Age Inconsistency in Casting

[khusnick]

What do you think of casting adults for teenage roles in movies? Does it matter more when you have book descriptions of a 16-year-old that is then casted as a 23-year-old actress/actor for the movie adaptation?

The Hunger Games was an example that made me mad. Any opinions on this?

[AuthoressWenona]

What do you think of casting adults for teenage roles in movies? Does it matter more when you have book descriptions of a 16-year-old that is then casted as a 23-year-old actress/actor for the movie adaptation?

The Hunger Games was an example that made me mad. Any opinions on this?

I'm not sure.

There just aren't the arent that many acting jobs for teens. Hence, why adults have to play them

[khusnick]

But that's the thing, if they opened roles that were meant for teenagers strictly to teenagers, there would be acting jobs for teens. You wouldn't cast a middle aged man to play someone's great grandfather. Why would you cast someone in their mid-20's to play someone 10 years younger?

[Diah]

Some actors or actresses look younger or older, so I am not sure. Maybe for some industries, movies only a business.. they just cast the box office one. So again, I am not very sure... art or business???

[Storygamer88]

I dont mind as long as I cant tell that its a super aged actor. In general, I find children actors to be worse actors, so they're less pleasant to watch and a bit more cringey, honestly, too. Of course, there's some decent ones too, but I dislike most that I've seen.

[furybeginner]

Sometimes it's not about the casting or the actors. I have heard that film producers do change some of the characters' age to be older, allowing them to cast someone who is actually older. (Although, they have to specify that they made some age changes in the adaptation, or the audience will be left dissatisfied.)

Personally, I don't remember caring so much about it. I usually pay more attention to the acting. As long as they do a good job, I'm satisfied.

[Ferdinand_Otieno]

The age inconsistency is too wide for films. Like percy Jackson movies.

-- 04 Jul 2017, 00:22 --

They actually to change the prophecy from sixteenah birthday to twentieth birthday.

-- 04 Jul 2017, 00:23 --

That actually did not destroy the story, it was the many cut scenes from the book.

[FilmStar]

I agree. I believe that the ages should match the book. The best example in my case was in The Freedom Writers. These kids were supposed to go from freshman to sophomores and they looked more like college students. They should have casted lower. I just think they wanted Mario to be in the movie so badly, they didn't care.

[nikkyteewhy]

Game of thrones is another example. There was no way that Jon Snow was a teenager.or even the whole stark family

[nikkyteewhy]

I dont mind as long as I cant tell that its a super aged actor. In general, I find children actors to be worse actors, so they're less pleasant to watch and a bit more cringey, honestly, too. Of course, there's some decent ones too, but I dislike most that I've seen.

I totally agree. Sometimes, they mess up the roles and leave the audience mad.

[love_b00ks]

Some actors are versatile in their looks. For as long as they do not appear over-aged, I think it is okay.

[Lil Reads]

I think sometimes the child labor laws preclude a child from being hired or makes casting more difficult. Identical multiples are usually used in TV shows for babies or really young children so if one child is too tired/been in several scenes, they can be switched out. The Harry Potter franchise had to be very careful with this since almost everyone was very young when they started and they could only work so many hours so too many retakes could really throw off the schedule. I think only Tom Felton was older than his character, 14 versus 11 in the beginning.

[DATo]

What do you think of casting adults for teenage roles in movies? Does it matter more when you have book descriptions of a 16-year-old that is then casted as a 23-year-old actress/actor for the movie adaptation?

The Hunger Games was an example that made me mad. Any opinions on this?

I have both read the book (Hunger Games) and seen the movies and frankly I thought Lawrence did a great job with the role. She and the other "tributes" which were chosen between the ages of 12 and 18 fit the roles pretty well I thought. The idea of Lawrence being older in real life than the character she was representing never entered my mind as I was watching the movies and honestly I have never even thought about it till I read this post.

A more dramatic example might be Ender's Game. In the book Ender was a 6 year old prodigy, but in the movie the actor was about 13. This was a far more obvious departure from the book.

[jjmainor]

Try watching a war movie from the 50s/60s. When most of our service members are 18 and 19-year olds, in the movies, the armed forces are usually made up of 30 and 40-year olds.

[1ditzyrn]

Game of thrones is another example. There was no way that Jon Snow was a teenager.or even the whole stark family

I agree. I started watching the show before I started the books, and it was really weird reading about Jon Snow being a 14 year old when Kit Harrington is obviously much older.