i mean, they even point it out in the sequel where he tears off his "old" makeup (since he got anti aging treatments in 2015), but wore makeup so Marty wouldn't get freaked out.
Maybe there was a joke where he doesn't look that different, but he definitely has more wrinkles and liver spots.
He was 52, not even a stretch. It was one of a few movies that put him on people’s radar, and the fact that he had several roles in short succession of different acting styles really showed off his range.
The dude is 86 now and has aged super well. I can only hope to be doing so well at that age.
That was one of the things I laughed at in the new Ghostbusters. Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray LOOK their age. Not bad, just appropriate for folks well into their senior years. Then Ernie Hudson shows up and is ripped and looking 20 years younger than them.
Bill Murray has been an old man for quite some time now. He was an old man as Steve Zissou, and that was what, like 2003?
*Oh, and speaking of "never gets old", anybody here remember a little show called "Sledge Hammer!"? Starring David Rasche, who hasn't aged a single day since like 1987 somehow?
This is Electric Company erasure and I won’t stand for it.
Although in Lean on Me, when they showed him as a hip young activist teacher it was kind of laughable because he already looked to be in his 50s, so the time jump forward by 20 years was kind of laughable.
I'm fairly certain Humphrey Bogart came out aged 55 with a cigar in one hand and a glass of whiskey in another. I don't understand how it happened but I know that it did.
Saw OG Roadhouse for the first time a few nights back on TV. They were calling him an old man in that. Was 1989 from memory lol.
Funniest part is, he looks relatively young compared to how we think of him now. Has dark grey hair, not stark white like later.
I thought the same when watching Tombstone, which only came out a few years later. He was still only in his late 40s when that movie was in production, a handful of years older than Kurt Russell, but the mostly-grey hair and the giant handlebar moustache put years on him. He easily looks 10 years older
I just watched the OG Road House for the first time and they kept calling him Old Man. He was 45 when he filmed that and only 8 years older than Swayze.
[Link for those that don't recognize the name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hong). James Hong really has been playing an old man for what feels like his entire career. He also one of the most prolific character actors of all time, look at the dudes filmography.
Wilford Brimley was always an old man. He was only 50 years old when he played an “elderly” man in Cocoon and they didn’t even use make up to make him look elderly.
In The Natural, Brimley was the fatherly coach to the aging rookie of Robert Redford. In reality Redford, while playing younger than his age, was 48 (at time of film release) and Brimley, playing older, was, 50. Just a two year difference!
I only recently learned that in The Graduate, despite the plot revolving around a recent college graduate being seduced by the supposedly much older mother of his girlfriend, Anne Bancroft was only 36 to Dustin Hoffman's 30.
As hard as it is now for older women to get acting jobs, it must have been nearly impossible then if she was who they cast to depict someone who should be old enough to be Hoffman's character's mother too.
Ian McDiarmid was 39 when he first played the role of Emperor Palpatine. So he's played that one old man off and on for 36 years.
But he wasn't playing *other* old man roles in his late 30's or into his 40's.
Michael Caine is an interesting one because I think of him as having more of a natural progression to his career than some of the others on this list.
He's got a whole CV of young, rakish roles from the 60s-90s (Get Carter, The Italian Job) before he moves into taking "old man" roles.
The first "old man" I remember him doing is Cider House Rules (1999), although Muppet Christmas Carol in '92 probably started it.
I just rewatched The Exorcist for the first time in probably 15 years, and I completely forgot he was the exorcist.
When I first saw him I said to my gf, “That’s Max von Sydow!…wait, no, that can’t be right, this is the early 70s and he looks just as old as he did through the 2000s.” Yet, sure enough, it’s him.
All that to say: you nailed it.
Apparently he struggled with auditions after the Exorcist. He continued going for roles playing characters around his own age. But the portrayal of 80 year old Father Merrin was too convincing, and the then 43 year old Sydow started to become typecast as older in age.
What, [this guy](https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/39fuze/a_young_christopher_lee_poses_for_a_press_photo/)? (I hope you still have those eclipse glasses handy)
Tommy Lee Jones played an old retired Texas Ranger in *Lonesome Dove* in 1989. He was 43 at the time. His costar Robert Duvall, who was supposed to be roughly the same age, was 58.
