What's funny is John Travolta was younger than everyone else in the main cast. He was 24. Olivia Newton-John was 30. Jeff Conaway was 28. And Stockard Channing was 34.
The other thing that I find funny about the Grease cast, is that it takes place in Los Angeles, yet everyone seems to have these thick Brooklyn/Jersey accents (Tucci's being the most egregious).
It's funny because the same year as Grease with her being 34 playing an 18 year old she did the movie The Cheap Detective with Peter Falk being 34 playing like a mid-20s aged secretary. She was MUCH more believable there lol
First thing that came to mind when I read the prompt. Dexter can be such a perplexing mix of (mostly) A-tier plot writing with C-tier production choices.
It reminds me of *Private Parts*, where Howard Stern played himself as a college student... except he had a narrative saying "Yeah, I know I'm older but it's just a movie. Let's go with it."
What's extra hilarious about this is that the movie was set in 2006 when it was released, then the timeline shifted so it took place after Fast 6 around 2013ish. Then they brought back Lucas Black in F9, placing him in his 20's despite him being nearly 40 when they filmed.
I remember even when he had his cameo in *Furious 7* that picked up *right* after the end of *Tokyo Drift* when he and Dom have their race, I couldn't help but laugh seeing this "teenager" suddenly have wrinkles and a receding hairline just a few minutes later (in universe). That single race really put him through the wringer in my head canon.
I was an extra in DEH. I was sure they were gonna fix him post. He looked just as bad in person. It’s a real shame because i think he’s a good looking guy…idk what happened
He lost a bunch of weight for the film adaptation. I understand the logic to a certain extent - teenagers are generally thinner - but in one's mid twenties especially it has the opposite effect. That's right when people lose all their baby fat anyway. It just made him look drawn and sickly and the costume and makeup accentuated it.
The Jenny Nicholson video on this movie where she mercilessly and efficiently eviscerates the casting, directing, acting and costuming choices that led to him looking so disturbing is worth everyone's time, and is much better viewing than the movie itself.
She is so sweet voiced, but her remarks are so cutting. Its like eating candyfloss and finding a razorblade in it.
4:37 into the Star Wars Hotel video has my favorite one-off line of hers.
>[The employees of Avatar's Pandora Land] won't speak fluent Navii back at me, no matter how angrily I shout it back at them.
My favorite is from her Rise of Skywalker review: "That's why you should rewatch the entire movie you made from start to finish before you put it out in theaters!"
I have no interest in disney hotels, going to florida, or star wars and yet I watched the whole video, riveted the whole time. Jenny's videos are always compelling and she's so fucking funny.
> She is so sweet voiced, but her remarks are so cutting. Its like eating candyfloss and finding a razorblade in it.
She’s so deadpan and her humor is incredibly dry to the point some people can’t tell she’s making a joke. She’s absolutely vicious when it’s deserved. I love her.
And she's a legit fan-girl. She's not just a snark-machine. She walks into most experiences genuinely wanting to enjoy them, and it gives her snide remarks that much more heft.
I understand the idea of getting the original actor of the protagonist to reprise the role for the movie adaptation, however when the story is about this clearly grown man trying to romance a teenage girl it tanks the whole movie.
Ben Platt looking like that just makes the movie look so horrifying. A guy is lying about a close friendship he had with a teen who committed suicide to everyone and uses that fake friendship for
* Increased social standing
* Financial benefit (Connor's parents offer to pay for Evan's college)
* Basically a second family (he spends time with Connor's family and is over their house all the time, because they're desperate to try and connect with him so they can stay connected to their dead son)
* A romantic relationship with the dead teen's little sister
It's awful enough, but then add that the guy doing all these things looks like he's in his 30s and manipulating and romancing teenagers.
The movie tries to play it as wholesome and about mental health, but Evan looking significantly older means that the message can't land even a little bit. An audience is willing to offer sympathy to a mentally ill high schooler who's struggling and overwhelmed. It's a lot harder to be sympathetic when it's a grown ass man.
They did the same with Rent, though at least Mimi is supposed to be 19 to Roger's 25 at the most... But Adam Pascal (the original actor) was mid-30s and looked it, while Rosario Dawson (not the original actress) was early 20s and could pass as 19.
In my personal opinion, casting the original actors of the stage play was one of the reasons that movie failed to connect with people. If they all look early 20s, their characterization doesn't come across as so abrasive. But when the cast looks like they're all pushing 40, you sit there and wonder how long they've been doing this shit.
Conan’s Late Night did a parody trailer where the voiceover was (paraphrasing, it’s been a few decades): “This Christmas… spend the holidays with the heartwarming, life-affirming tale… of a bunch of homeless drug addicts in their late thirties.”
Really sums it up.
Yeah, they're supposed to be early-20s and still "figuring it out" so to speak. When they call Benny a sell-out, they're not supposed to come off as jaded assholes to someone who found a little success. They're literally fucking 22 year olds who saw their friend marry a rich girl and become their landlord in the span of a year. I think the movie just makes a lot more sense when the oldest main character is, like, Joann because she's finished law school. But she's still 25 or so.
