The movies are truly timeless
For some roles, actresses bridge the age gap, for better or worse
Jennifer Lawrence is once again mopping up criticisms about her age.
In David O. Russell’s Joy, the 25-year-old actress portrays Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano, a divorced mother in her mid-30s. Despite earning a Golden Globe nomination for her performance — and raves from critics who liked her but not the movie — Vogue, the New York
Post and Vox have complained that Lawrence is miscast.
The actress, who has played roles beyond her years in Russell’s American Hustle and Silver
Linings Playbook (for which she won an Oscar), brushes off such concerns. “Those kinds of silly questions don’t really matter to him,” she told The New York
Times.
But she’s hardly the first young actress to be aged up for a role:
ANNE BANCROFT IN ‘THE GRADUATE’ (1967)
Never mind that Dustin Hoffman was 29 when he filmed the Mike Nichols classic — far older than the newly graduated Benjamin Braddock he portrays. Bancroft was only six years older than Hoffman when she played the bored Mrs. Robinson who seduces him, despite insisting she is “twice (his) age.”
SALLY FIELD IN ‘FORREST GUMP’ (1994)
As the sage Mrs. Gump, Field delivered some of the most memorable one-liners of this Oscar-winning dramedy. (Hey, someone had to tell Forrest that “Life is a box of chocolates.”) That said, it can be jarring to watch her scenes with onscreen son Tom Hanks when you realize Field is only 10 years older and played Hanks’ love interest in
Punchline just six years earlier.
ANGELINA JOLIE IN ‘ALEXANDER’ (2004)
For one of the most appalling age gaps in recent memory, look no further than this epic misfire. As Queen Olympias, mother to Alexander the Great, Jolie was only one year older than her onscreen son, Colin Farrell.
SUSAN SARANDON IN ‘TAMMY’ (2014)
The biggest offense of Melissa McCarthy’s comedy wasn’t casting Allison Janney ( just 11 years older) as her mother — it was imagining a world where Sarandon could be her grandmother. She’s only 24 years older than McCarthy.
MARISA TOMEI IN THE ‘ SPIDER-MAN’ REBOOT (2017)
The forthcoming SpiderMan faced Twitter backlash this summer when it was announced that Tomei, 51, will play Peter Parker’s elderly Aunt May. The character’s de-aging is startling when you consider that Rosemary Harris was 75 when she was May in the Sam Raimi’s first
Spider-Man in 2002, and Sally Field was 66 in 2012’s
The Amazing Spider-Man.