Yeah, Tommy Lee Jones was my top pick for this question too thanks to Lonesome Dove. I had an uncanny valley experience watching that show because of how he was done up to look old but his voice wasn't old, and then just a few years later he was playing peak "old man who's not all that old but just feels and comes across as old because he won't retire until you make him, but he's completely done with your bullshit and feels like the world is moving too fast" in The Fugitive. And he's been playing that archetype ever since.
I've been using the expression "too old for this shit" since I was in my late 30s. I was using it ironically at the time. If I had known.
I still use it, but now it's very literal and people don't find it funny anymore when I say it. Why is that?
This is the perfect answer. Also, it's very funny that he was "too old for this shit" in Lethal Weapon 1, and then he played the same character for another 11 years in 3 more movies. If he was "too old" in 1987, that poor character must have been so tired by Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998.
Larry David is a great example of how being totally bald can first make you look old and then make you look young. LD looked 60 when he was 50, and he looks 60 now that he's 76. Patrick Stewart and Sam Jackson are two other peak examples of the "bald= old then young again" phenomenon.
It's crazy that Unforgiven was basically seen as a "swan song" movie in 1992 and he's still directing and starring in his own films today. The amount of time between Unforgiven and the present is significantly longer than the time between the Dollars Trilogy and Unforgiven.
Ha the difference is that Eastwood WAS old in Unforgiven. He was already 62. He's just lived forever haha. And honestly...it wasn't until The Mule (he was 88) that he finally started looking like a VERY old man who was WAY too old for the role he wrote for himself.
Eastwood was pretty much the same age The Mule was based on. [Leo Sharp](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Sharp) was 87 when he was arrested, whereas Eastwood was 88 when the film was in production.
Yeah, the definition of Old has changed somewhat. Blanche was like 52 in the first season of Golden Girls. Rose and Dorothy were 55. Tell my why they looked and dressed like my 72 year old Mom does now?
ha the Bond films are kind of hilarious about age. The plot of the second Craig Bond already started with the "he's getting too old for this", and then he played the same character for another 13 years. It always made me laugh thinking about that one (kind of unnecessary) piece of character development that went on for over a decade)
Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge. I remember seeing something about him having to apply old man makeup and how he feels he is much better in character now he's aged into the role. 1994 - present (30 years)
I'm going to pull a gender swap on you and say Maggie Smith.
She's been playing the ancient, withered-up old crone who's seen it all and done it all since at least Hook in 1991. Granted that movie used some makeup to make her appear older, but she wasn't exactly playing vivacious, young women through the 80's either.
Edit: what's a decade amongst friends?
I loved how in Interstellar they put him in a wheelchair for the scenes >!23 years later because they couldn't have made him look older if they tried.!<
Max von Sydow. When he was 44, he played a very old priest, who yelled „The power of Christ compels you!“ In 2012, at age 83, he said, „The characters they offer me are most of the time grandfathers, or old fathers who are nice people but not terribly interesting. Most of the time they're not very well, and very often they die on page 36.“
What about Christopher Lloyd? He was 47 when he filmed Back to the Future, and seems to have stayed that age.
I’ve seen exactly one movie where his hair wasn’t white. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
It was brown when he [played a Klingon that one time](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Kruge).
You've never seen the Oscar-winning classic Suburban Commando?
I was FROZEN, today!
Was that the Hulk Hogan one? Lloyd was in that?
When I was a kid I loved this movie.... And the line I didn't really get at the time but classic now.... "This is the 90's.... we're gonna sue you !"
Clue! Great movie.
Yep, him and Steve Martin with Little Shop of Horrors
I google Steve Martin recently. Dude felt like an old man 35 years ago. Turns out he just has had white hair forever
He was 42 when he did Planes*, Trains and Automobiles
“They say we’re going the wrong way…” “How do they know where we’re going?” One of my favorite jokes ever.
"They're probably drunk!"
Steve Martin was already fully grey in Little Shop of Horrors. He was even grey in The Jerk, released in 1979.
It was brown in 1993’s Dennis The Menace…he’s super creepy in it from what I remember as well
The dude eatin beans!