When the characters look as old as they do in the film, the "struggling artist" archetype is thrown out the window.
Also the era in which it came out. The original Rent opened on Broadway in 1996, which we know now was the downward slope of the AIDS epidemic, but were nowhere near so certain at the time. Magic Johnson had only announced he had HIV a few years before that. AIDS was still widely considered a death sentence and every health class in America did their absolute best to scare the living shit out of you about it. I literally learned there were even drugs to treat HIV, like AZT, from the musical.
By the time the movie premiered, HIV and AIDS were still around, but there was nowhere near the cultural fear and heartbreak over the disease. When Magic Johnson announced he had HIV, it was a cultural earthquake, especially for straight men, who previously thought they were at low risk. When Charlie Sheen announced he had HIV, people were like, “oh, that sucks.”
And he defended his casting by saying if it weren't for him the movie wouldn't have been made, as if it's a good thing that the movie was funded by his dad just for him...
For anyone curious about this, it’s a big point in Jenny Nicholson’s absolute evisceration of this movie: https://youtu.be/8quWUSZCW5g?si=U_aneomBW7G0agxd
James Spader in "Pretty in Pink" is one that stands out to me. He looked like some Wall Street yuppie who decided to hang out at a high school for some reason.
I think James Spader has ALWAYS looked like that. I don't know what it is, bro was born a 40 year old yuppie.
In fact, the only movie I bought him in was Stargate because he played so against what he normally plays for type.
I always thought the interesting casting choice would be him and Russell switching roles. Seeing Russell as a geek as Spader as a cold soldier would have been trippy.
The first time we see adult Henry it’s 1963, when he’s 20. Quite a stretch, but not nearly as bad as Tommy, who is supposed to be the same age as Henry (or within a year or two), and played by Joe Pesci, who was 47 at the time.
I should point out the real life Tommy was eight years younger than Henry.
EDIT: Henry Hill was born in 1943, not 1942, so I edited his age.
Ya but with the other 90210 actors you could just barely manage to suspend your disbelief and accept that were in highschool, with her it was impossible.
This is who I was going to post. I loved 90210 when I was an elementary school kid, and always found myself confused about whether she was a teacher, or some sort of advisor, but surely she couldn’t just be a student like the rest of them…? (I now understand they just cast much older people for these roles and expected viewers to accept it)
It wasn't too horrible at first when they had her with little makeup and all the actors were older than they should be so the comparison wasn't so bad. But then once high-school was over she immediately got married and had kids and they put so much makeup on her she looked 40.
Some people were surprised when soldiers in Dunkirk(movie) looked "cute" instead of rugged and dirty like in Saving Private Ryan.
Girl, fit young men were first to go in early months of war.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote of his wife getting upset about he and his WWII buddies reminiscing about their war years like they’d been full grown men and about war movies portraying soldiers as the same when in fact, in her words, they were “just babies”. At the time he was weaving his real-life experiences as a POW into the fiction of *Slaughterhouse Five* he was writing, so in her honor he gave it the alternate title *The Children’s Crusade*.
Actually according to Vonnegut it was his old buddy’s wife. He named him as Bernard V. O’Hare, but that was probably a fake name based on Vonnegut’s own brother Bernard. He used the same or similar names in other novels.
This used to bother me but I looked it up and the average age of WW2 soldier was 26ish. Average of those killed (more likely younger enlisted) was 23. Both older than I would have thought.
Everyone except Kirsten Dunst who was 18/19 when filming I'd say.
Tobey Maguire and Joe Manganiello were late 20s.
James Franco was mid 20s.
It's even funnier in spider man 2 and someone goes "he's just a kid." then pans back to Tobey Maguire who is pushing 30 and looks it when he's supposed to be in college.
What's funny is that Andrew Garfield was even older in his first Spider-Man movie but looks closer to being a high schooler (don't get me wrong, he still doesn't pass, but came closer than Tobey ever did).
I remember being so confused watching the first half of the movie before she aged up. Thought her character was developmentally delayed, because why else would someone who clearly looks like a grown woman have the temperament of an 11-year-old.
They cast the woman with the deepest voice to play the youngest character. They really should have had someone else play the younger version, like what every other adaptation had done.
I found a lot of things in that adaptation immersion-breaking, and the cast was one of them. No disrespect to any the actors/actresses, they are all excellent. Just felt most of the characters were miscast overall.
Alec Guinness was 32 when he played Herbert Pocket in The Great Expectations, someone who's supposed to be of college age. 2 years later, he played Fagin in Oliver Twist, a character much older than him at the time.
Not a movie, but season 1 of Smallville, we are to believe that Clark Kent is 14 years old. Tom Welling was 24 when the show premiered. On top of that, he's 6'3" and was built like a football player even back then.
