At Cinematical, we like to ponder casting choices. Actors and actresses are, after all, the face of the movie – their names and performances usually acting as the main draw to a film. (Unless we're talking about James Cameron, of course, whose grandiose action often distracts viewers sufficiently away from bad acting.) But when we ask you, our beloved readers, for casting picks, age rarely comes into play with your choices. Do you believe that age is nothing but a number when it comes to casting?

Sometimes it's essential to fudge aging. Times have changed, and the masses won't embrace, for example, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet if her ripe age of 13 remains intact. Adolescence has been stretched, and modern audiences don't take kindly to the old days of barely post-adolescent matrimony. Match that with practical concerns -- the lack of range in young actors, the child labor restrictions in place -- and it just makes sense to bump up the base age a bit.

But what about the other scenarios?


When I've brought up the rumor mill surrounding a Jeff Buckley biopic, the ages range from early 20s to pushing 40. The musician himself started playing in bands as a teen, released "Grace" in his mid-20s, and died at the age of 31, yet commenters seem happy with the idea of 38-year-old Jared Leto, 33-year-old James Franco, and 36-year-old James Marsden. To me, the idea of a man pushing 40 playing an twenty-something seems ridiculous. I'd rather have a slightly mis-cast actor than one who could play the character's father.

I wonder if this is just a lingering habit from the old days when age wasn't as distinguishable. James Dean, for example, died in his early 20s, but his image still looks older than some current 30-somethings. Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in The Graduate didn't seem as ridiculous as their slight age difference would have you think.

Is it simply that musing doesn't need to be true to reality, that commenters have the option of ignoring time and reality? Or, does it really not matter if an actor is 10, 20, or more years older than the character they're playing? Is age in casting really nothing but a number?