[001]
DaibhidC
Current Version
Changed line(s) 1 from:
n
Pulled these, which are about the age of the ''actor'', which isn't necessarily an indication of the ''character's'' age; some of these examples are definitely DawsonCasting, the rest ''might'' be.
to:
Pulled these, which are about the age of the \'\'actor\'\', which isn\'t necessarily an indication of the \'\'character\'s\'\' age; some of these examples are definitely DawsonCasting or PlayingGertrude, the rest \'\'might\'\' be.
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
* The title character of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' is a role that this often happens with. Laurence Olivier was 41 when he played Hamlet in 1948, Richard Burton was 40 in 1964, Innokenti Smoktunovsky was 39 in the same year, Derek Jacobi was 42 in 1980 (2 years ''older'' than [[Creator/PatrickStewart his uncle Claudius!]]), Kevin Kline was 43 in 1990. Mel Gibson (34 in 1990) and Kenneth Branagh (36 in 1996) are almost in the right age group, considering that there are a couple of lines in the play itself that place Hamlet's age near 30. Ethan Hawke is the youngest actor to play Hamlet in a major motion picture, essaying the role in the 2000
to:
* The title character of \'\'Theatre/{{Hamlet}}\'\' is a role that this often happens with. Laurence Olivier was 41 when he played Hamlet in 1948, Richard Burton was 40 in 1964, Innokenti Smoktunovsky was 39 in the same year, Derek Jacobi was 42 in 1980 (2 years \'\'older\'\' than [[Creator/PatrickStewart his uncle Claudius!]]), Kevin Kline was 43 in 1990. Mel Gibson (34 in 1990) and Kenneth Branagh (36 in 1996) are almost in the right age group, considering that there are a couple of lines in the play itself that place Hamlet\'s age near 30. Ethan Hawke is the youngest actor to play Hamlet in a major motion picture, essaying the role in the 2000 \"modernized\" remake at the age of 28; no other Hamlet in a film of the production has been under 30, though Iain Glen also played Hamlet at 28 in \'\'Film/RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead\'\'.
** This gets even better when one considers a curious theory that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Hamlet#Hamlet.27s_age Hamlet]] is really [[http://princehamlet.com/chapter_1.html 16 years old]].
* Creator/PatrickStewart has famously played Theatre/{{Hamlet}}\'s evil uncle Claudius twice on film: First in 1980 at age 40 and then again in 2008 at age 68. Hell, his Hamlet from 1980 went on to play Claudius himself in Creator/KennethBranagh\'s \'\'Theatre/{{Hamlet}}\'\' in 1996, over a decade before Stewart reprised the role with no mentions of his age.
* The age of one of Shakespeare\'s other great tragic leading men, \'\'Theatre/{{Macbeth}}\'\', varies wildly depending on the aim of the production. In the 2006 Australian film version, he is a young man (30-year-old Sam Worthington), because he is portrayed to be a hotshot young drug lord; this age is not unusual in most film (and some stage) productions, which cast Macbeth in his early-mid thirties. However, in the recent stage production that moved from London to Broadway in 2008, he is an older man (68-year-old Creator/PatrickStewart), because [[strike:the point of the production was to star Creator/PatrickStewart]] he is portrayed to be an aging general with a much younger trophy wife; Macbeth is rarely ever played by an actor of Stewart\'s age because it means the \"old\" King Duncan needs to be aged up even further. [[note]]It is worth noting that the average age of a film Macbeth is actually younger than the average age of a film Hamlet.[[/note]]
* \'\'Theatre/RichardIII\'\' is another example. In various productions, he\'s been played by 47-year-old BasilRathbone, 48-year-old LaurenceOlivier, 51-year-old VincentPrice, 46-year-old Creator/PeterCook[[note]](it\'s \'\'Series/{{Blackadder}}\'\' but it still counts)[[/note]], 56-year-old Creator/IanMcKellen, and also 56-year-old AlPacino. It should be noted that Richard was only \'\'33\'\' when he died at the battle of Bosworth Field, and only five years older than his usurper, Theatre/HenryVII, who, unlike Richard, is usually played by a reasonably young actor.
* In the film adaptation of the Creator/JamesPatterson novel \'\'Film/AlongCameASpider\'\', Alex Cross is played by Creator/MorganFreeman. Cross is implied by the text to be in his forties or early fifties, and Freeman was \'\'sixty\'\' at the time. It\'s even more jarring that his love interest is played by the then \'\'thirty\'\'-year-old Monica Potter.