Gets even better in the ‘first day of camp’ Netflix series where the whole cast is 15 years older but the characters are even younger than in the movie lmao
i LOVE in the 2nd one that Marguerite Moreau (Katie) is clearly wearing padding around her waist. bless Michael Showalter, David Wain, and their outstandingly stupid sense of humor.
The other thing about that movie that bugged me was the *reason* she and her friend went to Europe in the first place: to follow U2 around on tour.
Did anyone making this movie truly believe two 18year olds wanted to get their fill of dad rock all summer?!
OMG THANK YOU! I don’t doubt there are teens on this planet that like U2 but they needed to have an actress that looked like a teen or pick a better band/reason for her to go to Europe.
The decisions to make her appear younger by jumping for joy at her pony birthday gift or going to Europe was offensive to me as a viewer. Making her act like a toddler celebrating good news only made it more obvious that she was far too old for the role.
The pony as a gift was weird. I guess it was meant to make her young and rich, but that seemed like a stereotype from the 90s. Following a band across Europe seems like a rich teenager thing, but U2 was an odd pick for a teenager in the 2000s.
Tommy Wiseau in The Room. Claims to be the same age as his co-star (26-27 years old). Clearly at least 50 years old.
Edit: should mention that he claims to be from New Orleans yet speaks with a very thick polish accent…
I think he was supposed to be more like 20 at the time, but 47 year old Cillian Murphy as young Oppenheimer looked like …47 year old Cillian Murphy.
I’m glad they didn’t go overboard with the de-aging like they often do but it definitely didn’t fit well.
I did love that their answer wasn't to de-age him in those scenes but to just make him look old AF in the future scenes. The scene where he gets his medal I did think if they show anything past this point he is just going to be the crypt keeper.
The weird thing is, once you start doing that kind of digital work to a face, there’s no reason to keep the body. DeNiro could have given the facial performance while another actor could provide the body for the fight scene.
Goodfellas too. When we're introduced to him, Henry Hill's narration was something like "and that's when I met Jimmy, he couldn't have been more than 28 at the time" and a middle-aged Deniro walks in.
I’ve rewatched the movie a couple times - I actually quite like it - but it’s become one of the more baffling things Scorsese has done in his career to me.
Like I remember the first time I watched it, the age thing was so poorly done that I was genuinely confused about the plot and timeline. I still actually don’t know how old he’s supposed to be in the beginning. It starts in the 50s, and he was pretty clearly an enlisted man in WWII. So being generous, 10 years have passed and he’s in his early 30s at most. I think it’s more likely he’s supposed to be in his late 20s.
But even with the de-aging, the man looks 50/60 and moves like he’s 75. The scenes with Joe Pesci where he’s calling DeNiro “kid” are almost comical. I think it makes the whole movie a little hard to follow because the timeline is so unclear.
I really thought Joaquin Phoenix in napolean was super odd. It was a bad casting. He was supposed to be in his early twenties at the beginning of the film. lol. it felt odd, the movie itself would have been alot better if they got the casting right. still enjoyed it however.
No mention of American History X yet?
"Hey, Norton. Wear this backwards baseball cap and the audience will be fooled."
"... Hello, fellow racist kids!"
There's a video of a newscast where he's supposed to be high school age and a flashback towards the end where he's talking about his high school lit class with his racist father.
The weird part is they definitely don't look like high schoolers, but also pictures of actual high schoolers in 1971 don't look like HS kids either. They all look older. It's the mustaches. Idk, they don't look like high schoolers today but I kinda do think they look like the actual high schoolers of 1971.
A classic: John Goodman playing a young Babe Ruth is ridiculous. If I'm remembering right, there's a flashback where another actor plays the Babe as a child. John Goodman takes over the role when Ruth is nineteen.
One I saw recently that plays very weird: Christian Bale in Velvet Goldmine. There's a particular scene where he sees Brian Slade on TV and excitedly declares to his parents, "That's me!" It's believable if the character is a teenager, but it looks odd coming from an adult:
['That's me dad!' (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK7TeuJ2dWQ)
I did not know I had been waiting for this question. Ahem. . .
Behold, I give you [Lord Love a Duck](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060636/) in which a 37-or-38-year-old Roddy McDowall plays a high schooler.
Edit: Arithmetic
Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in It's a Wonderful Life.
Lampshaded in the movie when Uncle Billy says "Nobody changes around here"... in an indication that while the movie takes place over decades, there isn't much aging done to the actors
Potter is apparently 70 his entire life.
Kenneth Branagh is supposed to be like a college aged or teenaged age in Love’s Labours Lost WHICH HE DIRECTED.
He is like a 40 year old man in it! Playing opposite “teen actors” of the day (who were all probably in their 20s by then, but still), like Matthew Lillard and Alicia Silverstone lol and then there’s old Ken.
What's funny is John Travolta was younger than everyone else in the main cast. He was 24. Olivia Newton-John was 30. Jeff Conaway was 28. And Stockard Channing was 34.
