think that playing Ree Dolly and Katniss Everdeen in such close succession has led to her being typecast, which isn't necessarily a bad thing since IMO she's very good at playing old-before-their-times characters. But Winter's Bone came out two years before the first Hunger Games movie, and given how few movies get made in a year, that's hardly any time at all. The franchise ended last year, and I think industry types are going to see her as a forty-year-old woman in the body of someone much younger for a fair while. My prediction is that if she's still acting when she actually is forty, the complaint will have become the opposite of what it is now, that no one wants to cast her because she's 'Hollywood old'.

It will be interesting to see what does happen in Hollywood when she is that age. I remember that her response when some reporter asked about DOR casting her much older was that when she hits that age DOR would still be casting her in those roles. I just thought "Oh Jennifer, history in your industry would not indicate that at all, but for your sake I hope so."

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On 11/29/2016 at 8:59 AM, raezen said:

It will be interesting to see what does happen in Hollywood when she is that age. I remember that her response when some reporter asked about DOR casting her much older was that when she hits that age DOR would still be casting her in those roles. I just thought "Oh Jennifer, history in your industry would not indicate that at all, but for your sake I hope so."

I get the feeling DOR and her are done for at least a little while, if not forever. Those director/muse starlet collaborations always tend to go sour . See: John Hughes and Molly Ringwald.

She might be able to pull off what Julianne Moore and Sandra Bullock did- come off as somewhere in their mid-30's to late 30's for much longer than they should have, and therefore stay in the leading lady game longer than their contemporaries did. Amy Addams is basically having that right now- existing in that stage between young starlet and "woman of a certain age" because her looks skew young. It's helping her keep that leading lady status.

I'm leaning more towards J-Law getting Anne Bancroft'd, though. We'll have to see how it goes, though. It really depends on whether or not she stays a box-office draw or not. As Tina Fey joked once, there are plenty of roles for Meryl Streeps over the age of 60.

Office Christmas Party is at least the fifth movie in the past 2 years that depict 30/40-somethings having a wild party. Although in this case, other than T.J. Miller, they seemed like relatively functioning adults.

Still, it's kind of funny to me that teen party pictures, which have been such a staple going back to the 1960's, seem pretty dormant right now. At least among movies that are getting wide releases and not straight-to-Redbox rentals. It's like the parents are getting to do the partying now instead of their kids. I do really think that for whatever reason, there's this whole "Old School" inspired trend right now of seeing people over the age of 30 acting like they're at their college spring break.

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On 12/14/2016 at 8:51 PM, methodwriter85 said:

Still, it's kind of funny to me that teen party pictures, which have been such a staple going back to the 1960's, seem pretty dormant right now. At least among movies that are getting wide releases and not straight-to-Redbox rentals. It's like the parents are getting to do the partying now instead of their kids. I do really think that for whatever reason, there's this whole "Old School" inspired trend right now of seeing people over the age of 30 acting like they're at their college spring break.

Now that you mention it...do teens these days have movies like 16 Candles (problematic though it is), Can't Hardly Wait, and Mean Girls (the most recent example I can think of)?  I never went to parties like that in high school, but I knew of people in my school who did have wild parties when their parents went away. 

Do teenagers even have house parties anymore? My kids go to parties, but the parents are always home. Maybe parents don't leave their teenagers home alone anymore when they go out of town. Are we seeing the results of helicopter parenting?

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3 hours ago, topanga said:

Do teenagers even have house parties anymore? My kids go to parties, but the parents are always home. Maybe parents don't leave their teenagers home alone anymore when they go out of town. Are we seeing the results of helicopter parenting?

Although it's been a loooong time since I've been a teen, I gave several house parties in high school and my parents were always there.  In fact, all the parties I went to the parents were there.  No way would teenagers have a party alone.

