Age in Action Line

Interesting points. But if we're trying to describe a movie we've already seen, as some people view a script, then if you see someone they're in their thirties, or they're eight, or eighty something.
It may not matter a jot to the story what age they are, if an actor in his twenties read great for a role I'd written as a fifty year old then give him the part and I'll rewrite it.
But I want the reader to see as close as possible what's in my head (apart from my Eliza Dushku fantasies that is...) so if I picture someone then he WILL have an age, a build, a manner. So I'll describe that character when I introduce them, just as the audience will see the character when they seem them on screen.

You can always play with the 'image' later, have a redneck trucker correct someone on the year Beethoven wrote his 5th, have the seventy year old base jumping, the teen thinking about his pension and so on. But the reader has to know they're a teen before they can be suprised that they're thinking about retiring to Florida in 2040.

But why would a 20 something actor read for the part of a senior citizen in the first place?

And don't forget the North By Northwest rule...Cary Grant was older than the actress who was playing his mother.

But why would a 20 something actor read for the part of a senior citizen in the first place?

Many people read for a part but have the producers say "We don't think you're right for that part but you could be just right for X" Screw what the script says, give 'em the part! But I still will put an age, with other description, into the script so the reader will have an idea who the character is.

Maybe not put an age for every character. In a movie where the central characters are in their thirties I may only put an age where the character is way older or younger than the others. You wouldn't write a high school movie with "16" after every name, you'd only mention if they were in a year above or below the main characters.

Because they need a *star* and all stars are interchangable. They don't care whether the star fits the part - they need a star or they can't get the film made.

- Bill