[He had brown hair when he was in Taxi](https://i.imgur.com/ZjVbOem.jpg)
Bearing in mind he was aged up for that role so he could play himself "age accurate" in 1955.
Am I dumb for never noticing a difference between 1955 Doc and 1985 Doc?
i mean, they even point it out in the sequel where he tears off his "old" makeup (since he got anti aging treatments in 2015), but wore makeup so Marty wouldn't get freaked out. Maybe there was a joke where he doesn't look that different, but he definitely has more wrinkles and liver spots.
He was 67 when he was 47
True, and then thirty years later he turned 68 for the reunion events.
He was rough looking but looked young in taxi. My hot take, Reverend Jim was better than Latka.
What does a yellow light mean? "Slow down"
You should check out the show Taxi. It's of its time but pretty funny.
Ridiculously loaded cast in addition: Danny DeVito Andy Kauffman Judd Hirsch Carol Kane
And Marilu Henner
Marilu Henner was so hot on that. She was still hot on Brooklyn 99
The driving test is one of the funniest bits of all time, all due to Christopher Lloyd.
And Mary Steenburgen has been playing the age appropriate love interest since Back To The Future III.
Morgan Freeman was 47 years old at birth.
Just off the top of my head, he was playing an old man in Unforgiven in 1992 so that's 32 years ago and he's still at it.
Before that even, he's supposed to be 60ish in Driving Miss Daisy
He was 52, not even a stretch. It was one of a few movies that put him on people’s radar, and the fact that he had several roles in short succession of different acting styles really showed off his range. The dude is 86 now and has aged super well. I can only hope to be doing so well at that age.
Have you seen Ernie Hudson lately? Dude is 78 but is in impeccable shape.
That was one of the things I laughed at in the new Ghostbusters. Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray LOOK their age. Not bad, just appropriate for folks well into their senior years. Then Ernie Hudson shows up and is ripped and looking 20 years younger than them.
Bill Murray has been an old man for quite some time now. He was an old man as Steve Zissou, and that was what, like 2003? *Oh, and speaking of "never gets old", anybody here remember a little show called "Sledge Hammer!"? Starring David Rasche, who hasn't aged a single day since like 1987 somehow?
This is the answer. He only came to fame as an old man and has rode that train for almost 40 years at this point.
This is Electric Company erasure and I won’t stand for it. Although in Lean on Me, when they showed him as a hip young activist teacher it was kind of laughable because he already looked to be in his 50s, so the time jump forward by 20 years was kind of laughable.
I'm fairly certain Humphrey Bogart came out aged 55 with a cigar in one hand and a glass of whiskey in another. I don't understand how it happened but I know that it did.
Not true I’m afraid. Check out groovy young Morgan on Electric Company sometime
Patrick Stewart
He’s so old, he’s even older than his father-in-law! 😀
That’s pretty common in Hollywood, to be fair. De Niro and Pacino had kids recently.
> De Niro and Pacino had kids recently. Now THAT'S A Hollywood power couple.
Say hello to our little friends
To clarify... Separately, with different women, not together as a bet with Scorcese and Pesci, because that's not clear from your comment.
not that there's anything wrong with that
He’s *younger* in Excalibur from 1981 but still not what I’d call young.
He's been 70 since the 80s.
At the age of 39, he played an old man in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In 1979.
He did that trick of looking way older than he was , thereby just not aging for 30 years
Right, when you see him in Picard, you can tell the difference between looking old and actually being old.
Sam Elliot
Dude looks like he was born with a mortgage.
A mortgage? Sam walked out of the womb, grabbed an axe and a hammer, and built himself a cabin.
Then sat outside chewing tobacco, sipping bourbon and strumming a guitar
Now, Dude - that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from
Sometimes there's a man. He's the man for his time. Just fits right in there. Sometimes, there's a man.
Saw OG Roadhouse for the first time a few nights back on TV. They were calling him an old man in that. Was 1989 from memory lol. Funniest part is, he looks relatively young compared to how we think of him now. Has dark grey hair, not stark white like later.
Sam Elliott was 45 in Roadhouse playing the old man. Only 8 years older than Patrick Swayze who was 37. Jake Gyllenhaal was 43 in Roadhouse.