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I just saw How To Be A Latin Lover, which deals with an aging gigolo who gets dumped by his sugar mama after 25 years of marriage and then crashes with his estranged sister. I thought it was funny how the guy just refuses to see that he's not a 21-year old hot piece of ass anymore.

In the end though, he

Spoiler

doesn't give up being a gigolo but he does realize he can't play the hot young stud anymore. His next sugar mama wants him to play the hot older professor to her schoolgirl crush. More importantly, he realizes the value of his relationships with his sister and her son.

Rob Lowe does make an appearance as a fellow gigolo, which feels right because people have talked so much about how he's maintained his hotness overall these years, which contrasts to Maximo.

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I saw Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, where Tom Cruise tries to protect a 15-year old girl who may or may not be his daughter. It again reminded me that his kids (or kid surrogate) characters are never older than 16, and Colby Smulders reminded me that his leading ladies are never over the age of 35. (Although to be fair to him, that's true of most leading men.)

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On 8/17/2017 at 2:38 AM, methodwriter85 said:

I saw Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, where Tom Cruise tries to protect a 15-year old girl who may or may not be his daughter. It again reminded me that his kids (or kid surrogate) characters are never older than 16, and Colby Smulders reminded me that his leading ladies are never over the age of 35. (Although to be fair to him, that's true of most leading men.)

I saw the Mummy (don't judge me) and I actually giggled during the scene where Mr. Hyde calls Cruises character, "A younger man..."  Russell Crowe is actually two years younger than Cruise.  While in story I think the implication of the line was that Hyde was immortal or at least older than he looked, it just amused me that Cruise even forces his male co-stars to pretend to be older to make it seem like Cruise isn't in his mid fifties.  And I won't even go into the unlikelihood of  a guy his age still being in a special forces unit.  And it's kind of surreal for me to think I'm almost the exact same age (our birth dates are a month apart) as Annabelle Wallis who played his love interest in the Mummy.  That makes Cruise 22 years older than her.  Is it too much to ask for his love interest not to be young enough to reasonably be his daughter?  While I agree it's a vice of most leading men to have much younger love interests, it doesn't seem as prevalent as it once did (when say Catherine Zeta-Jones was Sean Connery's love interest).  Maybe it's because Cruise is one of the last big name stars who can get away with it, but it always seems so desperate coming from him.

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Tom Cruise being to old really showed up in The Mummy, Jack Reacher is supposed to be a retired soldier . When he was introduced as a Sergeant and his partner as the world's oldest Corporal I let slip my unbelief audibly. A private contractor would have worked better given the mission and how other characters interacted with him.

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9 hours ago, Proclone said:

That makes Cruise 22 years older than her.  Is it too much to ask for his love interest not to be young enough to reasonably be his daughter?  While I agree it's a vice of most leading men to have much younger love interests, it doesn't seem as prevalent as it once did (when say Catherine Zeta-Jones was Sean Connery's love interest).  Maybe it's because Cruise is one of the last big name stars who can get away with it, but it always seems so desperate coming from him.

He's not the only one who does it, by a long shot, but the fact that any potential love interest of his in a movie can't have seen a 35th birthday while any child of his must be playing under 18 does seem a bit desperate. The only time he's played old is Tropic Thunder, and it was cartoon old, not real old.

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I saw Book Club last night. I gotta say, as a youngish gay male, I enjoy those "Women in their Twilight Years get a new lease on life" movies:

Another one that was very indie and small-scale was a movie where Karen Allen leaves her husband to spend a year on Cape Cod to find herself:

Have you noticed that there's always a dance scene in these kind of movies?

She's not in her twilight years yet but Diane Lane did a delightful movie called "Paris Can Wait", where she's a beautiful middle-aged woman with a daughter off in college and an absent husband. She winds up traveling to Paris with a charming French man.

