Older Than They Look/Film

Examples of characters that are Older Than They Look in Film include:

Films -- Animation

• Baby Herman from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? looks like a toddler, but off-camera acts more like a gruff, cynical, womanizing middle-aged man. As he puts it to Eddy, "I got a 50-year old lust and a 3-year old dinky."
• W.R. Monger from Monsters vs. Aliens is incredibly spry for a 90-year old.
• The twins in 9 look and behave like the youngest members of the group, but with the Numerical Theme Naming their names (3 and 4) would imply that they're younger only than 1 or 2, each of which have their apparent ages made a point.
• Ariel and Eric in The Little Mermaid 2. They look only slightly older than their daughter, Melody.
• A cut scene from Madagascar revealed that Ridiculously Cute Critter Mort, who behaves and, at least to human eyes, looks like a toddler, is actually 35. Justified in the looks arena because he's a mouse lemur, which are all small, fuzzy, and big-eyed. No excuse for his childlike behaviour beyond Rule of Funny.
• Sid from Toy Story is probably in his late teens based on what he seems to be allowed to do (buy an explosive rocket, use explosives, etc.), and because of his expert 'skills' with altering toys. Either that, or he has bad parents. However, he doesn't look any older than 15.

Films -- Live-Action

• The pairing of Steve Carrell and his twenty-year-younger costar Anne Hathaway in the movie Get Smart might have made the romantic subplot a bit icky, if not for Hathaway's character explaining that the plastic surgery that completely altered looks also took years off her apparent age and that she was in fact not much younger than him. Fortunately, it also serves to explain their pairing (99's plastic surgery and Smart's lack of experience made them the only two agents KAOS didn't know after CONTROL was compromised.)
• In Inception, Both Cobb and Mal were in Limbo for around 50 years, making them mentally in their late 70s to early 80s. Saito too. And, depending on how long Cobb was in Limbo hunting him, he may be north of a hundred by now.
• Austin Powers was frozen in the 1960s, and had to have been in his late 20's. He was frozen for 30 years, and would be in his early 60s by 2002. His dad Nigel appeared about the age Austin would had he not been frozen.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. As a man who ages in reverse, in the latter half of his life, he always looks younger than he actually is. As an old man, he suffers from dementia and Alzheimer's, but he has the body of a child and eventually degenerates into infancy, at which point he dies, his version of death at old age.
• In the controversial horror film Orphan, the titular character is a psychotic 33-year old serial killer suffering from a hormonal disorder which keeps her stuck in the body of a young girl. Her M.O. is posing as a young orphan girl, who ends up killing the families who adopt her (to be fair, she doesn't really plan to kill them, she's just got an extremely volatile temper, and becomes homicidal whenever she gets stressed at someone).
• In Star Wars Episode I, Qui-Gon Jinn was sixty years old when he encountered Anakin.
• Near Dark: "You have any idea what it's like to be a big man on the inside and have a small body on the outside?"
• In Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In, the vampire appears to be a young girl. Asked by the protagonist how old she is, she says "I'm twelve.... but I've been twelve for a long time." The movie never does reveal exactly how long...
• In Airheads, 36-year old Steve Buscemi plays a twenty-something heavy metal guitarist, and ends up looking more authentic than twenty-somethings Brendan Fraser and Adam Sandler. Let's just say metal fans aren't really known for taking care of themselves.
• While Christopher Mintz, as well as his character in Superbad looks appropriately like a high school student, this trope happens as a in-movie example as the liquor shop clerk implicitly assumes that her 25-year old customer is simply older than he looks.

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