MovieChat Forums > Yentl (1984) Discussion > Barbra Streisand was WAY to old to play ...

Barbra Streisand was WAY to old to play a teenage girl

posted 16 years ago by kedem524
22 replies | jump to latest

Why is a 40 year old woman playing a teenager in this film? I know she's Barbra and that it was her film, but still they should have found someone younger. It's bad enough when they use people in their 20s to play teenagers but someone who is old enough to be the teen's mother is just horrible. They should have used someone like Kristy McNichol, Melissa Gilbert, or better yet some unknown with good musical talents to play Yentl. Barbra could have sung songs that were used for narration and been the singing voice for Yentl if the other actress would not have had a good musical talent.

[–] stuartbthomas-1 16 years ago

You have half a valid point, in that the character of yentl was indeed in her teens - in Singer's original short story. But the character in the movie is 28 when the film begins: Streisand and Rosenthal changed the character's age to avoid criticisms similar to the one you have just voiced.

[–] petitechatte1348 16 years ago

Not to mention that this film was produced by Streisand and was her vehicle. She wasn't at all interested in having some younger actress play the role that she had been interested in for years.

[–] joelovesbabs 16 years ago

A 40 year-old woman is playing this role, whose age is NEVER stated in the movie (it is an ADAPTATION, not a literal translation of the source material), the same way Matthew Broderick at 26 and Alan Ruck at 29 played teens in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and most of the cast of The Breakfast Club was in their mid-twenty's playing high schoolers, and Jennifer Grey was 27 when playing Baby, a teenager, in Dirty Dancing.

Learn to post intelligent and useful comments before posting such arrogant stupidity.

"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE"
BARBRA STREISAND AS YENTL

[–] kedem524 16 years ago

Jennifer Grey did NOT look like a teenager in Dirty Dancing. They should have chosen someone younger for her role also, or made her character older. Someone stated that in the movie Barbra's character was supposed to be 28. However, I do not remember this being stated and in the original novel her character was a teenager and most people think who write about this film think of Yentl as a teenager also. I still say they should have used an unknown teenage actress to play her and just had Barbra Streisand write the songs and sing a couple of them as background music in the movie.

[–] joelovesbabs 16 years ago

Well, you are entitled to your opinion, as wrong as it is.

"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE"
BARBRA STREISAND AS YENTL

[–] minia 16 years ago

What's funny is that I think the point the person is making is that the lady didn't look 28 either...

I was a bit shocked she was 41 at the time, I must say... But, Barbara has one of those never looked young, but never looks old looks... So it's hard to get a reasonable gauge on whether she fits the bill or not...

[–] stuartbthomas-1 16 years ago

Re: the age of Yentl. I posted previously on the character being 28: this was widely quoted in the attendant publicity material at the time of the film's release and I'm sure a trawl through the internet would throw something up to this effect. Another thing to bear in mind: one of the women in the market scene (early in the movie) says to another: 'If she (Yentl) can joke about finding a husband at her age, I should worry.' Even allowing for changed times, it's hard to imagine this been said about a teenager! The character was 28 in the movie.

[–] trowinup 15 years ago

"Matthew Broderick at 26 and Alan Ruck at 29 played teens in Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

But they look like teens. The cast of Breakfat Club are in their twenties but they look like teens. Barbra is 40 and she looks like 40.

[–] valro 15 years ago

Actually, two of the cast members of "The Breakfast Club" really were teenagers at the time. They were Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, who were both 16 years old.

[–] joelovesbabs 15 years ago

Wrong, they were 18.

"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE"
BARBRA STREISAND AS YENTL

[–] joelovesbabs 15 years ago

And that is fine, the age of Yentl is never discussed in the movie. And neither Matthew or Alan looked like teens, they looked like Hollywood's notion of what a teen looks like.

"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE"
BARBRA STREISAND AS YENTL

[–] mel2000 10 years ago

And neither Matthew or Alan looked like teens, they looked like Hollywood's notion of what a teen looks like.