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(edited)

So the Top Gun sequel that everyone inexplicably wants is indeed gonna happen. Tom Cruise will once again play Maverick, and you all know as well as I do that he will not play him as a nearly 60-year-old man with graying hair, a paunch from a desk job because he's retired from being a pilot, and needing reading glasses. Noooooo, Maverick will be this ageless, Highlander/Dorian Gray-like figure who's still flying with all the young bucks. It's also confirmed that Val Kilmer will be returning.

I will die of shock if Kelly McGillis returns and they don't unceremoniously kill off her character and replace her with an actress who was born after Top Gun's initial release as Cruise's love interest. Unlike Cruise with his hair plugs, fillers, and veneers, McGillis looks every second of her age and doesn't appear to be ashamed of it. Here's a pic of her from 2010.

KellyMcGillisSept10TIFF.jpg

Edited by Wiendish Fitch
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Kelly McGinnis is also openly lesbian now and we know that Scientology frowns on that. Yeah, there's no way they're bringing her back. His leading lady will have been born somewhere during the Ronald Regan administration.

I will say that it was refreshing that Indiana Jones did bring back Karen Allen for Part 4, as trashed as that movie was. They didn't try to give Indie a love interest in her early 30's.

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13 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

So the Top Gun sequel that everyone inexplicably wants is indeed gonna happen. Tom Cruise will once again play Maverick, and you all know as well as I do that he will not play him as a nearly 60-year-old man with graying hair, a paunch from a desk job because he's retired from being a pilot, and needing reading glasses. Noooooo, Maverick will be this ageless, Highlander/Dorian Gray-like figure who's still flying with all the young bucks. It's also confirmed that Val Kilmer will be returning.

I will die of shock if Kelly McGillis returns and they don't unceremoniously kill off her character and replace her with an actress who was born after Top Gun's initial release as Cruise's love interest. Unlike Cruise with his hair plugs, fillers, and veneers, McGillis looks every second of her age and doesn't appear to be ashamed of it. Here's a pic of her from 2010.

KellyMcGillisSept10TIFF.jpg

To be fair to Tom Cruise he is only 3 years older than Tom Skerritt was when he played the commander of the Top Gun School in the original. But I would agree we all doubt he is ready to take on the mentor role for an actual star turn for Baby Goose. That it will be Iron Eagle V, old white sailor instead of old black airman is inevitable 

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11 hours ago, Raja said:

To be fair to Tom Cruise he is only 3 years older than Tom Skerritt was when he played the commander of the Top Gun School in the original. But I would agree we all doubt he is ready to take on the mentor role for an actual star turn for Baby Goose. That it will be Iron Eagle V, old white sailor instead of old black airman is inevitable 

He'll have to eventually come around. Even Sylvester Stallone knew it was time to hang up the gloves and let Rocky Balboa be an old man.

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49 minutes ago, methodwriter85 said:

He'll have to eventually come around. Even Sylvester Stallone knew it was time to hang up the gloves and let Rocky Balboa be an old man.

To be more fair, Stallone turned 71 yesterday and was 68 when Creed hit theaters. Tom Cruise ain't even sixty yet, so ya'll acting like he's eighty is amusing me. I agree that he's too old to be playing thirty year olds, but alternately every time this comes up I just think of Bradley Cooper being all of forty and being considered too old to play the love interest of someone in their twenties.

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(edited)
On 6/7/2018 at 11:26 PM, Cobalt Stargazer said:

To be more fair, Stallone turned 71 yesterday and was 68 when Creed hit theaters. Tom Cruise ain't even sixty yet, so ya'll acting like he's eighty is amusing me. I agree that he's too old to be playing thirty year olds, but alternately every time this comes up I just think of Bradley Cooper being all of forty and being considered too old to play the love interest of someone in their twenties.

True, but it's kind of hysterical that Tom Cruise seems so determined to play young that he won't even play dad to a kid who's over the age of 18, even though in reality he does have kids well into their 20's. I really think Justin Chatwin's teen character in World of the Worlds is the absolute oldest kid I've seen Cruise play on-screen dad to.

