Dawson Casting: Difference between revisions

{{examples}}

 

* Although there's generally no actual casting involved, many fanfics involve describing the characters (both existing and new) in terms that don't fit with eleven to seventeen years old. Sometimes there actually ''is'' casting, when the author creates banners or pictures for the cast, and generally uses models or actresses in their young 20s.

** A notable example would have to be ''[[The Girl Who Lived]]'', which references pictures of well-endowed porn actresses in their late 20s as pictures of the main cast all the way back when they were [[Squick|11]].

* In the author's notes of ''[[My Immortal]]'', Tara Gilesbie suggested that [[My Chemical Romance|Gerard Way]] (!) should play [[Draco in Leather Pants]] in the next ''[[Harry Potter (film)|Harry Potter]]'' film.

 

* Inverted in ''[[Click]]'' where 19 year old Katie Cassidy plays the 27 year old version of Adam Sander's daughter

* Inverted in ''[[Crazy Stupid Love]]'' with 22 year old [[Emma Stone]] playing a character who is at least 25.

* In ''[[Bunraku]]'', teenage Momoko is portrayed by 25 year old Emily Kaiho, who sort of pulls it off by being fresh-faced and [[Teens Are Short|petite]].

** Much is made of how Yoshi is the youngest of the protagonists, and inexperienced and hot-headed as a result. [[Gackt]] meanwhile is pushing forty (but looks twenty years younger).

 

* Arthur Fonzarelli in ''[[Happy Days]]'' was supposed, in the early episodes at least, to be seventeen years old. The Fonz was played by Henry Winkler, who was twenty-nine when the show started, and thirty-nine when it ended. His age seemed all the more obvious when he was seen romancing an actress clearly in her teens or twenties.

* Back to the [[Trope Namers]], ''[[Dawson's Creek|Dawsons Creek]]'': Much worse than ''Dawson'''s leads were the actors introduced later on: Kerr Smith (26) and Meredith Monroe (29) playing siblings (and high school sophomores) [[Suddenly Sexuality|Jack]] and [[Genki Girl|Andie]] McPhee starting in Season 2. Worse considering that Andie was likely the ''younger'' sibling.

** In ''[[CSI: NY]]'' {{spoiler|this was gender-reversed; the conwoman was turned into a pair of paedophiles, the girlfriends were date-raped and the guidance counselor was killed when he found out}}.

* All of the secondary school pupils in the seventies Britcom ''[[Please Sir]]'' were quite visibly in their late twenties or early thirties.

** [[Wil Wheaton]] was 15 when playing a 15-year old [[Creator's Pet|Wesley Crusher]]. ''[[Star Trek]]'' in general has avoided this with the child characters, with several recurring children on ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'' being played by the appropriate age.

*** One of the worst examples was the Original Series episode "Miri". The "kids" in that would have died if they'd hit puberty (so "early" blooming cannot explain this away)--but some of them looked like they were in their thirties. Or older.

** [[Hilarity Ensues]] with a recent [[Moral Guardians|Parents' Television Council]] statement on the "near pedophilia" of a recent racy GQ shoot starring Lea Michele and Diana Agron. Both were 24.

** It's arguably justified in that every episode is a [[Musical Episode]]; it would probably be difficult too find high-school aged actors that could sing ''and'' act convincingly enough to compete with whom they've actually cast.

* Totally averted by BBC children's dramas ''[[Byker Grove]]'' and ''[[Grange Hill]]'', where all the actors playing children were about the same age as their characters. Some were even a year or so younger.

* ''[[Grey's Anatomy|Greys Anatomy]]'' pulls off [[Dawson Casting]] with tweens: In season 1, the characters start their internship at the Seattle Grace, so they should be around 25 (give or take). Ellen Pompeo playing Meredith was 35 at the time of filming and the actors of Cristina, George and Alex were also in their thirties. Only averted with 26-year old Katherine Heigl as Izzie.

 

 

* [[Alice Cooper]], born in 1948, has been singing "I'm Eighteen" for over 30 years.

* [[Pat Benatar]], born in 1953, built an entire discography around singing about how "we are young" back in the 1980s.

 

 

* [[The Bible|The Virgin Mary]] is usually played by an actress over the age of 20, but historians say she was about 14 when she became pregnant with Jesus.

 

 

* In most productions of ''[[Rent]]'', the nineteen-year-old Mimi Marquez will be played by women in their 20s, most notably in [[The Movie]], where she was played by the then 26-year-old [[Rosario Dawson]].

** The movie in general is a good example of this trope, with most of the original cast reprising their roles eight years after they'd created them onstage.