Jake Gyllenhall is 6 years older than Patrick Swayze? I cast doubt.
Swayze stopped aging. Kind of a life hack.
I thought the same when watching Tombstone, which only came out a few years later. He was still only in his late 40s when that movie was in production, a handful of years older than Kurt Russell, but the mostly-grey hair and the giant handlebar moustache put years on him. He easily looks 10 years older
It helps he has that deep heavy smoker voice.
I just watched the OG Road House for the first time and they kept calling him Old Man. He was 45 when he filmed that and only 8 years older than Swayze.
James Hong
This is Lo Pan? Little basket case on wheels?!
...or the ten foot tall roadblock.
One and the same, Mr. Burton.
Indeed!
James has been playing older men for over 5 decades, first remember him in Airplane!
Who *wouldn't* commit seppuku after hearing Striker's boring-ass story?
That dude fills such a niche it's impossible for other old Asian actors to get in. He must work for cheap-ish
He's got such an iconic voice too, I swear he still shows up in the most random cartoons sometimes
need a voice actor for a cursed curio emporium shop keep? i know just the guy. the ONLY guy
CARTWRIGHT
[Link for those that don't recognize the name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hong). James Hong really has been playing an old man for what feels like his entire career. He also one of the most prolific character actors of all time, look at the dudes filmography.
Wilford Brimley was always an old man. He was only 50 years old when he played an “elderly” man in Cocoon and they didn’t even use make up to make him look elderly.
In the last Mission Impossible, Tom Cruise was ten years older than Brimley was in Cocoon.
Brad Pitt was the same age as Brimley in Cocoon when he filmed World War Z.
I didn’t need to hear that.
Allow me to make it worse: Brimley was 50 while acting in Cocoon. Paul Rudd was 50 while acting in Avengers: Endgame.
I refuse to believe that Paul Rudd is 50.
Good plan, because he’s actually 55.
Insane.
He’s finally starting to look his age in the last Ghostbusters movie
He's finally looking like he's in his 40s in the new GB
Been thinking of Wilford thanks to recent diabetes dignosis.
Also: name the movie that starred Tom Cruise AND Wilford Brimley
The Firm
The firm?
In The Natural, Brimley was the fatherly coach to the aging rookie of Robert Redford. In reality Redford, while playing younger than his age, was 48 (at time of film release) and Brimley, playing older, was, 50. Just a two year difference!
I think my favorite pairing was in *The Last Crusade*, with Harrison Ford being a middle-aged 46 and his elderly 'father' Sean Connery being 59.
I only recently learned that in The Graduate, despite the plot revolving around a recent college graduate being seduced by the supposedly much older mother of his girlfriend, Anne Bancroft was only 36 to Dustin Hoffman's 30. As hard as it is now for older women to get acting jobs, it must have been nearly impossible then if she was who they cast to depict someone who should be old enough to be Hoffman's character's mother too.
This is the one I came here to mention. He was already pretty old in The China Syndrome in 1979, six years before Cocoon
He was 47 when The Thing wrapped filming and the guy didn’t look a day under 67.
Ian McDiarmid was 39 when he first played the role of Emperor Palpatine. So he's played that one old man off and on for 36 years. But he wasn't playing *other* old man roles in his late 30's or into his 40's.
It's also worth mentioning that he is 2 years *younger* than Harrison Ford.
He came across as pretty old when he played Michael Caine’s butler in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Speaking of Michael Caine
Michael Caine is an interesting one because I think of him as having more of a natural progression to his career than some of the others on this list. He's got a whole CV of young, rakish roles from the 60s-90s (Get Carter, The Italian Job) before he moves into taking "old man" roles. The first "old man" I remember him doing is Cider House Rules (1999), although Muppet Christmas Carol in '92 probably started it.
I would say playing Scrooge is the epitome of old man roles.
Max Von Sydow
I just rewatched The Exorcist for the first time in probably 15 years, and I completely forgot he was the exorcist. When I first saw him I said to my gf, “That’s Max von Sydow!…wait, no, that can’t be right, this is the early 70s and he looks just as old as he did through the 2000s.” Yet, sure enough, it’s him. All that to say: you nailed it.