* In \'\'Film/ForbiddenZone\'\', all the children are played by adults. The most {{egregious}} example being Flash Hercules, who is played by a \'\'70 years old man!!\'\'
* In \'\'Film/TheAdventuresOfRobinHood\'\', the 48-year-old Creator/ClaudeRains is cast as Prince John -- who was historically 26 at the time of his brother [[UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionHeart Richard]]\'s imprisonment. Most fictionalizations of RobinHood\'s story push John up to middle age.
* In \'\'Theatre/{{Picnic}}\'\' Creator/WilliamHolden considered himself too old (he was 37) to play Hal Carter, supposedly of the same generation as TheChick played by Kim Novak (22).
* Inverted in \'\'Film/TheGodfather\'\'. Marlon Brando (age 47) played the title character Vito Corleone (who ages from 55 to 65 over the course of the film). All his children except Talia Shire also fit him under PlayingGertrude too.
* Inverted in \'\'Film/TheGodfatherPartIII\'\', Al Pacino (50) played Michael Corleone (59) -- this may seem like a small jump, but Pacino was made up to look like he\'d aged a lot, with greyed hair and so on.
* Inverted in \'\'Film/SupermanReturns\'\': 22-year-old KateBosworth played ComicBook/LoisLane in a movie that was supposed to take place five years after \'\'Film/SupermanII\'\' in which Lois was already years into her career and was played by the then 30-year-old Margot Kidder.
* In the 1995 film of \'\'Theatre/RichardIII\'\', MaggieSmith plays the Duchess of York, mother to UsefulNotes/RichardIII, Edward IV and the Duke of Clarence. Smith was 61 at the time the film was made. Creator/IanMcKellen, who played Richard, was 56; John Wood, who played Edward, was four years older than her at 65; and Nigel Hawthorne, who played Clarence, was \'\'sixty-six\'\'. To be fair, Maggie Smith has been playing older women for most of her career.
* The grandpa of all slasher flicks \'\'Film/BloodFeast\'\', the character of Fuad Ramses is referred to several times as an \"old man\" even though the actor playing him was all of 30 years old. Thus, Fuad had some rather unconvincing gray streaks spray-painted into his hair.
* The \'\'Franchise/StarWars\'\' prequels end up causing this to Darth Vader, who died at the age of 46 - but his unmasked and ([[ReCut original]]) Force Ghost actor in \'\'Film/ReturnOfTheJedi\'\', Sebastian Shaw, was \'\'78\'\'.
*** Related to this, Creator/MarisaTomei, who\'s currently just \'\'\'50\'\'\', plays the usually 70+ (in the classic comics) Aunt May.
** [[Film/IronMan Tony Stark]] is given the birth year of 1970 - 5 younger than Creator/RobertDowneyJr.
* Fittingly \'\'Film/ShakespeareInLove\'\' has a few examples. Shakespeare himself is actually played by an actor the right age (28-year-old Joseph Fiennes) and Geoffrey Rush was only slightly older than the real life Philip Henslowe but Rupert Everett was a decade too old to play the then 29-year-old Creator/ChristopherMarlowe and Richard Burbage who was only 25 in 1593 was played by a then 37-year-old Martin Clunes.
* The original \'\'TheMillenniumTrilogy\'\' adaptations from Sweden have both Michael Nyqvist (48) and Noomi Rapace (29) six years older than their characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander (in comparison, the remake started its shoot with Creator/DanielCraig 42 like Blomkvist, and Rooney Mara only two years older than Salander).
* In \'\'Film/GhostRider\'\' we meet childhood sweethearts Johnny Blaze and Roxanne Simpson. Fast-forward to them as adult actors and we get Eva Mendes (33 at the time) being romanced by the 43-year-old (and looking older) Creator/NicolasCage. Although to be fair, it\'s not entirely clear if this is an Age Lift for Cage or HollywoodOld for Mendes.
** Severus Snape is the same age as Harry\'s parents would have been, so 31 at the beginning of \'\'Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone\'\'. Creator/AlanRickman plays Professor Snape in the movies, and was 55 when the first movie premiered in 2001.