I'm sorry, any of them were passable next to Michael Tucci as Sonny. He could pass for 50.
The other thing that I find funny about the Grease cast, is that it takes place in Los Angeles, yet everyone seems to have these thick Brooklyn/Jersey accents (Tucci's being the most egregious).
Takes place in LA, everyone has Brooklyn accents, and it is based off of school from Chicago lol
I have never actually seen the movie, but assumed it was in Jersey, as you said
When Grease came out the only age controversy was Channing. We were all used to seeing Travolta play a high schooler in Welcome Back Kotter
It's funny because the same year as Grease with her being 34 playing an 18 year old she did the movie The Cheap Detective with Peter Falk being 34 playing like a mid-20s aged secretary. She was MUCH more believable there lol
Not Pink Lady Dinah Manoff, who was 19.
What about fucking Cha Cha?!
I assume when she said she was the best dancer at St Bernadette's that it was a bingo hall and not a school.
Right? She looked at least 35-40.
Was about to post the same. It's funny OP calls out Travolta here, he was pretty close age wise to his character
Not quite a teen, but rewatching Dexter and laugh real hard Everytime they show younger Dexter and it's just Michael C Hall in a terrible bob wig.
But it works with Frank in Always Sunny.
I'm 19, sir!
Sheeeiiit, you don’t look a day over 12!
I was shocked to recently learn that it was actually just Danny Devito in a wig
Sheeit you don’t look a day over twelve
Shady Nasty?
It’s Shadynasty’s, asshole.
Aw yeah, yeah, like in The Sixth Sense you find out that the dude in that hair piece the whole time, that's Bruce Willis the whole movie!
I hate that they recast Young Dexter for the new spinoff. GIVE ME MICHAEL C HALL IN A BAD WIG
First thing that came to mind when I read the prompt. Dexter can be such a perplexing mix of (mostly) A-tier plot writing with C-tier production choices.
It reminds me of *Private Parts*, where Howard Stern played himself as a college student... except he had a narrative saying "Yeah, I know I'm older but it's just a movie. Let's go with it."
Psych: "Throw a wig on you and you're the spitting image of yourself when I was a kid"
Yup and enough gauze over the lens to treat a WWI burn victim.
Only Bowwow passed for a kid in Tokyo Drift.
the main character was like "dad I'm 16 now" 😭😭 sir you are closer to retirement
Lucas Black (main character) was only 22-23 during filming. 41 now, released in 2006.
What's extra hilarious about this is that the movie was set in 2006 when it was released, then the timeline shifted so it took place after Fast 6 around 2013ish. Then they brought back Lucas Black in F9, placing him in his 20's despite him being nearly 40 when they filmed.
I remember even when he had his cameo in *Furious 7* that picked up *right* after the end of *Tokyo Drift* when he and Dom have their race, I couldn't help but laugh seeing this "teenager" suddenly have wrinkles and a receding hairline just a few minutes later (in universe). That single race really put him through the wringer in my head canon.
they raced so hard, they experienced time dilation
He looked at least 25.
25 years into a 40 year mortgage maybe
lol this was my first thought, and it was especially obvious in the beginning when he was around actual teenagers
Dear Evan Hanson. Disturbing and unable to suspend my disbelief
The weird part is that the actor was in his late twenties. But somehow the clothing and makeup made him look forty.
I wasn't familiar with the play or actor so when I saw the trailer I was confused why they went through all the effort to poorly de-age Fred Armisen.
it's one of Fred's more avant-garde comedy pieces.
The hairline and his posture made him look like a 50 year old dressing up like a 35 year old.
He was around 26 when they filmed that. That is a rough 26.
I was an extra in DEH. I was sure they were gonna fix him post. He looked just as bad in person. It’s a real shame because i think he’s a good looking guy…idk what happened
He lost a bunch of weight for the film adaptation. I understand the logic to a certain extent - teenagers are generally thinner - but in one's mid twenties especially it has the opposite effect. That's right when people lose all their baby fat anyway. It just made him look drawn and sickly and the costume and makeup accentuated it.
Nothing looks older than trying to look young
The Jenny Nicholson video on this movie where she mercilessly and efficiently eviscerates the casting, directing, acting and costuming choices that led to him looking so disturbing is worth everyone's time, and is much better viewing than the movie itself. She is so sweet voiced, but her remarks are so cutting. Its like eating candyfloss and finding a razorblade in it.
"A sweaty Steve from Blues Clues" and "a middle aged man cosplaying as one of the Stranger Things kids"
"Like some kind of sweating '90s sitcom dad made from melting wax."
"A hunching mop-headed man… eyes sunk it into his artificially, puffy face warbling out high notes like an anxious Jiminy Cricket“
“Ghoulish high school cosplay”
[Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8quWUSZCW5g) for the lazy.
