Here’s what drives me crazy about his movie:
Kate Capshaw(Helen) was born in 1953
Blythe Danner(Lillian MacFarquhar/Helen’s mother) was born in 1943.
Kate Capshaw is 10 years younger than the actress who plays her mother. So is Kate’s character suppose to be younger than she is in real life, or is Blythe’s character suppose to be older? It seems like vanity on the part of Capshaw to cast her peer as her mother.
I don't think Kate Capshaw has anything do with the casting so it would very unfair to but that blame on her. And lots of movies do that. Look at Forrest Gump. Tom Hanks was born in 1956 and Saly field was born in 1946. That is why it is called acting and that is why makeup was invented. There are hundreds of actors that play a different age in their film than their age in real life.
shareShe wasn't simply an actor in this movie. Capshaw was also the producer on the film, and hence had a say in the casting.
You are correct about makeup as a tool to mask the age of actors. Sally Field wore lots of makeup and a gray wig when she portrayed Tom Hanks' mother in Forrest Gump. However in this movie neither Capshaw nor Danner were aged (or de-aged??) by the use of makeup or wigs or computer FX. In fact the women looked so close in age that it diminished the movie's believability.
I wish that Helen had been played by an actress in her late 30s or very early 40s. At 46 (in 1999) Capshaw was too old for the role.
I didn't think it diminished the movie's believability - I assumed that Kate Capshaw played a woman in hear early 40's, and Blythe Danner played a woman in her early 60's. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Capshaw looked 41 and Danner looked 61...the thought never even occured to me to look at their ages.
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IAGREE! I TURNED ON THE TV AND THE MOVIE WAS HALF OVWR SO I WAS LEFT TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE RELATIONSHIPS - I KNEW CAPSHAW AND DANNER WERE RELATED BUT THOUGHT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SISTERS. AS FOR OTHER EXAMPLES MENTIONED I.E. FORRESST GUMP - BOTH HANKS AND FIELDS CAN ACT IN ADDITION TO ADVANTAGE OF MAKEUP ETC. 'NUFF SAID...
shareWHY ARE YOU YELLING???
shareI wasn't concious of the implausibility of the two women playing a mother and daughter when the daughter was only ten years younger than the mother. I recall a birth in Ecuador back in the 1940's where the mother was only six. If you want an inconsistency of this type look to the cary Grant film which ended up at Mt. Rushmore. The woman playing his mother in this one was actually four or five years younger than Grant. After all the films are mostly about make believe even when they are doing a biographical film.
shareThe movie you are referring to is 'North by Northwest.' Here are some of the stats from the IMDB listing:
Clara Thornhill was played by Jessie Royce Landis, DOB: 25 November 1896. Roger O. Thornhill was played by Cary Grant, DOB: 18 January 1904. So the age difference was 8 years, with her being older.
So this will go on my list of annoying age discrepancies in films. I'm also including the original Manchurian Candidate where Angela Lansbury (DOB 1925) plays the mother of Laurence Harvey who was born in 1928.
Another noteworthy example is The Graduate, where Dustin Hoffman was 30 when the film was made (playing a 22-year-old) and Anne Bancroft was 37 (playing something in her mid-40's, I'd say, although that is never made explicit in the film).
shareI wasn't concious of the implausibility of the two women playing a mother and daughter when the daughter was only ten years younger than the mother. I recall a birth in Ecuador back in the 1940's where the mother was only six. If you want an inconsistency of this type look to the cary Grant film which ended up at Mt. Rushmore. The woman playing his mother in this one was actually four or five years younger than Grant. After all the films are mostly about make believe even when they are doing a biographical film.
shareI figured out just how old Helen is supposed to be in the movie, thanks to two scenes in the movie and two (or three) deleted scenes from the DVD. Helen was 18 in 1974. That makes her 43 in 1999. And so are Janet and George since they all graduated together.
1. In the scene where she's driving George's Fire truck after the unofficial date, they talked about him taking her to the prom in a body cast.
2. George mentioned that he moved to New York in 1976, "the bicentenial trip." If you do the math, there are 23 years between 1976 and 1999. He couldn't have been too old, turns out 20.
3. In one deleted scene, or rather extended scene, where she gets the ticket from Dan after getting her "tires rotated," he mentions that that's her stop sign. Because in the summer of 1974 she had the accident that broke her collar bone and her nose was sideways on her face. That's why they put the stop sign in.
