(no subject)

[frelling_tralk]

I've just wasted way too much time on http://actualteenadultteen.tumblr.com/ lol, they put together a picture of an actor playing 16 or 17 alongside a picture of what they actually looked like when they were were that age. It's so weird to see Hollywood's example of what passes for teenage in tv and film










I always thought Sarah and Alyson passed okay actually (well Sarah was only 2 or 3 years older than the part anyway), but Nicky and Charisma were ridiculously obvious when they were both close to 30 and still playing 16/17 wtf. And Joss did hire an actual teenager for the part of Kendra unusually, but Bianca Lawson is 31 in the second pic and still playing a teenager...

Comments

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Sometimes when they hire 25 year olds to play teens, and then 35-40 year olds to play their parents, I get confused and have to stop myself from reading the parents as older siblings . . .

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

In The Vampires Diaries the actress playing Aunt Jenna was actually younger than the actor portraying the 15 year old she was meant to be guardian too...

And I can understand going up to 19 or 20 when selecting for a teenage role, but I draw the line at an actor playing teenage when they're closer to 30 than 20 lol

[heavenly44.livejournal.com]

me too. I keep thinking of them as siblings.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Sometimes when they hire 25 year olds to play teens, and then 35-40 year olds to play their parents

*lol* Have you seen the original version of The Manchurian Candidate (1962)? Angela Lansbury was only three years older than Laurence Harvey - who played her son.

Both the Lawrence Olivier and Mel Gibson versions of Hamlet featured actresses playing their "mothers" who were no older than the actors were. Which might work fine in theater but movies? not so much.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Aw man, poor Charisma.

And, holy cow, VK looked like a girl! (And given his current look on Mad Men http://wpc.4d27.edgecastcdn.net/004D27/2013/MadMen/MadStyleS6E11/Mad+Style+S6E11+24.jpg... a guy who probably wishes he had some of his hair back)

And the hilarious part of what SMG looked like at 16 (while playing Kendal on AMC) is that after AMC got called out by the fans as a teenaged Kendal being used as a device to de-age Erica Kane they had to age adjust Kendal upward, to the only plausible age for the character given that Erica had to have given birth to Kendal prior to the show being on air. End result, at 16 SMG was playing 21 year old character!)

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

Just what is going on in those pics--and is that Vincent's natural hair loss?!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Hee I heard that! It's so messed up when an actress is playing the true age for once, and it still has to be adjusted *g* Other Buffy actors playing their correct age were Michelle as Dawn of course, although that did result in the writers treating the character as younger than being 14 and 15 really warranted. And Eliza was actually 17 when she was playing Faith and had to be legally emancipated so she could work the hours on-set. I always feel like that's something people forgot about Eliza compared to Michelle though, maybe because she came off as quite mature compared to most 17 year olds?

[tasabian.livejournal.com]

Charisma looks younger at 30 than she does with the big hair!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

She just doesn't seem to age like us mortal folk *g* Even on Buffy it was only during season 3 that I felt like her being more than 10 years older than the part started to stand out, in seasons 1 and 2 she didn't look significantly older than a lot of slightly older actresses passing for high school girls. And then on VM she was playing 25 when she was around 35 in reality....There's also a clip of her on YouTube when she played a 14 or 15 year old boys girlfriend on Baywatch when she was in her mid 20's

[12-12-12.livejournal.com]

OMGGGG this is the most entertaining post ever. I can't stop laughing at Vincent K.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I didn't expect him to look that different from when he was playing teenage on Ats lol

[ladyoneill.livejournal.com]

Bianca's finally playing an adult as a recurring character on Teen Wolf but two years ago she was still playing a teen on Pretty Little Liars. I couldn't believe it was her because it was like a dozen years since she was on Buffy playing the same age!

VK's hair on Mad Men is just sad--if he really does shave it, thank god!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen him in anything other than Angel, so it is quite shocking if his hairline really is receding that badly!

And when Bianca was playing Emily on The Vampire Diaries a few years ago she barely looked much older than when she played Kendra, so weird

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Aww, they were so baby-faced as kids I want to squish them! Which is probably why young kids aren't cast. Too much, aww!

SMJ is an interesting case as she played an adult as a teen and a teen as an adult.

Maybe she's just versatile? I remember being shocked to find she was only 14 portraying Kendall. And won an Emmy! Wow.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I thought that she really did look realistically young in the first season of Buffy especially

[silverusagi]

You know, I remember seeing an episode of Doogie Howser, M.D., and thinking how NPH actually looked like a kid. And looking it up, he was actually 16 when he was playing a 16 year old. Rarely is that the case.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I always heard they don't like to hire actors who are younger than 18 because of the child labour laws. They ran into problems with Claire Danes on My So-Called Life because she was only 14/15 in reality, and so they added in more scenes with the parents instead to give her a break. She was actually only13 when she filmed the pilot, which was the same age as the actress playing her little sister Danielle was at the end of the series! That always weirds me out!

