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Characters' vs. actors' ages - EastEnders
I was having a random browse on Wikipedia which can often lead to unpredictable places. I landed on Balvinder Sopal's Wikipedia entry and was quite surprised to find she's only 41 (turns 42 in December.)
This is no slight to the actress who is very elegant and could very well have a much younger persona in RL, but I was surprised because Suki is surely a fair bit older than this? Isn't Kheerat at least 30? So Suki must be 50ish or over. In any case, Balvinder is a tremendous actress and plays the role superbly.
It's good that they get the right actors to play the roles and do age up and down accordingly, but it really does distort how old you perceive the actor themselves to be.
Are there any other examples of significant differences between actor and character?
The obvious ones to me are:
Kathy - 71 in the show, 66 in real life. Looks about 40! No.....haha.....she looks early-to-mid 50s I'd say, staggered that Kathy is 71 but she has to be in order to play Ian's mum! In that first episode of EE, Kathy is supposed to be 34 and Gillian is 29 and looks about 24! It was an odd casting decision but I can't imagine anyone other than Gillian playing Kathy now.
Dot - 85 in the show (if she were still in it), 94 in real life. I mean, when you get to this sort of an age it's hard to place a person really. Dot's always seemed old in a way!
Arthur - he'd be 78 if he were still alive - Bill Treacher is 91! I always thought it was faintly ridiculous when they were trying to pass Arthur off as still in his 40s when you had a then 60-something Bill Treacher playing him. Admittedly, Bill didn't quite look his age, but it was still a stretch!
Charlie - he'd be 80 if he were still alive - Derek Martin is 88! Derek looks very young. He was very convincingly aged down. Probably didn't even look Charlie's age tbh!
Big Mo - she's 85 (how is Big Mo the same age as Dot?!), and Laila Morse is 76. Kind of weird that Laila Morse is 12 years younger than the man playing her son-in-law.
For the younger cast:
Frankie - 31 - played by 26 year-old Rose Ayling-Ellis. I mean, she doesn't look anything like 31, so this one's not a surprise.
I think the other Panesar "children" are all over the shop age wise compared with the actors playing them but I'm not completely sure of how old the characters are supposed to be.
Any more? I think the younger characters are often a couple of years either side of the actor's age which isn't all that significant. Just when there's a big age difference it can be quite surprising!
This is no slight to the actress who is very elegant and could very well have a much younger persona in RL, but I was surprised because Suki is surely a fair bit older than this? Isn't Kheerat at least 30? So Suki must be 50ish or over. In any case, Balvinder is a tremendous actress and plays the role superbly.
It's good that they get the right actors to play the roles and do age up and down accordingly, but it really does distort how old you perceive the actor themselves to be.
Are there any other examples of significant differences between actor and character?
The obvious ones to me are:
Kathy - 71 in the show, 66 in real life. Looks about 40! No.....haha.....she looks early-to-mid 50s I'd say, staggered that Kathy is 71 but she has to be in order to play Ian's mum! In that first episode of EE, Kathy is supposed to be 34 and Gillian is 29 and looks about 24! It was an odd casting decision but I can't imagine anyone other than Gillian playing Kathy now.
Dot - 85 in the show (if she were still in it), 94 in real life. I mean, when you get to this sort of an age it's hard to place a person really. Dot's always seemed old in a way!
Arthur - he'd be 78 if he were still alive - Bill Treacher is 91! I always thought it was faintly ridiculous when they were trying to pass Arthur off as still in his 40s when you had a then 60-something Bill Treacher playing him. Admittedly, Bill didn't quite look his age, but it was still a stretch!
Charlie - he'd be 80 if he were still alive - Derek Martin is 88! Derek looks very young. He was very convincingly aged down. Probably didn't even look Charlie's age tbh!
Big Mo - she's 85 (how is Big Mo the same age as Dot?!), and Laila Morse is 76. Kind of weird that Laila Morse is 12 years younger than the man playing her son-in-law.
For the younger cast:
Frankie - 31 - played by 26 year-old Rose Ayling-Ellis. I mean, she doesn't look anything like 31, so this one's not a surprise.
I think the other Panesar "children" are all over the shop age wise compared with the actors playing them but I'm not completely sure of how old the characters are supposed to be.
Any more? I think the younger characters are often a couple of years either side of the actor's age which isn't all that significant. Just when there's a big age difference it can be quite surprising!
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I know how that feels lol
For everyone else, any soap, any character, any actor - by all means, discuss away. Or don't. Whatever floats your boat.
A worthwhile thread.
Gillian looks amazing as Kathy. Ian Beale looks like her brother or dad haha.
Yes I remember reading that.
Thanks! I think so!
She really does! I think she's had some....ahem....."help".... but it's very good help and she's still a very attractive and impossibly youthful woman at 66. Kathy even more so at 71!
Adam Woodyatt looks about right for his age at 53, but that does mean they look very similar ages and are quite hilarious these days as mother and son!
That's really interesting and makes a lot of sense! I imagine she was originally Pete and Pauline's age - maybe even in the same year at school - but then the very young looking Gillian wins them over and they have to age her down. She's not convincing as a 34 year old in that first episode, let alone early 40s! I think they did the right thing though!
If what I'm thinking is right though, Kathy today is old enough to be Dot in her first episode's MUM. 71 to Dot's 49. Yes, Dot was 49!!!!!!
There is only like 12 years between them isn't there?
No way! That's insane!