He just keeps reminding me of that line from Sunset Boulevard- "Norma, you're a woman of 50. Now grow up! There's nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you try to be 25!"

Anyway, I saw the movie "Tag" and it reminded me that the Gen Xers are the middle-aged parental generation now, and that made me feel old. (I'm not a Gen Xer but I've always looked up to that generation as the epitome of cool.) I do think "Game Night" was funnier and a better entry into that whole "grown-ups can be wild and have fun, too!" genre.

Seriously though, I feel like I see more movies about thirty/forty-somethings going on wild adventures coming out now than I do teen party comedies, which was such a staple of 80's and 90's films.

Edited by methodwriter85
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16 hours ago, methodwriter85 said:

True, but it's kind of hysterical that Tom Cruise seems so determined to play young that he won't even play dad to a kid who's over the age of 18, even though in reality he does have kids well into their 20's. I really think Justin Chatwin's teen character in World of the Worlds is the absolute oldest kid I've seen Cruise play on-screen dad to.

He just keeps reminding me of that line from Sunset Boulevard- "Norma, you're a woman of 50. Now grow up! There's nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you try to be 25!"

Thank you! That's what I keep saying. Bear in mind, Tom Cruise is old enough to be the father of someone in their 30s. Hell, he could be my father, but, ironically, I'm too old to play his love interest.

I'm glad Kelly McGillis is still working, even if it is in crappy Hallmark movies and low-budget horror flicks. Gotta earn a living, right? Still, I would be amazed if she came back for the Top Gun sequel. Tom Cruise, making out with a woman who's-GULP!- 5 years older than he is and openly gay to boot? Not gonna happen. Nope, never. Never.

Hey, y'all ready to feel old along with me? Just 9 years ago, Carey Mulligan was touted as the hot ingenue of the moment... and she's playing the mother of a teenager in her next film. Dang. And I'm 3 years older than she is...

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(edited)
3 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Thank you! That's what I keep saying. Bear in mind, Tom Cruise is old enough to be the father of someone in their 30s. Hell, he could be my father, but, ironically, I'm too old to play his love interest.

I'm glad Kelly McGillis is still working, even if it is in crappy Hallmark movies and low-budget horror flicks. Gotta earn a living, right? Still, I would be amazed if she came back for the Top Gun sequel. Tom Cruise, making out with a woman who's-GULP!- 5 years older than he is and openly gay to boot? Not gonna happen. Nope, never. Never.

Hey, y'all ready to feel old along with me? Just 9 years ago, Carey Mulligan was touted as the hot ingenue of the moment... and she's playing the mother of a teenager in her next film. Dang. And I'm 3 years older than she is...

Tom Cruise's unborn twins in Cocktail would be just about 29 years old now. (Assuming that Cocktail's present-day scenes are taking place in 1988 and the twins are born in 1989.) Strange thought, right? And of course, Elisabeth Shue would never be considered as a love interest to Cruise now. Although again, it's not just limited to him- but he's probably the most draconian about this. Even Denzel Washington knew better than to try and cast a young ingenue against him in something like Fences.

I'm Carey Mulligan's exact age. (Well, 5 months younger but still.) It's still kind of weird, but I do feel like she could pull it off. English actors always come off as so much more mature than their American counterparts.

I remember reading once that Ryan Gosling was set to play the father in The Lovely Bones but had to drop out because even after growing a beard and gaining weight, he just could not overcome his boyish good looks and look like he could be the father of teenagers. He could pull it off now, but of course the Lovely Bones was almost a decade ago.

Another age casting note- a lot of people have said that they should have gotten an actual 24-year old or someone who looks like it to play Oliver in Call Me By Your Name. I feel like they could have gone with that, but the problem is that most actual 24-year old male actors still play teen roles. There's this weird effect that Dawson casting has had where because people in their mid-20's often play teenagers, you need to get people in their late 20's or early 30's to play people that are in their early 20s or mid-20's.