And the actress playing Maria on Roswell was only 17 when she auditioned, she told them that she was 18 and then there was a huge fuss made when FOX found out her real age apparently and she was totally blacklisted until she wrote the all these letters explaining that she would be 18 by the time they filmed the pilot and her age wouldn't be an issue when it came to the hours they could work her for

[myfriendamy.livejournal.com]

lol aw. Kind of amazing!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it made me smile to see what some of those actors used to look like :)

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

I remember I had a crush on Vincent Kartheiser when I was a teenager and I saw him in 'Another Day in Paradise' with James Woods. He was very girlish and scrawny back then. I hardly recognized him when I started watching Mad Men (I never watched Angel).

Never knew SMG was not a natural blonde!

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I saw him in 'Another Day in Paradise'

That's where I first remembered him from too. Pretty decent flick, I thought.

[stolenglimpse.livejournal.com]

Charisma must have had a blast seeing Cordelia had this hair in her nightmare from... Nightmares lol

Allyson always had this sort of baby face like. Still to this day she does in a way.

I'd love to see the VM kids versus the actors at the same age. Even The O.C.

Some are so flagrant they are not that age and others pass pretty good. Pointing again at Allyson.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I agree about Alyson, in the first season especially she looks soooo young. It's not really until season 3 of Buffy/American Pie time that she starts to look a little more like Hollywood's typical slightly older actress's playing teenage, and even then it's of super obvious the way it is with some actors. But in season 1 you could really buy that she was the same age as her character. And weirdly when she cut her hair for the flashback in Restless she still looked almost that young again!

For VM they had pics the actor playing Logan, but tbh he looked the same to me as a teenager as he did when he was 21 and playing Logan lol

[heavenly44.livejournal.com]

these pictures are hilarious. what's super creepy is that SMG played a 21 year old when she was 13.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Was that when she was playing Kendall?

Wednesday, June 19

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User oni_9 referenced to your post from Wednesday, June 19 (http://su-herald.livejournal.com/661160.html) saying: [...] I've just wasted... [...]

[shapinglight]

Poor Charisma! What awful hair.

Who is the person in the final two pics? I don't recognise him at all.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Very big 80's hair *g*

And sorry I should have mentioned that he wasn't an actor from the Buffyverse, that's Joshua Jackson who played Pacey on Dawson's Creek

[elli.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it surprises me that I cannot guess peoples age anymore. But such thing does explain them.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I think tv and film teenagers have given a lot of us distorted pictures of how young people are supposed to look! I've always been hopeless at guessing people's ages anyway though

[mcjulie.livejournal.com]

That picture of Charisma is going to keep me entertained all day.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Hee I was surprised by it too. And Nicky looks so different as well! With Nicky and Charisma I guess they had to use old yearbook photo's because they started acting when they were already out of their teens

[firstillusion.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I find it amusing. On the other hand, it's really disturbing. Especially Bianca Lawson on Pretty Little Liars, that was just plain wrong to me.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

It is a little bit disturbing when you look at these full-grown adults playing teenagers and then compare that to wha a teenager would actually look like. In many cases it's baffling to me when they cast as old as they do. For Smallville they cast mid 20's Tom Welling to play Clark Kent and then gave him lots of sexy moments to appeal to the audience, but he was techniqually supposed to be 14/15 when the series began and they were giving him those shirt-ripping scenes...

[yourlibrarian]

All I can think of when looking at Charisma's teenage hair was that great line from Angel: "The government gave me bad hair!"

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

She did have a lot of bad haircuts over the years in Angel too lol

[apeygirl.livejournal.com]

My God, that Tumblr is a time-thief! I just couldn't stop clicking next.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Hee, same!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

And weirdly when she cut her hair for the flashback in Restless she still looked almost that young again!

Actually she was wearing a longer wig in Restless but you're absolutely right - I thought she looked exactly like her S1-2 self in that scene. it did't look like a wig at all. (Compared for instance to the wigs she wears on flashback scenes for HIMYM but I don't think they're even trying, really.)

I completely bought Sarah and Aly in the early seasons esp 1 & 2 as teenagers. Sarah looks like a cute little round-faced baby compared to later. S5 marks a significant shift IMO (blackfrancine noted this once re: Buffy's elegance in later seasons.) I think Sarah is five years older than Buffy in real life? Even in S4 though she still seems very young and small but in S5 on that changes and she looks closer to Sarah's real age. that actually works thematically because Buffy's been through a lot of hardship in addition to having to take on the role of parent to Dawn. And of course I could not have watched Buffy have sex with Spike in S6 if she looked younger. Bangel was squicky enough as it was.