10 Creepy Co-Star Age Gaps In Movies

TV & Film

Jun 1

Sometimes Hollywood pairs up couples on screen that are just plain creepy. There are movies where the age gap is so large, that in the first few minutes, cinema-goers will ask ‘Is that his girlfriend or his daughter?’. Let’s have a look at some of the worst.

This list doesn’t include where the script uses the age gap as a plot device, for example, Drew Barrymore’s performance in Poison Ivy, (41-year age gap). It’s also left out examples where the script was adapted (either from real life or a book) with a specific age range. Even though Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer’s took a ten-year age gap and doubled it.

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10. 'You’ve Got Mail' – 13 years

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan is the classic rom-com pairing in You’ve Got Mail. Now their age difference isn’t actually that bad, just five years. However, Tom Hanks’ (42) other love interest in the film, his fiancé Patricia Eden played by Parker Posey was just 29 at the time of release. No wonder they broke up!

9. 'Vicki Cristina Barcelona' – 15 years

Surprise, surprise, there’s a Woody Allen movie on this list. He wrote and directed Vicki Cristina Barcelona, so there’s no one else to blame. The highly sexualised script involved two girls going on holiday and getting involved with the same painter. One of the girls ends up in a thruple with the painter’s hot but crazy ex-wife (Penelope Cruz, 34). This very male-centric gaze film got rave reviews, but Javier Bardiem was 39 at the time of filming, Rebecca Hall was 26 and Scarlett Johansson was just 24.

8. 'Demolition Man' - 18 years

This sci-fi thriller was one of Sandra Bullock’s first major roles. Bullock (29) starred as the love interest for Sylvester Stallone (47) who was coming to the end of his action career. This is before Speed and Miss Congeniality. Wesley Snipes (31) played the bad guy, and the trailer was all him with hardly any shots of Stallone. There was a reason for that….just saying.

7. 'Pretty Woman' – 18 years

Julia Roberts and Richard Gere were paired together in two films Pretty Woman (1990) and Runaway Bride (1999), but there was a huge age gap between the pair. Roberts was just 22 when she starred in Pretty Woman, as the girl for hire. Richard Gere already had a full head of grey at 40 years old.

6. 'Mother!' - 21 years

The Darren Aronofsky film no one seemed to understand had a huge unnecessary age gap between the leads, just known as ‘him’ and ‘the mother’. Jennifer Lawrence was 27 with Javier Bardiem 48 at the time of release.

Hollywood seems to crowbar Lawrence in these parts, in particular. There are a few we didn’t put on the list because of the adaption rule, e.g. Red Sparrow (16-year age gap) and Silver Linings Playbook (15 years)

J-Law, wear something yellow if you need help.

5. 'The Mummy' – 22 years

Close your eyes and pick a Tom Cruise film from the last twenty years. In The Mummy Cruise was 54 and his co-star Annabelle Wallis was 33 at the time of release. Rumor has it, that the actor hasn’t acknowledged he has aged, which is why uncomfortable love scenes aren’t going to get any less cringeworthy. His latest, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, had a 20-year age gap (Hayley Atwell).

4. 'In The Line Of Fire' – 24 years

This JFK-inspired classic with Clint Eastwood was made when he was 63. His co-star Rene Russo was 39 years old, making for a 24-year age gap. Eastwood is another star that makes a habit out of this in his later years, (in the few occasions where there is a romantic lead in his films). The most famous of which is The Bridges of Madison County where there are 19 years between him and Meryl Streep despite the characters being the same age in the book.

3. 'Six Days, Seven Nights' - 26 years

The rom-com about a pilot and his passenger downed on an island has a creepy side. Harrison Ford was 55 at the time, with love interest Anne Heche, who was a fresh-faced 29. It looked and felt like a father-daughter pairing, and that’s exactly where the scriptwriters should have left it.

2. 'Midnight In Paris' - 23 years

Woody Allen….again. There could be a lot more of his movies here. Even the infamous Annie Hall has a 10-year age gap. But we had to draw the line somewhere. Midnight in Paris won Academy Awards for Best Screenplay and was nominated in the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Art Direction Category. It’s about a man who spends an evening with artists, painters, and poets like T.S Eliot and Pablo Picasso…in Paris. And every woman with a vaguely romantic storyline is significantly younger than star, Owen Wilson (43). He has three romantic encounters, Rachel McAdams (33), Marion Cotillard (36), and finally the woman it’s suggested he ends up with, Léa Seydoux (26). The youngest of the bunch. It’s almost like he’s doing it on purpose.

1. 'Entrapment' - 39 years

In some of these movies, it looks like the female lead is dating her father. This is the only one where she’s potentially smooching her grandaddy. Catherine Zeta-Jones famously wriggled her way through a network of lasers in a black catsuit, while Sean Connery looked like he needed a cup of tea, a blanket and a nice long sit down. Although Jones did go on to marry Michael Douglas who was twenty-five years her senior, I think even this would be a stretch for the Welsh actress.

So why is it important? Aside from the 'ick' factor, the practice is toxic for several reasons. It reduces the number of roles for older women in Hollywood and reinforces the stereotype that you can’t play a leading lady if you are over forty, even though plenty of male actors do it. It also sends a message to audiences that women are not allowed to age, and that as men grow older, women have to look the same. However, while Hollywood keeps rewarding filmmakers with accolades despite their poor casting choices, nothing will change.

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