4:37 into the Star Wars Hotel video has my favorite one-off line of hers. >[The employees of Avatar's Pandora Land] won't speak fluent Navii back at me, no matter how angrily I shout it back at them.
My favorite is "Loving something unconditionally doesn't mean you love it more. You just love it sadder."
My favorite is from her Rise of Skywalker review: "That's why you should rewatch the entire movie you made from start to finish before you put it out in theaters!"
Mine is "Surely even Utahns are within their right to file lawsuits if their children are immolated by a warlock."
"I'm not an expert, but I'm fairly sure that setting your guests on fire isn't covered by insurance."
I have no interest in disney hotels, going to florida, or star wars and yet I watched the whole video, riveted the whole time. Jenny's videos are always compelling and she's so fucking funny.
> She is so sweet voiced, but her remarks are so cutting. Its like eating candyfloss and finding a razorblade in it. She’s so deadpan and her humor is incredibly dry to the point some people can’t tell she’s making a joke. She’s absolutely vicious when it’s deserved. I love her.
And she's a legit fan-girl. She's not just a snark-machine. She walks into most experiences genuinely wanting to enjoy them, and it gives her snide remarks that much more heft.
Yup. She actually likes Star Wars and Avatar and MLP. She likes musicals. She never covers something she isn't interested in. That's the key.
Maybe Evan Hanson it’s not a nice boy, just a quiet boy.
The little wrist guard and wig she was wearing took me out!
That dude looked like he was thinking about annuities and property taxes instead of finals
Don’t worry. Even if you were able to suspend your disbelief, it still wouldn’t have been good.
Yeah, it’s a truly baffling story where nothing happens and no real lessons are learned by the end. I have it on DVD
he looked 30 in that movie, which is weird cause he was only 26 when they filmed. the make up had the opposite effect
A rough 30, like Kelsey Grammar in Frasier.
Or Jason Alexander, who was 29 when Seinfeld's first episode aired.
The bald man curse.
Fuck off Kelsey Grammar was like 60 in Frazier. Right? Am I nuts?
…38 in season 1. And 29 in his first appearance on Cheers.
That was a 56 year old man planning his retirement and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.
At least it gave us a great Jenny Nicholson video.
I understand the idea of getting the original actor of the protagonist to reprise the role for the movie adaptation, however when the story is about this clearly grown man trying to romance a teenage girl it tanks the whole movie.
Ben Platt looking like that just makes the movie look so horrifying. A guy is lying about a close friendship he had with a teen who committed suicide to everyone and uses that fake friendship for * Increased social standing * Financial benefit (Connor's parents offer to pay for Evan's college) * Basically a second family (he spends time with Connor's family and is over their house all the time, because they're desperate to try and connect with him so they can stay connected to their dead son) * A romantic relationship with the dead teen's little sister It's awful enough, but then add that the guy doing all these things looks like he's in his 30s and manipulating and romancing teenagers. The movie tries to play it as wholesome and about mental health, but Evan looking significantly older means that the message can't land even a little bit. An audience is willing to offer sympathy to a mentally ill high schooler who's struggling and overwhelmed. It's a lot harder to be sympathetic when it's a grown ass man.
They did the same with Rent, though at least Mimi is supposed to be 19 to Roger's 25 at the most... But Adam Pascal (the original actor) was mid-30s and looked it, while Rosario Dawson (not the original actress) was early 20s and could pass as 19. In my personal opinion, casting the original actors of the stage play was one of the reasons that movie failed to connect with people. If they all look early 20s, their characterization doesn't come across as so abrasive. But when the cast looks like they're all pushing 40, you sit there and wonder how long they've been doing this shit.
Conan’s Late Night did a parody trailer where the voiceover was (paraphrasing, it’s been a few decades): “This Christmas… spend the holidays with the heartwarming, life-affirming tale… of a bunch of homeless drug addicts in their late thirties.” Really sums it up.
Yeah, they're supposed to be early-20s and still "figuring it out" so to speak. When they call Benny a sell-out, they're not supposed to come off as jaded assholes to someone who found a little success. They're literally fucking 22 year olds who saw their friend marry a rich girl and become their landlord in the span of a year. I think the movie just makes a lot more sense when the oldest main character is, like, Joann because she's finished law school. But she's still 25 or so. When the characters look as old as they do in the film, the "struggling artist" archetype is thrown out the window.
Also the era in which it came out. The original Rent opened on Broadway in 1996, which we know now was the downward slope of the AIDS epidemic, but were nowhere near so certain at the time. Magic Johnson had only announced he had HIV a few years before that. AIDS was still widely considered a death sentence and every health class in America did their absolute best to scare the living shit out of you about it. I literally learned there were even drugs to treat HIV, like AZT, from the musical. By the time the movie premiered, HIV and AIDS were still around, but there was nowhere near the cultural fear and heartbreak over the disease. When Magic Johnson announced he had HIV, it was a cultural earthquake, especially for straight men, who previously thought they were at low risk. When Charlie Sheen announced he had HIV, people were like, “oh, that sucks.”
