One Character,Two Actors: Old vs. Young Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Long before comic book-based movies filled the cinemas (as they now seem to do every year), director Richard Donner wowed audiences with "Superman: The Movie" in 1978. The late, lamented Christopher Reeve played Superman/Clark Kent as an adult. Who played Clark as a teenager?

Answer: Jeff East

Jeff East wore a prosthetic nose to look more like Christopher Reeve, and all of his dialogue was later dubbed in by Reeve, to make the teenaged Clark sound exactly like the adult Clark!

Lee Quigley played the infant Kal-El on his home planet of Krypton. Aaron Smolinski played the character as a toddler (when Jonathan and Martha Kent discovered him). Weston Gavin played the mugger who accosted the adult Clark (and Lois Lane) in Metropolis.

2. Brad Renfro once played the teenaged version of a character played in adulthood by Brad Pitt. What was the film?

Answer: Sleepers

Renfro and Pitt both played Michael Sullivan in "Sleepers" (1996), the tale of four men who carried the secret of the sexual abuse that they suffered, as boys, at the hands of the guards in a juvenile detention facility. The effects of the abuse visited upon Renfro's Michael were quite apparent in Pitt's portrayal of the adult version of the character.

3. In the off-beat comedy "Twins" (1988), unlikely siblings Julius and Vincent (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito) searched for their mother, Mary Ann Benedict. When they found her, she was played by Bonnie Bartlett, perhaps best known for her role on TV's "St. Elsewhere". In a flashback sequence, however, the twentyish Mary Ann was played by a then-relatively-unknown actress who, in 2006, was much more recognizable. Who played the younger Mary Ann Benedict?

Answer: Heather Graham

Blink and you'll miss her, but that's Heather Graham playing Mary Ann, the young woman used as a "guinea pig" of sorts by a group of scientists experimenting with genetic manipulation.

4. Dame Judi Dench and Kate Winslet once played the same novelist at different times in her life. Which novelist did they portray?

Answer: Iris Murdoch

Dench and Winslet both played the title role in "Iris" (2001), the biopic directed by Richard Eyre. Iris Murdoch wrote such novels as "The Unicorn", "The Black Prince", and "The Sea, The Sea" (for which she won the coveted Booker Prize in 1978). The film mainly concerned itself with Murdoch's struggle with Alzheimer's Disease.

5. In which film did River Phoenix and Harrison Ford play the same character at different ages?

Answer: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

River played the teenaged Indiana Jones in the opening segment of "Last Crusade" (1989), in which Indy and his father (played by Sean Connery) raced against the Nazis in their search for the treasure of all treasures, the Holy Grail.

6. River Phoenix's younger brother Joaquin (formerly known as Leaf) and Michael Keaton once technically played the same role. What was the film?

Answer: Inventing the Abbotts

Joaquin Phoenix played Doug Holt in this 1997 film about two lower-middle-class brothers who found themselves drawn to the daughters of the richest family in their small midwestern town. The entire film was told in flashback, via the voice-over by a much-older version of Doug Holt.

This voice-over was supplied by Michael Keaton. We never SAW Keaton, but he definitely identified himself as being an older version of Phoenix's character.

7. Much of "Big Fish" (2003) was told in flashback, as the elderly Ed Bloom (Albert Finney) related the (possibly) tall tales that made up his life story to his son. Who played Ed Bloom as a young adult?

Answer: Ewan McGregor

Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney -- both citizens of the British Isles -- adopted American accents in their portrayals of Ed Bloom. Billy Crudup played Ed Bloom's son, and despite the outlandish, fantasy-like elements of Ed's stories, the film was really a rather down-to-earth tale about a son trying to understand his father.

8. John Houseman was one of the elder statesmen of American actors and acting teachers. In which film did "thirtysomething" star Ken Olin play a younger version of a Houseman character?

