Sabrina the Not-So Teenage Witch

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Melissa Joan Hart was 20 when the first series of Sabrina aired in 1996 and 27 when the show finished its final run in 2003.

My question is, do you prefer it when actors are older than the characters they portray in films and on TV or do you prefer them to be the same age? Or do you think that it makes no difference?

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:32 (twenty-one years ago)

she wasn't a witch either, so therefore i'm not bothered.

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Scarlett Johannsen is what? 19? and her character in 'LiT' was about 23. This left me feeling obscurely cheated.

― ENRQ (Enrique), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

ihttp://www.kanga.nu/~mirror/mirrors/lorry.org/scrapbook/new/melissa-joan-hart2.jpg

Mmmm, gratuitous!

― Wooden (Wooden), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

it bothers me that mjh has been acting in mind-numbing comedy from the days of "clarissa explains it all" to right now. how does she cope!?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Scarlett Johannsen is what? 19? and her character in 'LiT' was about 23. This left me feeling obscurely cheated.

yeah and she graduated high school at the age of 15 in ghost world

― fcussen (Burger), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Melissa Joan Hart was 20 when the first series of Sabrina aired in 1996 and 27 when the show finished its final run in 2003.

So it was the weird twin to Buffy to the very end, then.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, is SJ the only instance of someone playing older than their age? Almost certainly not, but I can't think of another.

Playing younger doesn't bother me most of the time, especially when we're talking about teenagers. The benefit of better acting usually outweighs the minimal appearance issues. (Although it was fucking creepy to learn that Alison Lohman in Matchstick Men was nine years older than her character!)

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

27?!?!?!?!?!

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:46 (twenty-one years ago)

The ads for this '13 Going On 30' thing weird me out. Is Jennifer Garner playing a 13-year-old??? It sounds like paed-bait.

― ENRQ (Enrique), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know if it is true or not but I was once told that in the Australian Soaps, they always employed older actors to play the younger roles because then they could make them work for a full day instead of for only a couple of hours, hence most of the former "child" stars from these soaps are tiny.

― Davel (Davel), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

It would make sense though, if you were making a show where the lead character was a teenager, you would want to get someone who could act all day and not have to be part time so the logical choice would be to employ a young looking older actor.

― Davel (Davel), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I seem to remember that the actors in Grange Hill were playing kids 2 years their junior and it didn't seem to make a difference. Not sure about Byker Grove tho...difficult to say seeing as Ant & Dec appear to have discovered the Fountain of Youth.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Anyone ever watch the OC? There's a hot 'mom' on that who looks about five years older than her hot daughter. That pisses me off.

― Wooden (Wooden), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Seth Green is this thread.

― Kim (Kim), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Anyone ever watch the OC? There's a hot 'mom' on that who looks about five years older than her hot daughter. That pisses me off.

In that respect, the show is for once accurate to its setting.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

a friend from college (who dropped out) was in a movie with mjh.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

no confirmation of c on t but speculation abounds.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.monkeywarplane.com/profiles/yo_webster.jpg

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Seth Green is this thread.

Alyson Hannigan too. There's a Buffy joke to be made.

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

okay revealing too much but I can't help it, this jpg is funny:

http://www.fox.es/peliculas/lachicade/src/sinopsis.jpg

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:56 (twenty-one years ago)

well sterling, she drinks a lot.

― g--ff (gcannon), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Anyone ever watch the OC? There's a hot 'mom' on that who looks about five years older than her hot daughter

Mischa Barton has such a weird, old-looking face that she looks like she's the same age as her mom on the show, if not older.

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Monday, 2 August 2004 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

When East Enders started I thought Gillian Taylforth looked silly as Kathy, Ian Beale's mother as she didn't look much older than Adam Woodyatt.

(I've just looked on the Internet Movie database and found that their doB's are 1955 and 1968 respectively, so she would've had to be a v. young teen mum)

Then much later on when Kathy was having a relationship with Phil Mitchell and Phil says something along the lines of "I hope ppl won't find the age gap a problem" I had to remind myself that Kathy is supposed to be much older than Phil. Steve McFadden was born in March 1959, so the gap is all of 3 and a half years!

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 2 August 2004 15:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I only just learned that Keira Knightley is 19 or so. She's tended to play adults, hasn't she? Visually, she could pass for 35. In the good way.

― nabiscothingy, Monday, 2 August 2004 15:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I like my female teenagers to be played by older women so that I can sexualise them without crossing some ambiguous moral line.

― Andrew (enneff), Monday, 2 August 2004 15:08 (twenty-one years ago)

conversely popstars tend to be quoted by their PR sources as being younger than they actually are

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Monday, 2 August 2004 15:11 (twenty-one years ago)

"no, of course i'm not 36."

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 2 August 2004 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

so what happened in the end to Sabrina the Teenage Witch? They didn't kill her or anything did they? That'd be awful :(

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 2 August 2004 15:46 (twenty-one years ago)

She became Sabrina the twenty-something witch, and no one cared anymore.

― Kim (Kim), Monday, 2 August 2004 15:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I care!!!

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 2 August 2004 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

actually I just made that up

― Kim (Kim), Monday, 2 August 2004 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

she magicked herself a lot of muscles and turned to a successful career in tennis.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 2 August 2004 16:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Luke Perry in Beverley Hills 90210 to thread...

Also, from use other facts #103, Alan Ruck was 30 when he played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 2 August 2004 16:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, most of Keira Knightley's characters have been relative youngsters (Bend It Like Beckham, Pirates of the Carribean), except for in Love Actually.

I wish I could start and end more sentences with the word 'actually' and it not look retarded.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 2 August 2004 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Estelle Getty is actually the youngest of the four principals on Golden Girls!