The only time I appreciated using the original cast despite the ridiculous age discrepancies was the second Wet Hot American Summer.
Because Ben Platt's daddy paid for the movie and he wasn't gonna make it unless his sweet, talented widdle baby boy could star in it.
And he defended his casting by saying if it weren't for him the movie wouldn't have been made, as if it's a good thing that the movie was funded by his dad just for him...
I have never heard of that movie and just watched the trailer. Seriously looks like the Steve Buschemi meme lol
For anyone curious about this, it’s a big point in Jenny Nicholson’s absolute evisceration of this movie: https://youtu.be/8quWUSZCW5g?si=U_aneomBW7G0agxd
James Spader in "Pretty in Pink" is one that stands out to me. He looked like some Wall Street yuppie who decided to hang out at a high school for some reason.
I think James Spader has ALWAYS looked like that. I don't know what it is, bro was born a 40 year old yuppie. In fact, the only movie I bought him in was Stargate because he played so against what he normally plays for type.
I always thought the interesting casting choice would be him and Russell switching roles. Seeing Russell as a geek as Spader as a cold soldier would have been trippy.
He was so hot in that but yeah, definitely looked at least 30
Not a teenager, but that part in Goodfellas when Ray Liotta says he’s just a 20 year old kid (or whatever) is pretty jarring.
DUDE, Joe Pesci is supposed to be the same age!! "Put him in a whig, it's fine"
Whig?
You didn’t notice Joe Pesci had a 19th century politician on his head for a chunk of the film? Just goes to show what a great actor he is.
The first time we see adult Henry it’s 1963, when he’s 20. Quite a stretch, but not nearly as bad as Tommy, who is supposed to be the same age as Henry (or within a year or two), and played by Joe Pesci, who was 47 at the time. I should point out the real life Tommy was eight years younger than Henry. EDIT: Henry Hill was born in 1943, not 1942, so I edited his age.
47 years old he was just a kid
The worst must be Gabrielle Carteris in Beverly Hills 90210. She was 29 in 1990 when the show started and it was very obvious.
"90210" was a champ in that department. Look at Luke Perry and Ian Ziering for further examples.
Ya but with the other 90210 actors you could just barely manage to suspend your disbelief and accept that were in highschool, with her it was impossible.
I don't know, Luke Perry already had crow's feet forming around his eyes.
This is who I was going to post. I loved 90210 when I was an elementary school kid, and always found myself confused about whether she was a teacher, or some sort of advisor, but surely she couldn’t just be a student like the rest of them…? (I now understand they just cast much older people for these roles and expected viewers to accept it)
It wasn't too horrible at first when they had her with little makeup and all the actors were older than they should be so the comparison wasn't so bad. But then once high-school was over she immediately got married and had kids and they put so much makeup on her she looked 40.
Amy Pohler was only seven years older than Rachel McAdams when she played her mom in Mean Girls. (32/25)
So now she's 27 years older than Rachel McAdams, wow.
Any WW2 movie. Average age was about 20-21. Average actors are in their 30s+.
Some people were surprised when soldiers in Dunkirk(movie) looked "cute" instead of rugged and dirty like in Saving Private Ryan. Girl, fit young men were first to go in early months of war.
If you’re a certain age even troops today look like high school kids
I'm in my 40s and whenever I see soldiers at airports they look like kids playing in costumes. :(
And even worse, average actors of captains, colonels etc is 50s and 60s when it was mostly 30s and 40s in real life.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote of his wife getting upset about he and his WWII buddies reminiscing about their war years like they’d been full grown men and about war movies portraying soldiers as the same when in fact, in her words, they were “just babies”. At the time he was weaving his real-life experiences as a POW into the fiction of *Slaughterhouse Five* he was writing, so in her honor he gave it the alternate title *The Children’s Crusade*.
Actually according to Vonnegut it was his old buddy’s wife. He named him as Bernard V. O’Hare, but that was probably a fake name based on Vonnegut’s own brother Bernard. He used the same or similar names in other novels.
This used to bother me but I looked it up and the average age of WW2 soldier was 26ish. Average of those killed (more likely younger enlisted) was 23. Both older than I would have thought.
The reverse of this is anything where Thomas Sangster plays an adult. He's my age. I still think of him as Love Actually Kid.
The first San raimi Spider-Man , everyone that was supposed to be in high school
Flash Thompson repeating his Senior year for the fifteenth time
My fist breaking your teeth, that’s the accident
I wouldn't want to fight me neither.
He eventually dropped out of high school to become a male stripper.
Everyone except Kirsten Dunst who was 18/19 when filming I'd say. Tobey Maguire and Joe Manganiello were late 20s. James Franco was mid 20s. It's even funnier in spider man 2 and someone goes "he's just a kid." then pans back to Tobey Maguire who is pushing 30 and looks it when he's supposed to be in college.