** Actually, many of the adults fit in this category. In the books, all the contemporaries of Lily and James Potter -- including Sirius, Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Snape -- should all be in their thirties when the story is taking place, but all of them are played by actors at least in their forties, and as mentioned above, Alan Rickman was 64 when filming ended, despite his character [[spoiler:dying at age 38]]. Again, the only way to make sense of this is to assume the movie aged Lily and James to 30 when they had Harry, allowing everyone else to age as well.
* In \'\'Film/{{Lincoln}}\'\', we have the inverse of real life: UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln was 9 years older than his wife Mary, but Mary\'s portrayer Sally Field is ten years older than Creator/DanielDayLewis (who upon release, was only one year younger than Lincoln when he died), who manages to look older than her due to the make-up.
* King Louis XIII never made it past the age of 42, yet in the 1948 adaptation of \'\'Literature/TheThreeMusketeers\'\', he is played by 58-year-old Frank Morgan.
* \'\'Film/IntoTheWoods\'\':
** Due to casting Meryl Streep, the Witch is older than she was in most versions of [[Theatre/IntoTheWoods the stage show]]. Notably in the stage show, the character is usually played by an actress in make-up to make her appear older - and [[spoiler: when she transforms into her beautiful self]] the actress just removes the make-up. Streep meanwhile commented that it took more make-up for her to appear younger.
** A partial example. Although Jack and Red Riding Hood are children in the story, they\'re usually played by teenagers or young adults \'\'acting\'\' like children. Here they\'re played by actual children.
* \'\'Film/VampireAcademy\'\':
** Headmistress Ellen Kirova is described as a grey-haired woman in [[Literature/VampireAcademy the books]]. Making her at least middle-aged. In the film, Kirova is played by 35-year-old Creator/OlgaKurylenko.
** A minor case in the role of teacher Sonya Karp. According to her appearance in the \'\'Literature/{{Bloodlines}}\'\' series, Sonya is still in her late 20s. She is played by 30-year-old Claire Foy.
** Victor Dashkov is in his forties in [[Literature/VampireAcademy the novels]]. In the film, he is played by 64-year-old Creator/GabrielByrne. Possibly justified, since Victor is supposed to be [[YoungerThanTheyLook Younger Than He Looks]].
** Queen Tatiana Ivashkov is said to be in her early 60s in [[Literature/VampireAcademy the books]]. In the film, she is played by 49-year-old Joely Richardson.
* Bizarrely, the actresses selected to play Franchise/SpiderMan\'s Aunt May seem to be getting younger with every new film reboot (though at least none fit PlayingGertrude to the portrayer of Peter Parker). In Creator/SamRaimi\'s \'\'Film/SpiderMan1\'\' in 2002, May was played a 75-year-old Creator/RosemaryHarris--matching the character\'s portrayal in the comics, [[ComicBookTime where she\'s consistently been in her mid-70\'s]]. For Sony\'s \'\'Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan\'\' in 2012, the casting department selected a 66-year-old Creator/SallyField--[[OlderThanTheyLook who could easily pass for a much younger woman, thanks to her dark hair]]. As mentioned above, the actress playing her in Creator/MarvelStudios\' {{reboot}}? Marisa Tomei, who\'s currently just \'\'\'50\'\'\'.
* \'\'Film/TrueGrit\'\':
** In the 1969 adaptation, John Wayne was 61 at the time, while the book describes Rooster as being in his early forties. Jeff Corey (playing Chaney) was in his 50s, while Chaney is in his mid twenties in the novel.
** In the 2010 version, most of the male lead actors are older than their respective characters were in the book. Jeff Bridges was 60 when the film was made. Matt Damon (39) plays LaBoeuf, who is about 30 in the book, and Josh Brolin (42) plays Chaney. Barry Pepper is about the same age as Ned Pepper is in the book, though. It helps that Damon and Brolin are Older Than They Look.
* \'\'Film/BridgeOfSpies\'\': The RealLife James Donovan was in his early 40s during the events depicted in the film, but Creator/TomHanks was near 60 when he played him.