I thought this was really noticeable in Everybody Wants Some, where the college freshmen were mostly played by guys in their early/mid-20's, while the college seniors were mostly played by guys in their late 20's or early 30's.

Edited by methodwriter85
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12 hours ago, PepSinger said:

Hell, I still wouldn't buy Gosling playing the father of a teenager.

That brings me to Jake Gyllenhaal, who is the same age as Gosling, and he's played a dad to teens more than once in recent years. Good for him. There's something to be said about actors and actresses who know when to put aside vanity and start playing parents.

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11 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

That brings me to Jake Gyllenhaal, who is the same age as Gosling, and he's played a dad to teens more than once in recent years. Good for him. There's something to be said about actors and actresses who know when to put aside vanity and start playing parents.

Well, I think Jake looks more mature than Ryan. I'd absolutely buy him being the father to young teens, especially with the beard. However, Ryan Gosling still has too much of a boyish look to his face. I don't think that's vanity; it's just realizing what's actually believable, IMO. I can't realistically see him playing a parent to a child older than ten years old. 

5 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

There was a piece in Vulture a couple of months ago ago about casting actors of wildly different ages as friends or siblings based on how they look a certain age.

http://www.vulture.com/2018/05/tag-movie-how-are-those-actors-playing-childhood-friends.html

My favorite movie of all time is Singin' in the Rain, and only a few years ago did I appreciate the fact that Gene Kelly was 15 years older than Donald O'Connor, yet they play friends from childhood who are ostensibly the same age. Somehow I found it easier to buy than, say, Jim Carrey and Bradley Cooper in Yes Man.

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This isn't in the movies, but I loved Rena Sofer's interview where she's trying hard not to laugh her ass off at being cast to play Heather Locklear's high school friend on Melrose Place. (They're 7 years apart in age.) She was all, "I love you, Heather, but I'm just a little bit younger than you." In other words, "Bitch, you ain't fooling nobody. The only way you could have hung out with me in high school is if you were my babysitter."

I talked earlier in this thread about Sarah Jessica Parker being roommates with Zoey Deschanel in Failure to Launch. If it had just been that, I could see the argument about how people of varying ages room together, but I still got the vibe that they were trying to play Sarah like she ain't 40. Being referred to as "young woman", saying that she's trying to be a "dream girl", etc etc.

Tag seemed to set the age of the guys as being somewhere around Jake Robinson's age. I feel like the general vibe is that they were in elementary/middle-school during the 80's, and graduated sometime in 1994-ish.

On 11/29/2016 at 2:38 AM, Cobalt Stargazer said:

My prediction is that if she's still acting when she actually is forty, the complaint will have become the opposite of what it is now, that no one wants to cast her because she's 'Hollywood old'.

Jennifer Lawrence could get lucky and be Meryl Streep, who seems to be rumored to taking on the part of Marmee in Little Women. A role her age peer Susan Sarandon played nearly 25 years ago.

That was the interesting part about watching the Post as well- her character was early 50's and it wasn't unbelievable (avoiding the sun and choosing her face over her ass has really helped Meryl in the aging department), but it was funny to realize she's almost 20 years older than what she's playing. Similar to watching Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange playing early 50-somethings on Feud. It's like middle age really is indistinguishable from elder lady status in Hollywood. If you're 50, you might as well be 70. 

I mean, seriously though, it's no wonder that actresses like Jessica Rothe won't list their age on IMDB or Rachel McAdams has kept to her 1978 birthdate instead of her real one.

But back to the earlier part...Book Club seemed to say these women were all college buddies, but Jane Fonda is of course 15 years older than Mary Steenburgen. Diane Keaton and Candice Bergen are the only two that actually could've gone to college together at the traditional college ages.