I think Frankie was originally meant to be younger, closer to Ben's age, so mid to late 20s. Notice in her pre-lockdown appearances she has her hair in plaits; she only wears her hair down (I think to look older) after lockdown so I think she was aged up when they decided over lockdown to use her for the abuse storyline - I don't think it was the original plan.
That's a really good shout! I did know Sharon was a lot younger than Dipi! She looks to be 30-something rather than 40-something, and with Olivia Junkeer as Yashvi IMHO looking a few years older than her age, they looked like they could be sisters rather than mother and daughter.
I've no idea how old the Cannings are tbh! Collette Mann is 71 - is Sheila older or younger? How old are Kyle and Levi and the actors playing them?
From very early Neighbours we had Alan Dale and Stefan Dennis - born 1947 and 1958 respectively, so only 11 years between them but cast as father and son. In the show, Jim was born more like 1940 and Paul 1960-ish.
It really is! Dot's always seemed old, not helped by her dress sense, hairstyle, and cigarette habit!
I didn't know that- you learn something new every day! Yes, I highly doubt Frankie was meant to be Mick's daughter all along. I am so happy with the storyline though and it's not often I have call to praise an EE storyline these days! Haha! Not least, it's brought the WONDERFUL Rose Ayling-Ellis into the show. It's no secret that I want to marry her and have many, many children. She's a bit busy with Strictly at the moment though.
Yeah, she did seem older than 49 but that's because of the reasons you've quite rightly highlighted. Nevertheless, Dot, Lou and Ethel were a great trio. I missed the old days where EastEnders has a sense of community and featured characters of different ages. The older generation is neglected in current EE.
Eight! 😲
Sue Nichols - 1943
Helen Worth - 1951
Blimey lol
I love a bit of Kat too!
Yes originally the character of Kathy was intended to be Pete and Pauline's age which in 1985 was 40 years old. Ian was originally going to be 18 when the show began. Gillian Taylforth auditioned for the role of Sue Osman but on meeting her Tony Holland and Julia Smith decided she was perfect for the role of Kathy. The problem was Gillian was just 29 at the time and a youthful looking 29 at that. There was no way she could play 40 year old Kathy. So they altered Kathy's age to allow Gillian to play her. Kathy was aged down by 5 years from 40 to 35 and Ian's age was dropped from 18 down to 15 to make it plausible that Kathy was his mother. Ian was later aged back up by one year in 1990. So as it stands Kathy was born in 1950 and Ian was born in 1969 (originally 1970).
Yes Sheila is about a decade younger than Collete Mann. Damien Richardson is about a decade older than Gary was!
The Slater ages make no sense to me. Mo must've been early 30's as a first time grandmother, which is certainly possible, but it must've meant her daughter was a teenager when she began having children, yet Charlie was clearly a good 30 years older than his daughters. So he must've been married to a 16 year old child half his age for that marriage to have worked in terms of the timing. Were that so, you'd expect 1) Mo to have been a lot less impressed with him, and 2) him to be a bit more exciting to have been irresistible to a teenager.
They obviously started allowing Wendy Richard to glam up after a few years, where the very bleached hair, year round suntan, lots of gold jewellery, heels, heavy makeup was more like the actress as she was off screen anyway. And as a woman of her generation should've been onscreen too - she was too done down in the early days. Tea cosy style hats and beige/brown frumpwear. It looked dated even then.
I agree about Gillian Taylforth and the character of Kathy having had "help" being in itself plausible given her time in South Africa with a rich man - they should perhaps even refer to it in the show, even just in passing, especially as Kathy is 5 years older than Gillian. They certainly make quite a few references to how young she looks. I remember Shirley saying "You look a lot younger than I thought you would" when she first saw her. Another character more recently mentioned that Kathy stopped ageing 30 years ago. I'm glad they do acknowledge it!
Slaters' ages:
Big Mo (born 1936) - Laila Morse (born 1945)
Charlie (born 1941) - Derek Martin (born 1933)
Viv (born 1951)
Lynne (born 1968) - Elaine Lordan (born 1966)
Kat (born 1970) - Jessie Wallace (born 1971)
Little Mo (born 1977) - Kacey Ainsworth (born 1968)
Zoe (born 1984) - Michelle Ryan (born 1984).
So Viv was 16/17 and Charlie 26/27 when Lynne was born.... that is a *bit* dodgy isn't it, given that Viv would probably have been only just 16 when she got pregnant. It was Big Mo who was only 15 when she had Viv, and then of course, with Kat having Zoe at 13 (I think it was before her 14th birthday), yes, Big Mo would've been a grandmother at 32 and a great grandmother at 47/48....
Kacey Ainsworth was 9 years older than her character which sort of makes sense to me. I always found it odd that Little Mo was younger than Kat, as she definitely looked older, but I suppose it added to the vulnerability they wanted Little Mo to have, and that with her being in such an awful marriage, her youth had been essentially stolen from her. She became old before her years. Kat, whose youth had also been taken from her in a very different way, railed against it in almost the opposite way, clinging on to hedonism and being an extroverted and provocative "twenty-something" when she was hurtling into her thirties.
Sad to think he won't realistically have long left on the show. An amazing achievement for the show to say they have an original, continuing serving character like Eastenders and Hollyoaks.
Arthur was ridiculous. If I recall the character celebrated his 50th birthday on screen whilst the actor would have been 62/63 in real life. He acted, dressed and looked like a man in his 60s so you would find it hard to believe he was meant to be the age he was portraying
I think they purposely frumped Wendy Richard down as Pauline so she would be as far removed as possible from her previous glamorous role of Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served