** The adult characters have, if anything, gotten it worse. Nobody would ever believe that the greying Robert and weathered Eddard in Season 1 are only 38 (Given the already established 3 year age up); Jaime and Cersei Lannister are stated to be 40 in Season 4 (32 at that point in the books), while Tywin is said to be 67 (57 at that point in the books), and Ian Gelder (early 60s) plays his younger brother Kevan (early 50s in the books); meanwhile, Olenna Tyrell is in her late 70s at the \'\'youngest\'\' (Early-70s in the books). About the only adults that could be believable as being their original age plus three are Theon (22) and Renly (24). This might also explain the removal of Jaehaerys II (Mad King Aerys\' father), as Aerys was only 39 when he died in the books and the writers need him to be much older (he\'s a couple years younger than Tywin, a fact crucial to the backstory) while keeping Aegon V roughly the same age (Maester Aemon is still 100, so it stands to reason that his brother wouldn\'t be much younger) - Aerys and Rhaella are thus Aegon V\'s younger children, rather than his grandchildren as they were in the books.
* Most productions of \'\'Theatre/TheKingAndI\'\', including the film, apply this trope to Anna Leonowens and {{Playing Gertrude}} to the King. The real Anna was in her late 20s or early 30s (though she most likely claimed to be younger than she was) when she came to Siam, while King Mongkut was nearly 60, but they\'re usually both played by performers in their mid to late 30s or 40s.
** This gets even better when one considers a curious theory that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Hamlet#Hamlet.27s_age Hamlet]] is really [[http://princehamlet.com/chapter_1.html 16 years old]].
* Creator/PatrickStewart has famously played Theatre/{{Hamlet}}\'s evil uncle Claudius twice on film: First in 1980 at age 40 and then again in 2008 at age 68. Hell, his Hamlet from 1980 went on to play Claudius himself in Creator/KennethBranagh\'s \'\'Theatre/{{Hamlet}}\'\' in 1996, over a decade before Stewart reprised the role with no mentions of his age.
* The age of one of Shakespeare\'s other great tragic leading men, \'\'Theatre/{{Macbeth}}\'\', varies wildly depending on the aim of the production. In the 2006 Australian film version, he is a young man (30-year-old Sam Worthington), because he is portrayed to be a hotshot young drug lord; this age is not unusual in most film (and some stage) productions, which cast Macbeth in his early-mid thirties. However, in the recent stage production that moved from London to Broadway in 2008, he is an older man (68-year-old Creator/PatrickStewart), because [[strike:the point of the production was to star Creator/PatrickStewart]] he is portrayed to be an aging general with a much younger trophy wife; Macbeth is rarely ever played by an actor of Stewart\'s age because it means the \"old\" King Duncan needs to be aged up even further. [[note]]It is worth noting that the average age of a film Macbeth is actually younger than the average age of a film Hamlet.[[/note]]
* \'\'Theatre/RichardIII\'\' is another example. In various productions, he\'s been played by 47-year-old BasilRathbone, 48-year-old LaurenceOlivier, 51-year-old VincentPrice, 46-year-old Creator/PeterCook[[note]](it\'s \'\'Series/{{Blackadder}}\'\' but it still counts)[[/note]], 56-year-old Creator/IanMcKellen, and also 56-year-old AlPacino. It should be noted that Richard was only \'\'33\'\' when he died at the battle of Bosworth Field, and only five years older than his usurper, Theatre/HenryVII, who, unlike Richard, is usually played by a reasonably young actor.
* In the film adaptation of the Creator/JamesPatterson novel \'\'Film/AlongCameASpider\'\', Alex Cross is played by Creator/MorganFreeman. Cross is implied by the text to be in his forties or early fifties, and Freeman was \'\'sixty\'\' at the time. It\'s even more jarring that his love interest is played by the then \'\'thirty\'\'-year-old Monica Potter.
* In \'\'Film/ForbiddenZone\'\', all the children are played by adults. The most {{egregious}} example being Flash Hercules, who is played by a \'\'70 years old man!!\'\'
* In \'\'Film/TheAdventuresOfRobinHood\'\', the 48-year-old Creator/ClaudeRains is cast as Prince John -- who was historically 26 at the time of his brother [[UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionHeart Richard]]\'s imprisonment. Most fictionalizations of RobinHood\'s story push John up to middle age.
* In \'\'Theatre/{{Picnic}}\'\' Creator/WilliamHolden considered himself too old (he was 37) to play Hal Carter, supposedly of the same generation as TheChick played by Kim Novak (22).
* Inverted in \'\'Film/TheGodfather\'\'. Marlon Brando (age 47) played the title character Vito Corleone (who ages from 55 to 65 over the course of the film). All his children except Talia Shire also fit him under PlayingGertrude too.