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(edited)

Lucille Ball used to talk about how all women should lie about her age, while also admitting that she made the mistake early on in Hollywood of telling the truth about hers (she was born on August 6th, 1911--she was already 40 when I Love Lucy began in 1951--and, for that matter, when she had her first child, Lucie Arnaz). 

On 7/2/2018 at 7:55 PM, methodwriter85 said:

I mean, seriously though, it's no wonder that actresses like Jessica Rothe won't list their age on IMDB or Rachel McAdams has kept to her 1978 birthdate instead of her real one.

 

That's NOT her real birthdate? I know she was definitely the oldest of the girls in Mean Girls, that certainly was never hidden. What's her real one, if you know/do you think? 

Edited by UYI
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Well, Nick was supposed to be in his early or mid 30's while Amy was supposed to be older at late 30's/early 40's. I think Carrie Coon's age was more reflective of how old Nick is supposed to be. As for Rachel McAdams, her birthdate was originally listed as 1976 but it somehow became 1978. It's still kind of funny she's actually much closer to Amy Poehler's age than she is to Amanda Seyfried and Lohan's ages.

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10 hours ago, UYI said:

Lucille Ball used to talk about how all women should lie about her age, while also admitting that she made the mistake early on in Hollywood of telling the truth about hers (she was born on August 6th, 1911--she was already 40 when I Love Lucy began in 1951--and, for that matter, when she had her first child, Lucie Arnaz). 

She always read as much younger. I still can't wrap my head around her being older than Vivian Vance. In my head Lucy was about 28-30 when the show began.

It doesn't usually bother me if the actors look around the same age. Carrie Coon for instance never came across as any younger than Ben Affleck. But Tiffany Haddish played, to me, significantly younger then her co-stars in Girls Trip (it's the same for her in The Last OG playing against Tracy Morgan).

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While there’s certainly sexism in Hollywood regarding age, some people do read physically younger/older depending on face shape, vocal tone etc. there are also people who mature in the face faster but look the same for twenty years- the tv actress that comes to mind with that is Angie Harman, she looks the same as she did during her days on Law & Order. https://goo.gl/images/MgDuhW

For women it’s as if once you hit menopause you might as well be dead. How beauty/fashion advice stops at 50! For most people in good heath their activities and lifestyle are drastically different between 50 and 80!

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On 7/4/2018 at 8:14 PM, JessePinkman said:

She always read as much younger. I still can't wrap my head around her being older than Vivian Vance. In my head Lucy was about 28-30 when the show began.

I think that was because Lucille had a nice figure AND the advantage of black and white film. Vivanne was a gorgeous woman too but they styled her to make Lucille read younger. Seeing color photos of Lucille from the era, I read her closer to 40 than 30. 

1 hour ago, Silver Raven said:

I hate movies that take place over several years but the teenaged characters are played by the same, never-aging actors.  I'm looking at you, The Bridge.

Don't watch the X-Men films. The time jump is sometimes decades, but the actors look the same. Though, that might just be comic aging on screen. Comic characters rarely noticably age, and when they do, they sometimes go backwards again.

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(edited)
On 6/27/2018 at 2:45 PM, methodwriter85 said:

Another age casting note- a lot of people have said that they should have gotten an actual 24-year old or someone who looks like it to play Oliver in Call Me By Your Name. I feel like they could have gone with that, but the problem is that most actual 24-year old male actors still play teen roles. There's this weird effect that Dawson casting has had where because people in their mid-20's often play teenagers, you need to get people in their late 20's or early 30's to play people that are in their early 20s or mid-20's.

I thought this was really noticeable in Everybody Wants Some, where the college freshmen were mostly played by guys in their early/mid-20's, while the college seniors were mostly played by guys in their late 20's or early 30's.

 

I personally never mind 20 and 30 ish year old actors playing way younger than they are.  I don't mind it a bit.  And I love when female actors get away with hiding their much older age than they're cast as.

