I've posted before about how I don't generally care how old an actor or actress is. If Rachel McAdams can convince me that she's 16 when she is in fact 25, more power to her, right? There is, however, a limit to my I-believe-you-are-whatever-age-you-claim-to-be stance. That limit appears when one character's age is relative to another character's age, and the relativity of said ages is important to the story.
Confusing?
Here, I'll give you some examples of the worst age discrepancies in Hollywood.
I know this is an oldie, but it's a goodie. In
The Last Crusade (which was not, by the way, the "last" crusade, but that's beside the point),
Sean Connery and
Harrison Ford play father and son. They are eleven and a half years apart in age. Possible? Sure. Likely? Really not. Especially considering Daddy Jones is a PhD.
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| kinnema.blogspot.com |
Let's fast forward a generation to
The Fantastic Four. The Thing, Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman all are about the same age. The Thing- played by
Michael Chiklis- and Mr. Fantastic- played by
Ioan Gruffudd- were college freshmen together when The Invisible Woman- played by
Jessica Alba- was a high school senior. During filming, the men were 42 and 32, respectively, she was 24.
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| fusedfilm.com | |
Side note: while this discrepancy isn't enough to annoy me, Invisible Woman's younger brother is played by
Chris Evans, who is about 2 months younger than Jessica Alba. (they're supposed to be Irish twins anyway)
In another oldie,
Angela Lansbury was only three years older than
Laurence Harvey, who played her son in
The Manchurian Candidate. I don't care what you say...
THAT is unreasonable.
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| adamsteelmagnolia.blogspot.com |
In
The Graduate, the legendary cougar Mrs. Robinson was played by
Anne Bancroft who was a whole whopping six years older than Ben Braddock (played by
Dustin Hoffman) and
almost a decade older than
Katharine Ross, who played her daughter, Elaine.
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| bbc.co.uk | |
And the worst, hands down, has to be
8 Simple Rules for Dating my Daughter. I know I don't normally do TV shows, but this one is bad. Real bad. Like, you might want to turn away now to spare yourself the shame. On this show,
Amy Davidson plays the younger sister. In real life, she is six years
older than
Kaley Cuoco. I don't know whether I should be really happy for Davidson, sad for Cuoco or annoyed at ABC.
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| graphicshunt.com |
OK, maybe that's not the worst. It could tie with this one. In
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,
Dick Van Dyke is six months older than
Lionel Jeffries, who plays his father. Wait.... whaaaaat? How, precisely, would that work?
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| shessmart.com |
Please post your ideas in the comments- whether you agree with me or not!