* Inverted in \'\'Film/TheGodfatherPartIII\'\', Al Pacino (50) played Michael Corleone (59) -- this may seem like a small jump, but Pacino was made up to look like he\'d aged a lot, with greyed hair and so on.
* Inverted in \'\'Film/SupermanReturns\'\': 22-year-old KateBosworth played ComicBook/LoisLane in a movie that was supposed to take place five years after \'\'Film/SupermanII\'\' in which Lois was already years into her career and was played by the then 30-year-old Margot Kidder.
* In the 1995 film of \'\'Theatre/RichardIII\'\', MaggieSmith plays the Duchess of York, mother to UsefulNotes/RichardIII, Edward IV and the Duke of Clarence. Smith was 61 at the time the film was made. Creator/IanMcKellen, who played Richard, was 56; John Wood, who played Edward, was four years older than her at 65; and Nigel Hawthorne, who played Clarence, was \'\'sixty-six\'\'. To be fair, Maggie Smith has been playing older women for most of her career.
* The grandpa of all slasher flicks \'\'Film/BloodFeast\'\', the character of Fuad Ramses is referred to several times as an \"old man\" even though the actor playing him was all of 30 years old. Thus, Fuad had some rather unconvincing gray streaks spray-painted into his hair.
* The \'\'Franchise/StarWars\'\' prequels end up causing this to Darth Vader, who died at the age of 46 - but his unmasked and ([[ReCut original]]) Force Ghost actor in \'\'Film/ReturnOfTheJedi\'\', Sebastian Shaw, was \'\'78\'\'.
*** Related to this, Creator/MarisaTomei, who\'s currently just \'\'\'50\'\'\', plays the usually 70+ (in the classic comics) Aunt May.
** [[Film/IronMan Tony Stark]] is given the birth year of 1970 - 5 younger than Creator/RobertDowneyJr.
* Fittingly \'\'Film/ShakespeareInLove\'\' has a few examples. Shakespeare himself is actually played by an actor the right age (28-year-old Joseph Fiennes) and Geoffrey Rush was only slightly older than the real life Philip Henslowe but Rupert Everett was a decade too old to play the then 29-year-old Creator/ChristopherMarlowe and Richard Burbage who was only 25 in 1593 was played by a then 37-year-old Martin Clunes.
* The original \'\'TheMillenniumTrilogy\'\' adaptations from Sweden have both Michael Nyqvist (48) and Noomi Rapace (29) six years older than their characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander (in comparison, the remake started its shoot with Creator/DanielCraig 42 like Blomkvist, and Rooney Mara only two years older than Salander).
* In \'\'Film/GhostRider\'\' we meet childhood sweethearts Johnny Blaze and Roxanne Simpson. Fast-forward to them as adult actors and we get Eva Mendes (33 at the time) being romanced by the 43-year-old (and looking older) Creator/NicolasCage. Although to be fair, it\'s not entirely clear if this is an Age Lift for Cage or HollywoodOld for Mendes.
** Severus Snape is the same age as Harry\'s parents would have been, so 31 at the beginning of \'\'Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone\'\'. Creator/AlanRickman plays Professor Snape in the movies, and was 55 when the first movie premiered in 2001.
** Actually, many of the adults fit in this category. In the books, all the contemporaries of Lily and James Potter -- including Sirius, Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Snape -- should all be in their thirties when the story is taking place, but all of them are played by actors at least in their forties, and as mentioned above, Alan Rickman was 64 when filming ended, despite his character [[spoiler:dying at age 38]]. Again, the only way to make sense of this is to assume the movie aged Lily and James to 30 when they had Harry, allowing everyone else to age as well.
* In \'\'Film/{{Lincoln}}\'\', we have the inverse of real life: UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln was 9 years older than his wife Mary, but Mary\'s portrayer Sally Field is ten years older than Creator/DanielDayLewis (who upon release, was only one year younger than Lincoln when he died), who manages to look older than her due to the make-up.
* King Louis XIII never made it past the age of 42, yet in the 1948 adaptation of \'\'Literature/TheThreeMusketeers\'\', he is played by 58-year-old Frank Morgan.