I really don't think children should act - I get that they have to be onscreen once in awhile blah blah blah - but child actors have way too many problems. I really think it's strange that everyone KNOWS that children should not work and that child labour is wrong and yet with acting everyone handwaves it like it's okay.  I don't agree that it's okay.  I personally don't think children should act and the longer they wait to be cast in something the better.  So I'm fine with the 20-ish year olds playing teens, who does it hurt?  I.e. Stacey Dash in Clueless, Gabrielle Union in 10 Things, Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls, etc. etc.

On 7/4/2018 at 6:36 AM, Wiendish Fitch said:

Another reason to love The Rock! :) 

His love interest is Melissa McCarthy in Central Intelligence, a favourite movie of mine!!!!!!!  She is two years OLDER than he is!

On 7/2/2018 at 7:55 PM, methodwriter85 said:

I mean, seriously though, it's no wonder that actresses like Jessica Rothe won't list their age on IMDB or Rachel McAdams has kept to her 1978 birthdate instead of her real one.

I think another good example is Constance Wu - she hid it for a long time.  

Edited by Ms Blue Jay
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(edited)
Quote

I personally never mind 20 and 30 ish year old actors playing way younger than they are.  I don't mind it a bit.  And I love when female actors get away with hiding their much older age than they're cast as.

I generally don't mind it, either, as long as it still feels within the realm of possibly. People do age differently. Stacey Dash could pull off high school in her late 20's. Olivia Wilde couldn't play 17 when she was 20. Henry Cavill apparently was up to play Edward Cullen in Twilight (the author wanted him apparently) but he matured pretty quickly and just couldn't look believable as a 17-year old by the time he was 25. And then there's my recent example of Joey Pollari, who was in Love Simon. He's literally only about 2 years older than Nick Robinson but looked about 30 and it was super, super awkward to watch. His agent really should stop submitting him for teenagers.

Grease kind of works because EVERYBODY for the most part looks old, so it's not jarring.

My favorite Dawson casting though is Robbie Amell in the Duff:

image.png

Holy crow's feet. Really on Luke Perry territory there. Mae Whitman is  Robbie's age but she was far more believable.

Anyway, I was watching Sisters and I was again reminded of the weirdness of seeing Heather Matarazzo and Kate McKinnon play people that were in high school in the late 80's. Everyone else looked about right for that age group except for them. (The invites were clearly for people who graduated in the class of 1989 so that would have put everybody at about 44 in 2015.) I guess they just lucked out to still look early 30's at 44.

(Yes, I know their real ages. I'm just being facetious.)

Edited by methodwriter85
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On 7/11/2018 at 3:32 AM, methodwriter85 said:

Grease kind of works because EVERYBODY for the most part looks old, so it's not jarring.

Grease (which I love!) only kinda works if you look at it as a parody.

 

On 7/11/2018 at 3:32 AM, methodwriter85 said:

My favorite Dawson casting though is Robbie Amell in the Duff:

Yeah, I was thoroughly perplexed at this casting, because a few years earlier I thought he was too mature-looking playing the teen lead on that CW show.

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8 hours ago, Trini said:

Grease (which I love!) only kinda works if you look at it as a parody.

I think Grease also works because most people are first introduced to it (especially now) when they are kids and to a 7 year old, that is how old you think teenagers look.  It's only watching it back as an adult when you're like "Holy smokes!  They look old."  I think it's less noticeable in musicals though.  There's already a suspension of disbelief and they get away with a lot of license.

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42 minutes ago, kiddo82 said:

I think Grease also works because most people are first introduced to it (especially now) when they are kids and to a 7 year old, that is how old you think teenagers look.  It's only watching it back as an adult when you're like "Holy smokes!  They look old."  I think it's less noticeable in musicals though.  There's already a suspension of disbelief and they get away with a lot of license.

Especially on stage; hell, think of all the middle-aged women who have played Peter Pan (Cathy Rigby played the role for the last time at age 60!).

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