4. In another deleted scene, after Johnny's birthday party she and Johnny are having dinner and he asks her why she alway has to drive. She says when she was 18, her and her boyfriend Mark were going to a basketball game and he told this funny story about his dog eating his mother's panty hose and they were laughing so hard and he looked away or closed his eyes, and next thing she knew they were wrapped around a tree. It took a while for all the broken bits to mend. So she drives so she always knows she'll be safe.
5. Also another deleted scene Helen and Johnny talk about their first time, her's was 1975.
So if you put all the pieces together...
As for Lillian, she would have to be at least 20 years older than Helen. She mentioned to Helen about being with Constance, Miss Scattergoods, before she met her father. So there would have been some time there.
I think they chose Blythe Danner to be Lillian because she looks a lot like Kate Capshaw.
Yeah, I thought the same thing when watching this that Blythe Danner was way too young to be playing Capshaw's mother, but I guess they did it to legitimize the presence of three generations by having Gloria Stuart playing Danner's mother. As for Capshaw's vanity, she was the executive producer of the film, so...
shareIs this really a big deal? Some mothers and daughters look more like sisters because the mother looks young for her age or the daughter looks older.
Sometimes it seems we are a little too narrow minded.
I'm glad I am not the only one who does this...I do it in most movies, makes it fun for me...I remember seeing Working Girl and when Sigourney Weaver sayd "Ill be thirty next week" I thought " my a$$ you will..."
:)
'You want the job? Can't have it. Know why? No math.'
Casting is casting....
Maybe they wanted someone of Blythe Danner's stature in the role. The problem is that Danner and Capshaw are such recognizable personalities that it's hard to suspend reality (that they are close in age) to believe the mother/daughter premise.
I recently saw Cocoon. Wilfred Brimley (b. 1934), not too well known at the time, plays the dad of Linda Harrison (b. 1945). Harrison first rose to fame as the mute love interest of Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes, but other than that film, she is not that recognizable for viewers to have some sense of her age. Because of Brimley's weight, balding, white head of hair and bushy mustache, it's not hard to imagine him as someone quite a bit older than his actual age of 50 at the time the film was released. In Cocoon, Brimley played a contemporary of Don Ameche (b. 1908) and Hume Cronyn (b. 1911) and was the husband of Maureen Stapleton (b. 1925).
A classic example of age disparities is found in the original Manchurian Candidate (1962), where Laurence Harvey's (b. 1928) mother was played by Angela Lansbury (b. 1925). Lansbury later rose to fame as Jessica Fletcher in "Murder, She Wrote."
Another poster notes the age disparity in Forrest Gump between Tom Hanks (b. 1956) and his "mother" Sally Field (b. 1946). But I have no problem with that movie for continuity's sake, since Field plays the mother of Gump as a youngster.
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i'm so gald others had a problem with this too. i was trying to do the
math for the last half hour. kate capshaw is beautiful and she looks 43 or so in the film and blythe danner also very attractive does not look 60.
also what about tom sellik looking 43? he looks older to me anyone else?
also where was this filmed i lived on the north shore of MA and it
made me homesick for the east coast.
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People can bring up examples like The Manchurian Candidate and Forrest Gump, but at least in those movies the actress playing the mother was made to look older than she actually was.
I have to agree that this casting (and especially the decision not to age Danner's character with makeup) smacks of Kate Capshaw being vain. The whole movie was a vanity project for her - she wanted to play a lead role, and she knew there was no way she was going to get one unless she went out and bought one. So she did, and, uh, it...just happened that Tom Everett Scott was cast as her lover and Blythe Danner was cast as her mother(!).
I wouldn't make any criticism of an actress like Dianne Weist or Sigourney Weaver if they bought themselves lead roles, because the only reason they're not regularly getting lead roles in major films is because Hollywood seems to think that actresses over 40 are box office poison. But even if age wasn't a factor in Hollywood casting, I still think it's highly unlikely Capshaw have gotten a role like this one. She's certainly not a bad actress, but she's not a great one, and I'm sure there were better choices out there for her role. I remember critics saying the same thing when the movie came out.
I agree with the OP. I really enjoyed the movie but when Blythe Danner entered as the mother, it was so unbelievable it was jarring. I thought at least grey her hair to make this passable. How young did Kate Capshaw want us to think she was? Johnny already remarked about her lines and wrinkles.
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