* \'\'Film/IntoTheWoods\'\':
** Due to casting Meryl Streep, the Witch is older than she was in most versions of [[Theatre/IntoTheWoods the stage show]]. Notably in the stage show, the character is usually played by an actress in make-up to make her appear older - and [[spoiler: when she transforms into her beautiful self]] the actress just removes the make-up. Streep meanwhile commented that it took more make-up for her to appear younger.
** A partial example. Although Jack and Red Riding Hood are children in the story, they\'re usually played by teenagers or young adults \'\'acting\'\' like children. Here they\'re played by actual children.
* \'\'Film/VampireAcademy\'\':
** Headmistress Ellen Kirova is described as a grey-haired woman in [[Literature/VampireAcademy the books]]. Making her at least middle-aged. In the film, Kirova is played by 35-year-old Creator/OlgaKurylenko.
** A minor case in the role of teacher Sonya Karp. According to her appearance in the \'\'Literature/{{Bloodlines}}\'\' series, Sonya is still in her late 20s. She is played by 30-year-old Claire Foy.
** Victor Dashkov is in his forties in [[Literature/VampireAcademy the novels]]. In the film, he is played by 64-year-old Creator/GabrielByrne. Possibly justified, since Victor is supposed to be [[YoungerThanTheyLook Younger Than He Looks]].
** Queen Tatiana Ivashkov is said to be in her early 60s in [[Literature/VampireAcademy the books]]. In the film, she is played by 49-year-old Joely Richardson.
* Bizarrely, the actresses selected to play Franchise/SpiderMan\'s Aunt May seem to be getting younger with every new film reboot (though at least none fit PlayingGertrude to the portrayer of Peter Parker). In Creator/SamRaimi\'s \'\'Film/SpiderMan1\'\' in 2002, May was played a 75-year-old Creator/RosemaryHarris--matching the character\'s portrayal in the comics, [[ComicBookTime where she\'s consistently been in her mid-70\'s]]. For Sony\'s \'\'Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan\'\' in 2012, the casting department selected a 66-year-old Creator/SallyField--[[OlderThanTheyLook who could easily pass for a much younger woman, thanks to her dark hair]]. As mentioned above, the actress playing her in Creator/MarvelStudios\' {{reboot}}? Marisa Tomei, who\'s currently just \'\'\'50\'\'\'.
* \'\'Film/TrueGrit\'\':
** In the 1969 adaptation, John Wayne was 61 at the time, while the book describes Rooster as being in his early forties. Jeff Corey (playing Chaney) was in his 50s, while Chaney is in his mid twenties in the novel.
** In the 2010 version, most of the male lead actors are older than their respective characters were in the book. Jeff Bridges was 60 when the film was made. Matt Damon (39) plays LaBoeuf, who is about 30 in the book, and Josh Brolin (42) plays Chaney. Barry Pepper is about the same age as Ned Pepper is in the book, though. It helps that Damon and Brolin are Older Than They Look.
* \'\'Film/BridgeOfSpies\'\': The RealLife James Donovan was in his early 40s during the events depicted in the film, but Creator/TomHanks was near 60 when he played him.
** The adult characters have, if anything, gotten it worse. Nobody would ever believe that the greying Robert and weathered Eddard in Season 1 are only 38 (Given the already established 3 year age up); Jaime and Cersei Lannister are stated to be 40 in Season 4 (32 at that point in the books), while Tywin is said to be 67 (57 at that point in the books), and Ian Gelder (early 60s) plays his younger brother Kevan (early 50s in the books); meanwhile, Olenna Tyrell is in her late 70s at the \'\'youngest\'\' (Early-70s in the books). About the only adults that could be believable as being their original age plus three are Theon (22) and Renly (24). This might also explain the removal of Jaehaerys II (Mad King Aerys\' father), as Aerys was only 39 when he died in the books and the writers need him to be much older (he\'s a couple years younger than Tywin, a fact crucial to the backstory) while keeping Aegon V roughly the same age (Maester Aemon is still 100, so it stands to reason that his brother wouldn\'t be much younger) - Aerys and Rhaella are thus Aegon V\'s younger children, rather than his grandchildren as they were in the books.
* Most productions of \'\'Theatre/TheKingAndI\'\', including the film, apply this trope to Anna Leonowens and {{Playing Gertrude}} to the King. The real Anna was in her late 20s or early 30s (though she most likely claimed to be younger than she was) when she came to Siam, while King Mongkut was nearly 60, but they\'re usually both played by performers in their mid to late 30s or 40s.