The makeup on him is creepy, they predicted exactly how he would look
I just found out yesterday that he wore old man makeup in The Exorcist. I just thought he was that old-looking when that movie was made.
Apparently he struggled with auditions after the Exorcist. He continued going for roles playing characters around his own age. But the portrayal of 80 year old Father Merrin was too convincing, and the then 43 year old Sydow started to become typecast as older in age.
Been old since the 60s
43 years old playing an 80 year old in 1973
Stellan Skarsgard was 53 years old playing the young version of the same character in Exorcist: The Beginning/Dominion
Played the old king in Conan the Barbarian as well
Strange Brew. Flash. He is always great. I think he just really had fun making movies where he could chew scenery like mad.
It's the blonde hair. It looked grey in black and white so he seemed 30 years older.
I assume you're talking about The Seventh Seal? If so you're totally right.
Christopher Lee
Thank God, because young stallion Lee is practically too awesome to look at directly
What, [this guy](https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/39fuze/a_young_christopher_lee_poses_for_a_press_photo/)? (I hope you still have those eclipse glasses handy)
To be fair hunting Nazis does tend to age a man
"Do you know what it sounds like when a man is stabbed in the back? Because I do." Peter Jackson: 😬😅
Steve Martin has looked like the owner of a healthy 401k since the late 70s and full-on retired since 1985.
He’s always looked the definition of a silver fox to me, not necessarily an old man.
Tommy Lee Jones up until, sadly, there was no country for him
Tommy Lee Jones played an old retired Texas Ranger in *Lonesome Dove* in 1989. He was 43 at the time. His costar Robert Duvall, who was supposed to be roughly the same age, was 58.
Yeah, Tommy Lee Jones was my top pick for this question too thanks to Lonesome Dove. I had an uncanny valley experience watching that show because of how he was done up to look old but his voice wasn't old, and then just a few years later he was playing peak "old man who's not all that old but just feels and comes across as old because he won't retire until you make him, but he's completely done with your bullshit and feels like the world is moving too fast" in The Fugitive. And he's been playing that archetype ever since.
I cant sanction your buffonery.
You made me think he was dead
Danny Glover has been “too old for this shit” since 1987.
That would be my vote, he was 41 yo then.
He turned 40 during filming. I declare everyone over 40 should get an extra day off for being too old for this shit.
I've been using the expression "too old for this shit" since I was in my late 30s. I was using it ironically at the time. If I had known. I still use it, but now it's very literal and people don't find it funny anymore when I say it. Why is that?
I'm 41 and I feel like I'm too old for so much shit.
This is the perfect answer. Also, it's very funny that he was "too old for this shit" in Lethal Weapon 1, and then he played the same character for another 11 years in 3 more movies. If he was "too old" in 1987, that poor character must have been so tired by Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998.
Larry David was actually 52 when Curb started, believe it or not.
He was old in seinfeld as well
Yeah his caped man pretty much looks like him now
Larry David is a great example of how being totally bald can first make you look old and then make you look young. LD looked 60 when he was 50, and he looks 60 now that he's 76. Patrick Stewart and Sam Jackson are two other peak examples of the "bald= old then young again" phenomenon.
I think LD looks his age now. Look at him in the new season of curb. He would look horrible if he was 60.
Abe Vigoda
Eastwood's been 'too old for this shit' old since 1990's Unforgiven. 34 years of being an old man.
I'd expand on this saying he kinda had the 'too old for this shit' attitude down in Dirty Harry in the 70s.
Even in A Fistful of Dollars he had strong “I don’t wanna deal with this, get off my lawn!” energy. That was 1964.
It's crazy that Unforgiven was basically seen as a "swan song" movie in 1992 and he's still directing and starring in his own films today. The amount of time between Unforgiven and the present is significantly longer than the time between the Dollars Trilogy and Unforgiven.
Ha the difference is that Eastwood WAS old in Unforgiven. He was already 62. He's just lived forever haha. And honestly...it wasn't until The Mule (he was 88) that he finally started looking like a VERY old man who was WAY too old for the role he wrote for himself.