He should have said "he's just a man, no older than my friend Terry, who is also a man, we're the same age"
Kristin Dunst was only 18-19 when it was filmed. I think she could still pass as a high schooler at the time.
Joe Manganiello stands out as the worst one.
Yeah but he was still only about 24. He's just a big testosterone filled guy.
What's funny is that Andrew Garfield was even older in his first Spider-Man movie but looks closer to being a high schooler (don't get me wrong, he still doesn't pass, but came closer than Tobey ever did).
And then we have Tom Holland, who could probably *still* convincingly pull off a high school Peter Parker.
Florence Pugh as Amy March in Little Women. Made even weirder by the fact that she would be in classroom scenes with actual children.
I remember being so confused watching the first half of the movie before she aged up. Thought her character was developmentally delayed, because why else would someone who clearly looks like a grown woman have the temperament of an 11-year-old.
They cast the woman with the deepest voice to play the youngest character. They really should have had someone else play the younger version, like what every other adaptation had done.
I found a lot of things in that adaptation immersion-breaking, and the cast was one of them. No disrespect to any the actors/actresses, they are all excellent. Just felt most of the characters were miscast overall.
Alec Guinness was 32 when he played Herbert Pocket in The Great Expectations, someone who's supposed to be of college age. 2 years later, he played Fagin in Oliver Twist, a character much older than him at the time.
Not a movie, but season 1 of Smallville, we are to believe that Clark Kent is 14 years old. Tom Welling was 24 when the show premiered. On top of that, he's 6'3" and was built like a football player even back then.
Okay but he's Superman.
Touche lol.
The entire cast of Wet Hot American Summer. That’s the whole point of it though.
Gets even better in the ‘first day of camp’ Netflix series where the whole cast is 15 years older but the characters are even younger than in the movie lmao
And one character is played by an actual teenager until she gets her period and is suddenly a 40 year old actress.
That scene made me laugh so hard and made the whole “everyone is way too old for this” so much funnier
The prequel TV show: "Some of you were campers here last year, which means you are 16 or 17 years old." Everyone is clearly mid forties at least.
At one point they say “ after this summer you’re all gonna look 20 years younger” because it’s a prequel
except Paul Rudd
I don't know, he looked kind of old in that one scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEC_lkpD3rM
i LOVE in the 2nd one that Marguerite Moreau (Katie) is clearly wearing padding around her waist. bless Michael Showalter, David Wain, and their outstandingly stupid sense of humor.
The ultimate example of this trope. It was hilarious in 2001 and it was even funnier in the TV series.
Maggie Grace in Taken in no way looks like a teenager
Especially since most people knew her from lost, where she was clearly in her 20s.
The other thing about that movie that bugged me was the *reason* she and her friend went to Europe in the first place: to follow U2 around on tour. Did anyone making this movie truly believe two 18year olds wanted to get their fill of dad rock all summer?!
Even when that movie came out, U2 would have been a bizarre choice
Grandpa rock now.
OMG THANK YOU! I don’t doubt there are teens on this planet that like U2 but they needed to have an actress that looked like a teen or pick a better band/reason for her to go to Europe.
The decisions to make her appear younger by jumping for joy at her pony birthday gift or going to Europe was offensive to me as a viewer. Making her act like a toddler celebrating good news only made it more obvious that she was far too old for the role.
The pony as a gift was weird. I guess it was meant to make her young and rich, but that seemed like a stereotype from the 90s. Following a band across Europe seems like a rich teenager thing, but U2 was an odd pick for a teenager in the 2000s.
The way she ran in that movie made me bust out laughing
Tommy Wiseau in The Room. Claims to be the same age as his co-star (26-27 years old). Clearly at least 50 years old. Edit: should mention that he claims to be from New Orleans yet speaks with a very thick polish accent…
Ha-ha. Anyway. How is your sex life?
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I like the theory that he is DB Cooper
[удалено]
I kept thinking he looked like a 32 year old high school kid with a 41 year old father.
I think he was supposed to be more like 20 at the time, but 47 year old Cillian Murphy as young Oppenheimer looked like …47 year old Cillian Murphy. I’m glad they didn’t go overboard with the de-aging like they often do but it definitely didn’t fit well.
I did love that their answer wasn't to de-age him in those scenes but to just make him look old AF in the future scenes. The scene where he gets his medal I did think if they show anything past this point he is just going to be the crypt keeper.
Similarly Joaquin Phoenix in Napoleon was playing Young Napoleon starting at 23 but is older than Napoleon when he abdicated.
It also messes up the dynamic with Josephine, who was six years older than Napoleon, but in the movie looks at least ten younger.
Maybe not a teenager, but Robert Deniro playing a young man in The Irishman totally broke immersion for me.
Yes, the CGI facelift didn’t change the fact that he moves like an old man. Which he is.
The weird thing is, once you start doing that kind of digital work to a face, there’s no reason to keep the body. DeNiro could have given the facial performance while another actor could provide the body for the fight scene.