 

 

* Tedd from ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' invokes this in an [[B-Side Comics|EGS:NP strip]] by claiming to be twenty-one outside of continuity due to [[Comic Book Time]]. Grace counters the gap ''might'' be up to a year, making Tedd eighteen. She then goes on to say that it doesn't matter anyways since none of them are likely to look any different before they turn 30.<ref>Though the revelation that he may be under the drinking age causes Tedd to excuse himself so that he can dispose of a keg in the fridge before his dad finds it.</ref>

 

 

* This was the initial reason that some viewers suspected ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'' to be a hoax. The [[Real Life]] implications of this are apparent in an episode of ''MaxterBexter'', in which former ''lonelygirl15'' actors Becki Gregoski and Maxwell Glick complain about needing to show ID before they would be served alcohol, even though Maxwell Glick was 29 at the time.

* On the website hosting the [[Whateley Universe]], the stories centering on Chau Lee (Bladedancer) are often illustrated with pictures of Zhang Ziyi. The character is fifteen, the actress at least twelve years older...

 

 

* In a rather [[Squick]] and creepy example, a 29 year-old named Casey Price was found posing as a 7th grader (12 years-old), [http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/162751/twentynine_year_old_neil_rodreick_poses.html?cat=17 fooling even the two people he was living with].

* A woman, Treva Throneberry, pretended to be a teenager throughout her 20s and early 30s and moved from foster home to foster home. She got a tuition to go to college and was finally arrested for fraud. [http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/treva_throneberry/index.html Interestingly, she didn't look especially youthful.]

 

 

 

* Michelle Trachtenberg was in her late teens playing 18 year old Jenny in ''[[Eurotrip]]''.

** She played the 11-year-old sixth-grader Harriet in ''[[Harriet the Spy]]'', while the actress was 10 years old to the day when shooting began on October 11th, 1995 (this may have been done for labor law reasons, or it may have been a coincidence).

* While a number of the cast members who play tributes in ''[[The Hunger Games (film)|The Hunger Games]]'' are borderline cases, it's definitely averted by Isabelle Fuhrman (Clove), Jacqueline Emerson (Foxface) and Amandla Stenberg (Rue) - aged 15, 17 and 13 respectively at the time of release.

 

* Claire Danes (Angela) and Devon Gummersall (Brian) from ''[[My So-Called Life]]'' really were teenagers at the time of filming -- although the rest of the teenage characters were played by twentysomethings (including the aforementioned Senta Moses).

** This is a rare, possibly unique inversion, especially for an actress, as the producers knew that Danes was only 13 years old (at the start of filming) yet they still cast her to play a character two full years older than the actress, without any retcons or fudging the numbers.

 

 

* John Owen Jones was 26 when he first assumed the role of Jean Valjean in ''[[Les Misérables (theatre)|Les Misérables]]'', who ages from late thirties-early forties at the beginning of the show and into his sixties by the end. Alexander Gemignani was 27 when he starred as Valjean in the Broadway revival. This kind of thing also happens to a lesser degree with Javert and the Thenardiers, who age similarly to Valjean throughout the show, and are usually cast near the younger end of that range (i.e. 40s). Valjean, however, is most susceptible to inverted Dawson Casting due to the role being written for a high tenor, and there are few men Valjean's age who can hit those high notes with the kind of power necessary for the role.

* Similarly, this has been a respected convention for the casting of the very aged [[King Lear]], due to the exhausting nature of the role (in one scene, Lear has to carry around {{spoiler|Cordelia's body}}). However, this has not stopped many of the Shakespearean actors in their sixties and seventies from taking on the role, particularly more recently, and often multiple times throughout their lives. As a result, Lears come in all different ages.

* Amy Nuttall was 16 when playing Christine in ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]'' on the West End, and to date is the youngest leading actress ever featured in the London production.

 

* Incredibly, Maria Callas began her opera career at the age of 15, as the leading lady in ''Cavallera rusticana'', which is about a young, knocked-up village girl, probably about 15-16. Since it requires performers who can sing over an orchestra, this trope doesn't have many opera exceptions, folks.

* Although there is one other noticeable aversion in the field of opera -- Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. Tchaikovsky felt that older singers playing young, passionate lovers would cause people to be unable to take his opera seriously. He had students at the Moscow Conservatory put on the first performance of Eugene Onegin.

* In the music video for [[Aerosmith]]'s song "Crazy", 17-year old Alicia Silverstone and 16-year old [[Liv Tyler]] play two students who skip class and go on a road trip together. The fact that this is an exception is surprising because the video is [[Fan Service]]-heavy and even features Liv doing a striptease at one point. Not to mention the fact that Liv is lead singer Steven Tyler's ''daughter''.

 

* School plays and musicals usually invert or avert this.

* Traci Lords did adult entertainment when she was a minor. She did (and does) look older than most people who were born in 1968. When the feds tried to bust the smut peddlers for molesting innocent Traci, the case fell apart when the government admitted that it, too, had been fooled when Lords traveled to Europe on a fake passport.