Dawson Casting: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Yentl]]'', with a 40-year-old [[Barbra Streisand]] in the title role. In the original short story by I.B. Singer, Yentl seems to be younger than 20, although Streisand made the character 28 years old in the movie. Interesting in that the plot revolves around the main character [[Sweet Polly Oliver|disguising herself as a young man to study in a yeshiva]], which when done by a 40-year-old woman stretches the imagination a bit. Then again, so does Streisand's [[American Accents|Brooklyn accent]] in a movie set in Poland around the turn of the century. (The ''[[Mad]]'' satire "Mentl" summed it up perfectly by having her disguise be seen through by a blind man!)

** Mandy Patinkin was 30; his character Avigdor's age is never given, but he's young enough to be eagerly awaiting his wedding night.

* The satirical 1966 film ''Lord Love a Duck'' has high-schoolers played by 23-year-old Tuesday Weld and ''38-year-old'' Roddy McDowall.

* In the first ''[[Spider-Man (film)|Spider-Man]]'' film, Tobey Maguire and James Franco were about 26 and 23, respectively, playing high school seniors.

* The four actors who played the supposedly high-school aged Juan Rico, Dizzy Flores, Carmen Ibanez, and Carl Jenkins in ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]]'' were between 25 and 30 at the time.

* In the 2009 ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'', most of the cast is semi-plausibly close to the ages of recent Starfleet Academy graduates. However, John Cho is 37 years old, playing the 21-year-old Sulu. Karl Urban is also 37, though he's closer to his character's official age of 30. And Zoe Saldana (Uhura) is 31.

* Audie Murphy played himself from his late teens to early twenties in ''To Hell and Back'', made ten years later. It wasn't too bad, as he remained quite young-looking as well as short.

* The first film in the ''[[Scream (film)|Scream]]'' series stars an entire cast of mid-20's actors playing 17-year-old students. Neve Campbell and [[Rose McGowan]] at 23, Skeet Ulrich, Jamie Kennedy and Matthew Lillard at 26 (older than David Arquette, who plays the 25 year old Dewey) [[Drew Barrymore]] being closest to her characters age at 21 years old. Although considering the satiric nature of the film this was probably intentional.

* ''Deux''. This French film stars Isabelle Huppert as twin sisters in an extremely confusing storyline that jumps crazily backwards and forwards in time and space, with no attempt to make Huppert look appropriately older or younger. There are a couple of lengthy sequences in which she appears as a schoolgirl, despite being in her late forties. In addition her/their mother, played by Bulle Ogier, is seen in flashback as a young heavily pregnant woman despite being in her sixties.

* ''Take Me Home Tonight'' is about a group of characters in their early twenties but much of the cast is ten years (or more) older. [[Anna Faris]] and Dan Fogler in particular were both 34 playing fresh university graduates. The difference in appearance between them and those characters who ''are'' played by actors in their early/mid twenties is quite jarring.

** The end credits feature high school pictures of the main cast and the above-the-line crew; Panettiere is just about the only one of the former (and it's safe to say the latter, unless there's something [[Twentieth Century Fox]] isn't telling us) who looks the same as she did working on the movie!

* To an extent in ''[[Mystery Team]]''. Granted, the characters are 18, so it's far less noticeable.

** A funny example is when Shia Labeouf was cast a 12 the same age as Lewis was, a pilot was filmed. By the time the show was fully in production after having been in [[Development Hell]] for a couple of years Labeouf was noticeably older. This is most apparent in The season 1 finale which uses footage from the pilot as a flashback. Lewis looks years younger besides the events of the flashback taking place likely only a few months prior as it's Lewis first day of 7th grade which he is in for the duration of the show.

** Tiffany Thorntoni, the actress that plays Tawni Hart in ''[[Sonny With a Chance]]'' and now ''[[So Random]]'' was born in 1986 (26). Tawni can't be older than 17.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' had numerous examples:

** 23-year-old Carol Ann Ford as 15-year-old Susan Foreman (though she is a [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|Time Lord]]).

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

* Nog, in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' was supposedly a young teenager, but played by Aron Eisenberg, who was in his twenties when the series started. This is, however, something of an odd aversion: he was cast because a kidney transplant in his youth stunted his growth and they wanted him to remain short, since Ferengi are smaller than other humanoids. However, it got incredibly jarring, because his best friend Jake (whose actor was two years older than the character, but didn't look it) had some crazy growth spurts and ended up being 6'3" by the time the series ended. I guess they didn't expect Nog to stick around as a recurring character for that long.

*** 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.

** The best-known Dawson Casting in the Original Series might be Chekov, who was supposed to be 21 years old when 31-year-old Walter Koenig joined the show in 1967.

* Somehow simultaneously played straight and subverted at the same time with ''[[The Inbetweeners]]''. While the four main characters, 17-year-olds, are played by actors ranging from 22 to 26, all of them look and sound the correct age. Seriously, it's creepy.

* In ''[[Dad's Army|Dads Army]]'', 17-year-old Frank Pike was played by Ian Lavender, who was 22 years old when the series started and 31 when it ended, while [[Frozen in Time|Pike had not aged]].

* In the British comedy ''[[Absolutely Fabulous]]'', 16-year-old Saffron is played by 24-year-old Julia Sawalha. Also somewhat inverted with her mother Edina; in an episode dealing with Edina's 40th birthday, actress (and writer) Jennifer Saunders was only 34.

** Julia Sawalha does genuinely look 16, though. Does it fit the trope if the actor genuinely does look like a teenager?

* Yet another [[Sofia Coppola]] film, ''[[Marie Antoinette (film)|Marie Antoinette]]'', features a partial subversion - it starts off playing the trope straight by having 23-year-old [[Kirsten Dunst]] portray the future queen of France at age 14, but Dunst continues to play her all the way into her thirties.

* [[The Film of the Book]] ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'': [[Kristen Stewart]] (Bella) was actually seventeen and Taylor Lautner (Jacob) was fifteen during filming. [[Robert Pattinson]] is twenty-two, in contrast to the eternally 17-year-old Edward. The rest of the actors playing the Cullens are mostly in their early twenties, but it's justified as their characters aren't even really of high school attending age to begin with.

* ''[[Matchstick Men]]'' is an unusual case in that an actress in her twenties plays a 14 year old girl with surprising believability, yet {{spoiler|in the end it's revealed that her character really ''is'' in her twenties.}}

* In ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', [[Laurence Fishburne]] played a 17-year-old soldier, but he was only 14 years old when filming started (due to the film's long period of production and post-production, Fishburne was 17 when the movie was released).

* Claire in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' was 17 years old - and played by 16-year-old (when the series started) [[Hayden Panettiere]] - until the writers noticed fans enjoying the chemistry displayed between Claire and 26-year-old Peter and writers docked her age down one or two years to make them less comfortable with the pairing until [[The Reveal]] of {{spoiler|Peter and Claire being related.}}

** The kids who play Molly Walker and Micah Sanders are about the same age as their characters, or at least they ''were'' until the show took some time off. Micah is supposed to be eleven, and the actor is now fourteen, which is very noticeable as puberty has begun to kick in and his voice changed. Deepest voice on an eleven year old ever.

* ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' had [[Michael Cera]] and [[Alia Shawkat]] at almost the exact age of 14-15.

** Of course, now [[The Movie]] is in the works, so one wonders if this will slip into the non-exception category (Cera is 21 and Shawkat is 20 right now).