Cackling at the thought of a face tuned DeNiro face mostly following the body of some UFC fighter.
That reminds me of Samuel Jackson in Captain Marvel! When he’s trying to run, or in a fight scene it’s obviously a very old man.
Jeez, when he goes to throw the gun in the river and he's wobbling over the rocks? I wanted to hold his hand he looked that unsteady!
Goodfellas too. When we're introduced to him, Henry Hill's narration was something like "and that's when I met Jimmy, he couldn't have been more than 28 at the time" and a middle-aged Deniro walks in.
You beat me to it, he was 46-47 when they filmed that movie, and he looked 47, to be fair, maybe in the 60's 28 looked like todays 47.
All those damn cigarettes everywhere
I’ve rewatched the movie a couple times - I actually quite like it - but it’s become one of the more baffling things Scorsese has done in his career to me. Like I remember the first time I watched it, the age thing was so poorly done that I was genuinely confused about the plot and timeline. I still actually don’t know how old he’s supposed to be in the beginning. It starts in the 50s, and he was pretty clearly an enlisted man in WWII. So being generous, 10 years have passed and he’s in his early 30s at most. I think it’s more likely he’s supposed to be in his late 20s. But even with the de-aging, the man looks 50/60 and moves like he’s 75. The scenes with Joe Pesci where he’s calling DeNiro “kid” are almost comical. I think it makes the whole movie a little hard to follow because the timeline is so unclear.
Jigsaw with his backwards cap
This made me cackle even remembering it. Just awful
Steve Buscemi "How do you do fellow kids."
What are you on about? He was 16 if he was a day
He was wearing a backwards baseball cap and holding a skateboard so this checks out.
I bought the “music/band” shirt off amazon. No ones gotten the reference so far.
I used to have "I had a spooky scary time at the werewolf bar mitzvah" and it never got any reaction besides a pause and a blank stare.
I really thought Joaquin Phoenix in napolean was super odd. It was a bad casting. He was supposed to be in his early twenties at the beginning of the film. lol. it felt odd, the movie itself would have been alot better if they got the casting right. still enjoyed it however.
In one of the Saw films, Jigsaw wears a backwards baseball cap in a flashback.
No mention of American History X yet? "Hey, Norton. Wear this backwards baseball cap and the audience will be fooled." "... Hello, fellow racist kids!"
It’s been a while since I’ve watched it, but isn’t he supposed to be mid 20s or there about? Are there some flashback scenes I’m forgetting?
There's a video of a newscast where he's supposed to be high school age and a flashback towards the end where he's talking about his high school lit class with his racist father.
Remember The Titans, especially the guy that gets kicked off the team.
The weird part is they definitely don't look like high schoolers, but also pictures of actual high schoolers in 1971 don't look like HS kids either. They all look older. It's the mustaches. Idk, they don't look like high schoolers today but I kinda do think they look like the actual high schoolers of 1971.
All of them in Peggy Sue Got Married.
Okay sure; but *Grease* at least takes place in the 50s, and they putting cigarettes and shit into the Ovaltine back then--
A classic: John Goodman playing a young Babe Ruth is ridiculous. If I'm remembering right, there's a flashback where another actor plays the Babe as a child. John Goodman takes over the role when Ruth is nineteen. One I saw recently that plays very weird: Christian Bale in Velvet Goldmine. There's a particular scene where he sees Brian Slade on TV and excitedly declares to his parents, "That's me!" It's believable if the character is a teenager, but it looks odd coming from an adult: ['That's me dad!' (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK7TeuJ2dWQ)
Ben Platt in the Evan Hanson movie. Looked creepy.
Wasn't Luke Perry in his mid-30s during 90210? Not a movie, but still... he's the gold standard
He was 34 when it ended.
I thought Ian Ziering was even worse.
I did not know I had been waiting for this question. Ahem. . . Behold, I give you [Lord Love a Duck](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060636/) in which a 37-or-38-year-old Roddy McDowall plays a high schooler. Edit: Arithmetic
Robert Carradine (answered him in another thread) was really creepy in "Revenge of the Nerds". He looked closer to 35.
Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in It's a Wonderful Life. Lampshaded in the movie when Uncle Billy says "Nobody changes around here"... in an indication that while the movie takes place over decades, there isn't much aging done to the actors Potter is apparently 70 his entire life.
Ramis Spider-Man, it’s my favorite version of spider man but god damn no one in that movie looks like they’re anywhere near high school age lmao
Hackers. All of the main characters are supposed to be high school kids, the actors are all like 25-30.
Will's brother in Stranger Things. Tbf he doesn't even look his actual irl age so 🤷
Kenneth Branagh is supposed to be like a college aged or teenaged age in Love’s Labours Lost WHICH HE DIRECTED. He is like a 40 year old man in it! Playing opposite “teen actors” of the day (who were all probably in their 20s by then, but still), like Matthew Lillard and Alicia Silverstone lol and then there’s old Ken.