Why does Leonardo DiCaprio look like a 12 year old?

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Leonardo_DiCaprio.jpeg] [image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Orson_Welles_1937.jpg/468px-Orson_Welles_1937.jpg]

Leonardo DiCaprio at age 26...Orson Welles at age 22


Leo DiCaprio, along with a number of contemporary male actors, seems to look very young for his age compared to the actors of bygone generations. I used to think I was the only person who noticed this, apparently I'm not:

Over the summer, I finally caught The Aviator. Wonderful 1930s and '40s production design, but its casting reminded me why I skipped it on the big screen in the first place. There was simply no way I could buy the babyfaced perpetual child-man Leonardo DiCaprio as business tycoon Howard Hughes. He simply lacked the gravitas to play the character, despite the fact that at 30, DiCaprio is only a few years younger than Hughes himself was at the start of the era depicted in Scorsese's picture.

(Incidentally, could you imagine DiCaprio as the title character in Citizen Kane? And yet Orson Welles was actually four years younger than DiCaprio when he played Charles Foster Kane.)

Here's Leo in Titanic. He was about 23 years old at the time, but dear God, he looks like he's 10!

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/08/Dawson.jpg]

Here's Carey Grant from Bringing Up Baby, when Grant was about 34 years old, and a recent picture of Dicaprio, also in his early to mid 30s:

[image=http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/Grant2.JPG] [image=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1211/1030074469_91a8477ed1_o.jpg]

Okay, maybe DiCaprio has finally gotten through puberty by this photo, but he still looks like a kid. Grant is obviously a grown-up.

As I said, others have noted this too:

In a review in the Village Voice of the film The Aviator, Michael Atkinson dubbed our current crop of childish male actors ?toddler-men.? ?The conscious contrast between baby-faced, teen-voiced toddler-men movie actors and the golden age?s grownups is unavoidable,? he wrote. ?Though DiCaprio is the same age here as Hughes was in 1934, he may not be convincing as a thirty-year-old until he?s fifty.?

Here's Josh Hartnett at age 16. (Just kidding, believe it or not, he's 29!):

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Josh_Hartnet_CC.JPG]

Here's another 29 year old: Robert Mitchum:

[image=http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Mptv/1313/1509_0004.jpg]


30-something male actors who look like 9th graders. Your thoughts?

 

You missed Michael J Fox.

He's still cute. Even for a short guy

 

Meh, are you saying Orson Welles doesn't look young? He was a better actor, which was what allowed him to pull it off.

 

They really take care of themselves I suppose.

This is a really subjective topic, because there are always people who bely their ages, no matter when.

 

Actors and actresses often lie about their ages to get work. This is often easily proven with photographic evidence, such as in the case of the allegedly 18 year old Emma Watson, who is actually nine years old.

 

What does it matter what Leonardo DiCaprio looks like? Besides, he's still Leonardo DiCRAPio. Hahahahahaha!

Ahhh, 1997.

 

Elijah Wood

 

[image=http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com/images/MASTOSprofiles/0362%20douglas%20still.jpg]
Kirk Douglas, aged 33 years.

[image=http://image01.ctvdigital.com/images/pub2upload/7/2007_6_27/TobeyMaguire.jpg]
Tobey Maguire, aged 33 years.

 

Okay, that I'll grant is weird. Toby Maguire is 33?!

 

He looks 20!

Though I'm 23 and people think I'm 16 sometimes.

 

[image=http://www.geocities.com/rmm413/TRACY.jpg]
Spencer Tracy at 33
[image=http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/kool_aid_man_waving.jpg]
The Kool Aid Man at like 56...


I see what you mean.

 

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Keanu6022.jpg]
Keanu Reeves is -- I am not making this up -- 43 years old!

[image=http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/shokoff/bogart.jpg]
Humphrey Bogart, also around 43 years old, in Casablanca.

 

Yeah, but people back then didn't have the power of science to slow their aging. If the trend continues, I'd say we'll have to endure these people playing the same roles over and over again for 20 years once we get to the far future.

 

Yikes. That picture of Orson Welles reminds me of how short his window of hotness really was.

 

Leo and Orson are two actors people say I look like. I've also heard Jack Black, Chris Farley, and Anthony Hopkins. Personally, I'd say that photo of Wells is the closest to how I look.

 

I still don't see Mikey!

 

[image=http://www.readthemovie.com/actors/photos/ewan.jpg]
Ewan McGregor, age 57.

[image=http://entimg.msn.com/i/150/Movies/Actors2/snowd0166666381_150x200.jpg]
Sir Laurence Olivier, age 21.



Okay, I made this one up.

 

Photoshop.

 

Little.
Chinese.
Boy.
Hormones.

 

Virgin. Blood. Baths.

 

Arlon totally likes this thread.

 

Leonardo DiCapriano has a "Dorian Gray" style portrait of himself hanging in his attic.

 

That's what smoking and drinking whiskey from the age of 8 does to you.

 

Welles looks like a child in that picture. He actually looks younger than DiCaprio to me.

 

I think that if both worked, Tom Cruise would still go for the hormones.