Answer: Ghost Story

In "Ghost Story", the 1981 film based on the Peter Straub novel, the older version of Sears James was played by Houseman, and then-unknown Ken Olin played Sears as a young man. The film revolved around four elderly men who met regularly to exchange ghost stories, but found themselves in the midst of a real one thanks to a horrible mistake they made as young adults - a fine, creepy film!

9. In which baseball-related film did William "Billy" McNamara play a younger version of a Mark Harmon character?

Answer: Stealing Home

"Stealing Home" (1988) mostly concerned itself with Billy Wyatt, a minor league baseball player who spent a lot of time in the film ruminating about his teenaged years, and his complicated relationship with the recently deceased Katie Chandler (Jodie Foster). His younger self was played by William McNamara.

10. In which baseball-related film did Jonathan Silverman play a younger version of a Harold Ramis character?

Answer: Stealing Home

"Stealing Home" (1988) mostly concerned itself with Billy Wyatt (Mark Harmon), a minor league baseball player who spent a lot of time in the film ruminating about his teenaged years, and his complicated relationship with the recently deceased Katie Chandler (Jodie Foster).

Jonathan Silverman did a superb job of playing the teenaged version of Harold Ramis' character -- one might almost be tricked into thinking that the two actors were related!

11. In which film did Jena Malone and Jodie Foster play the same character at different ages?

Answer: Contact

Jena Malone played astronomer Ellie Arroway as a child in "Contact" (1997), a film that took an incredibly realistic look at what would happen if we were suddenly contacted by intelligent life from another world. Since Jena has brown eyes, director Bob Zemeckis asked his special effects crew to change Jena's eyes digitally to match Jodie's blue eyes!

12. Stage superstar Lois Smith played Sophia Darling Richards in her sixties in "How to Make an American Quilt" (1995). Which actor played Sophia in her youth?

Answer: Samantha Mathis

All of these women had parts in the film, but it was Samantha Mathis (remember her from "Pump Up the Volume" and the just-plain-awful "Broken Arrow"?) who played the younger version of Lois Smith's character.

"How to Make an American Quilt" was about four older women who, while competing in a quilting bee, told stories of their youth to a college student. Sophia, the character played by Smith and Mathis, was perhaps the most tragic character in the film. She was portrayed as a graceful, lively young woman whose outlook on life was stifled, not enhanced, once she became a wife and mother.

13. In this animated film, Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick, through their voice work, played the same character at different ages. What's the name of the film?

Answer: the lion king

In the Disney blockbuster about the journey made by Simba to become the rightful ruler of the animal kingdom, Thomas provided the voice for young Simba, and Broderick voiced the adult version of the character.

14. The voice-over narration of "Stand By Me" (1986) was provided by Richard Dreyfuss, who played the adult version of one of the four young characters who were the focus of the film. Which actor played the character who grew up to "be" the Richard Dreyfuss character?

Answer: Wil Wheaton

Both Wil Wheaton and Richard Dreyfuss played Gordon "Gordie" LaChance, about thirty years apart. The other three actors played young Gordie's best pals. The film was about the boys' life-changing quest to find the body of a boy their own age who was supposedly killed by a train deep in the forest.

15. "Now and Then" (1995) concerned itself with four characters who were close friends as girls and later reunited as adults. The characters were portrayed as both children and women. Which statement about these characters is FALSE?

Answer: Lauren Ambrose played the young Rita Wilson.

Ashleigh Aston Moore played the younger version of Christine "Chrissy" DeWitt, and Rita Wilson played Chrissy as an adult. Chrissy's pregnancy was ostensibly the most dramatic element of the the adult characters' reunion; the other three women rallied to their old friend's side in order to assist her in a "natural childbirth."

Lauren Ambrose (best known for her "Six Feet Under" role) did not appear in the film.

Source: Author enfranklopedia

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Nannanut before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

In many movies, two or more actors play the same character at different ages. Let's see how much you know about the movies and actors in question.

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