As a former HS teacher, I can state without a doubt that there are high-schoolers who look older than Broderick and Ruck did at the time of Ferris Bueller.

[–] joelovesbabs 15 years ago

Regardless, that is never mentioned in the movie, so it is not a problem for me to accept Barbra in the role, the only actress who could have played her with that voice and the enigmatism and star-wattage the character needed.

"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE"
BARBRA STREISAND AS YENTL

[–] crazyeightyeight 15 years ago

They do comment on her age at the beginning of the movie. When Yentl goes to the market and she's buying fish...the exchange goes kind of like this:

"Yentl, what's this I hear? You finally got engaged?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know? Well, did you?"
"What, hear about it or do it?"

And then the other woman says, "If she can joke about finding a husband at HER age..."

I think she's still a little too old, and obviously not particularly convincing as a man, but I think it kind of works because they made a big deal of her not having a beard, which made her look like a young man, whatever else she looked lik.

"Listen very carefully. I shall say this only once."

[–] kedem524 15 years ago

All right, it seems like in the movie they did try to make her older than a teenager. But she was a teenager in the book it was based on and I feel that the concept of the movie- about a free spirited female who pretends to be a male so she can study books intended only for males- is more fitting for a teenager, or at the oldest a woman in her early twenties. But not the 28(?) year old they made her in the movie and definitely not the 40 year old age of the woman who played her.

[–] jennifer-maki 15 years ago

The character of Yentl was actually in her late 20's...as Barbara pointed out in the DVD at that age it was more of a travesty that she wasn't married yet. I am not a huge Barbara fan, but in this particular movie I don't know if anyone else would have made it as special as it was.

[–] vindicatedplum 14 years ago

There was nothing in the movie that made me think the character of Yentl was a teenager. There were plenty of lines and circumstances to suggest she was much older than the other unmarried women in her town. Her father's age was another indication that Yentl was well past the normal age a woman would of been married.

Babe has her own individual beauty that is ageless. If you have seen her lately, she doesn't look her age yet. I don't know if Babs has been under the knife, if she has they have done a very good job of retaining that special unique look that belongs only to Barbra Streisand. We all should be so lucky to have a look that no one else in the world possesses. Rather so many strive to have the very same face.

(\__/) So, Just what do you think
(=..=) talking to a tyrant will
{"}_{"} Accomplish?

[–] blackhawkswincup2010 10 years ago

The age thing doesn't bother me as much as Barbra simply never sold me on being a male. Not sure whether it was her lack of acting ability, or that she simply looks too feminine to carry it off, but the point is, I never bought it. Now Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, I totally bought that he was a woman, and thought of Dorothy Michaels as her own woman and her own character.

[–] mel2000 10 years ago

Now Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, I totally bought that he was a woman...

I never for a second thought Tootsie was anything more than an obvious tranny.

[–] bedrock1960 10 years ago

I watched it last night after a few years and I found Ms. Streisand to be completely credible as a 28 year old. Leave us not forget the conditions in which the character lived, the labor she did, the exposure to the elements - no time for hair extensions, massages, painted nails and the pampering that are available for today's woman. Naturally, she would look more mature than the average 28 year old woman of the 21st century.

[–] bpollen 9 years ago

It's a good thing you're not in the movie business. Your suggestions would've guaranteed the movie would end up in the trash can.

The only star in the movie was Streisand. Without her in it, the movie would've bombed, unless they replaced her with a box office draw actress (who is Jewish) with amazing vocal skills.

Streisand was an adult (I didn't realize she was 40 at the time), but really, unlike most people, she didn't have a single wrinkle or bag or sag. Just like a young person.

Kristy McNichol? Melissa Gilbert? I hope those are joke suggestions because they would have been horrible in it. And neither is Jewish.

There really was no other choice than Streisand for the role.

[–] Fleurus 9 years ago

Well said !