― Huck, Monday, 2 August 2004 17:39 (twenty-one years ago)

That's use other facts #104, Huck.

g--ff, you stole my answer to Sterling!

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Huck, I think you're wrong. According to IMDb, Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty were both born in 1923, but Rue McClanahan, who played Blanche, was born in 1934.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Estelle Getty is actually the youngest of the four principals on Golden Girls!

BULLSHIT

Estelle Getty 7/25/23
Rue McClanahan 2/21/34
Bea Arthur 5/13/23
Betty White 1/17/22

She is younger than everyone besides Blanche, if that's what you meant.
FUCK x-post

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean I hate reposting stuff as x-post when someone beats me to it but that would be like 5 whole minutes of research down the drain!

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Jeez, they're all hella old now.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Of course, this still doesn't change the fact she played the mother of someone who was the same age as she.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah that's true. I knew right away there's NO WAY she's younger than Blanche though.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Why didn't they get someone older to play the role, though? Perhaps they feared that an older actress might've died suddenly, which isn't a good thing for an ongoing TV series.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Sean Connery played Harrison Ford's father, despite only 12 years difference in age.

also, Angela Lansbury was only 37, four years older than her 'son', in Manchurian Candidate, according to IMDB.

― Kingfish von Bandersnatch (Kingfish), Monday, 2 August 2004 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

That's probably it. Anyway, she's younger than Bea Arthur, who was supposed to be her daughter. She is indeed older than Sylvester Stallone, however, whose mother she played in the criminally underrated Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot.

― Huck, Monday, 2 August 2004 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

And the woman (I can't remember her name) who played Cary Grant's mother in North By Northwest was roughly the same age as he.

― Huck, Monday, 2 August 2004 22:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I think you mean Jessie Royce Landice, who was almost a year younger than Grant.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 2 August 2004 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Scott Baio and Robby Benson to thread. Those guys were 35 and still doing after school specials.

― earlnash, Monday, 2 August 2004 23:38 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.thezreview.co.uk/posters/posterimages/porkys2.jpg

entire cast to thread.

― jed (jed_e_3), Monday, 2 August 2004 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I was so sure that was going to be 90210.

― Kim (Kim), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 00:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't like teenagers playing women because of the unrealistic body image thing.

― isadora (isadora), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 00:04 (twenty-one years ago)

and women playing teenagers is similarly problematic.

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 00:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Missy Gold, who played the Governor's adolescentdaughter on Benson (and older sister to Growing Pains charmeuse Tracey), was 34, twice married, and on electronic monitoring for mail fraud when she won the role.

― Huck, Tuesday, 3 August 2004 04:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Clive Dunn was born in 1920, and only 48 when Dad's Army started, playing a character who was supposed to have served in the Boer War (1901).

He was such a hit at it he had teenage girls singing 'Grandad' at him when he was only 51, and played retired janitor Charlie Quick in 'Grandad' before he was 60.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 07:45 (twenty-one years ago)

point of order: he wasn't a retired janitor tho, was he?

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 07:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Judy Garland in Wizard of Oz to thread...

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 07:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Sally Thomsett was 21 when playing one of the Railway Children (Phyllis, who was only eight years old in the book), used to swan up to shoots in her spanking sports car, and was four years older than Jenny Agutter, who was playing her older sister in the film. Craziness.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 08:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Orlando W3lls in "As If" was playing a 17 year old in his late 20s. I also believe he lied about his age to get the role.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 08:16 (twenty-one years ago)

From the BBC Comedy Archive:

Grandad
UK, BBC, Children's sitcom, Colour, 1979
Starring: Clive Dunn, Geoffrey Russell, Maurice Thorogood

Another old-timer role for Clive Dunn, following his ITV series My Old Man (and, before that of course, Bootsie And Snudge and Dad's Army). Here Dunn played Charlie Quick, known to all and sundry as Grandad, the elderly but sprightly caretaker of the Parkview Rehearsal Hall. The eager OAP tried to help but he mostly hindered the acting and dancing students who hired the venue.

Dunn was quite happy to keep playing ancient men, and indeed he devised this particular character himself, inviting writer Bob Block to place him into storylines with the customary mix of verbal misunderstandings and frantic slapstick. The series' title recalled Dunn's slushily sentimental song that had somehow managed to reach number one in the British pop singles chart in 1971.

OAP = retired, which was 65 at the time. I seem to recall the character wanted to keep himself active and was the caretaker on a voluntary basis.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 08:49 (twenty-one years ago)

hahah! that sounds like some crazy post rationalising.

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 09:32 (twenty-one years ago)

nine months pass...

Dustin Hoffman was 30 and Anne Bancroft 37 when The Graduate was made. (Or something very similar.)

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 15 May 2005 21:55 (twenty years ago)

If I remember right, Ludivine Sagnier was 22 when she played a 15-year-old in 8 Women.

― ... And suddenly Ian Riese-Moraine is a naked man saying, 'Volvo! Volvo!' (Easte, Sunday, 15 May 2005 22:04 (twenty years ago)

I wish I had a the MJH Cribs episode on tape. The house was filled from top to bottom with Tanqueray or Beefeater, definite drinking problem on the horizon.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Sunday, 15 May 2005 22:11 (twenty years ago)

Missy Gold, who played the Governor's adolescentdaughter on Benson (and older sister to Growing Pains charmeuse Tracey), was 34, twice married, and on electronic monitoring for mail fraud when she won the role.
this is beautiful and disturbing.

― saltbox and a rubber ball (Speedy Gonzalas), Sunday, 15 May 2005 22:39 (twenty years ago)

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