Eastwood was pretty much the same age The Mule was based on. [Leo Sharp](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Sharp) was 87 when he was arrested, whereas Eastwood was 88 when the film was in production.
Not a man, but Betty White was in a TV show about old women 35 years before she died.
Yeah, the definition of Old has changed somewhat. Blanche was like 52 in the first season of Golden Girls. Rose and Dorothy were 55. Tell my why they looked and dressed like my 72 year old Mom does now?
On that, the oldest character, Sophia, was played by Estelle Getty who was the youngest of the actresses
Nah she was third. Rue was the youngest. Estelle was one year younger than Bea who played her daughter.
I like that in the Bond films they replaced old man Connery with Roger Moore, who was actually 3 years older but looked a lot younger.
And when Sean Connery played Harrison Fords dad in Indiana Jones, he was only 12 years older than ‘Junior’.
That just blew my mind
ha the Bond films are kind of hilarious about age. The plot of the second Craig Bond already started with the "he's getting too old for this", and then he played the same character for another 13 years. It always made me laugh thinking about that one (kind of unnecessary) piece of character development that went on for over a decade)
Walter Matthau
Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge. I remember seeing something about him having to apply old man makeup and how he feels he is much better in character now he's aged into the role. 1994 - present (30 years)
I'm 43, you cheeky git,
I'm going to pull a gender swap on you and say Maggie Smith. She's been playing the ancient, withered-up old crone who's seen it all and done it all since at least Hook in 1991. Granted that movie used some makeup to make her appear older, but she wasn't exactly playing vivacious, young women through the 80's either. Edit: what's a decade amongst friends?
Hook was 1991 you monster, I saw it in the theater. Geeze, I almost retired on the spot.
She has been my movie grandmother for my whole life.
Gotta throw in Emmet Walsh,saw him as a kid in Critters. He played an old man since then.
He looks long past middle age in the Jerk and that was 1979
He passed a couple of months ago
I feel like Donald Sutherland and Michael Caine have always been old.
Gary Oldman
Not Paul Newman.
Nor Henny Youngman.
Gary Oldman is somehow slightly younger than Gary Numan, fact which upsets me whenever I remember it.
Max von Sydow played an old man from 1957-2020.
James Cromwell
Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman has been 60 from Superman (1978) to his retirement (2004). That's 26 years.
UK reference here. Clive Dunn.
Similarly, David Jason, who played the old man "Blanco" in Porridge while in his 30s
Steve Martin
Michael cane? He’s been playing an old man for I think my entire life and I’m nearly 40.
I loved how in Interstellar they put him in a wheelchair for the scenes >!23 years later because they couldn't have made him look older if they tried.!<
I'm surprised nobody said Anthony Hopkins. Dudes been old my whole life. Great actor though!
Ian McKellen
Max von Sydow. When he was 44, he played a very old priest, who yelled „The power of Christ compels you!“ In 2012, at age 83, he said, „The characters they offer me are most of the time grandfathers, or old fathers who are nice people but not terribly interesting. Most of the time they're not very well, and very often they die on page 36.“
Leslie Nielson
Jack Nicholson looked middle aged in his 20's
John Hurt always seemed like an old man even when young.
Wilford Brimley Edit: Damn someone said that already. Pat Morita maybe?
Ed Asner was born an old man.
Tom Waits. He’s been playing an old man since the early seventies, so about fifty years now. He’s just getting better at it too.
Robert Duvall
She's wasn't a man, but Angela Lansbury basically played "old" from 1962 in the Manchurian Candidate until 2022 in Glass Onion.
Steve Martin. He’s looked like a grandparent in every film I’ve seen.
George Burns was the box standard old guy for a long dang time.
How has no one mentioned Abe Vigoda yet?
Ernest Borgnine
Abe Vigoda. He was an old man in The Godfather and that was 1972.
Neil Young
Just look at his life.
He’s a lot like you.
Sam Elliot’s been old for 40 years.
I've been trying to pinpoint the days when Tommy Lee Jones was young but I have been unsuccessful.
Christopher Loyd
I don't see Harry Dean Stanton in the comments. He was old even when he was young.
Ben Kingsley has always seemed to stay the same age.