These movie moms were basically the same age as their onscreen kids
Hollywood has a long and well-documented history of casting women as mothers with almost no regard for plausible age gaps.
The examples below are drawn from reporting by Brit.co, SheKnows, and Business Insider, with birth year data verified against public records.
Some of these are funny. Some are baffling. One defies basic arithmetic.
Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrell in “Alexander” (2004)
Angelina Jolie was cast as Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great, played by Colin Farrell. At the time of filming, Jolie was 28, and Farrell was 27. According to Brit.co’s reporting, Jolie was eleven months older than the actor playing her son. They were also rumored to be dating during production. The film received mostly negative reviews, and the casting was discussed nearly as much as the script.
Amy Poehler and Rachel McAdams in “Mean Girls” (2004)
Amy Poehler played the aggressively cool Regina George’s mother, a role that required her to believably parent a high school junior. During filming, Poehler was 32, and McAdams was 25. Business Insider confirms the real-life gap was seven years. Poehler later said she played the part as a woman who had never emotionally left high school herself, which in retrospect explains everything.
Sally Field and Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump” (1994)
Sally Field played Forrest’s mother in one of the most beloved films of the decade. At the time of filming, she was 10 years older than Tom Hanks. According to Brit.co, the pair had previously played love interests in Punchline six years earlier, which makes the mother-son dynamic considerably more complicated in retrospect. The field was 47. Hanks was 37.
Drew Barrymore and Adam Garcia in “Riding in Cars with Boys” (2001)
This is the one where the arithmetic stops working entirely. Drew Barrymore played Beverly Donofrio, mother of a teenage son played by Adam Garcia. In real life, according to Brit.co’s verified figures, Barrymore was two years younger than Garcia. Not two years older. Two years younger. The son was older than the mother. The film asked audiences not to notice, and largely they did not.
Laura Dern and Reese Witherspoon in “Wild” (2014)
In the 2014 film Wild, Laura Dern played Witherspoon’s mother, Bobbi, the emotional center of the entire film. SheKnows notes the real-life age gap between Dern and Witherspoon was nine years. Dern was 47, and Witherspoon was 38. Dern received an Academy Award nomination for the role.
Nicole Kidman and Jason Momoa in “Aquaman” (2018)
Nicole Kidman played Atlanna, the mythological mother of Arthur Curry, played by Jason Momoa. According to Brit.co, Kidman is just 12 years older than Momoa in real life, the same gap as between Momoa and his ex-wife. Kidman defended the casting in an interview with Variety, noting that Atlantean royalty does not age normally. That is a reasonable explanation for a superhero film. It is an entirely unreasonable explanation for every other film on this list.
Wrap up
Hollywood’s age gap problem when casting mothers is not accidental. It reflects the same industry forces that cast 25-year-olds as high school students and 40-year-olds as 25-year-olds’ grandmothers. The women on this list did their jobs. The system that created the situation did not do its math.
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