Celebrities Who Lie About Their Age: Is It Ever Okay To Lie About Your Age?

Jessica ChastainWe live in a society where (some) people are obsessed with age. In fact it is one of the questions people most ask when they meet me. I find this annoying and rude. As my friend Jack Bowman says, ‘Ages and wages are never discussed’.

Although I find it annoying being asked how old I am I would never lie about my age and I certainly don’t have an issue with it. Even though I seem to be marching through my twenties pretty fast! The problem I have with being asked my age, especially in a social situation, is because it is rude, and why does that person want to know? Getting older is actually a blessing. I have a friend who died when she was 16 and another when he was 22. They would have loved to have grown old. I also believe that life gets better the older you get. When I was a teenager I never felt I fitted into my own skin.

It would seem that not everyone agrees with me on this, especially celebrities. Even though actresses in their 40s are not only still being employed, but thriving, some are still lying about their age. Or being very vague about it.

I have to admit, as an actress, I sometimes think I might be wrong. One of my favourites actresses, Sandra Bullock lied about being younger!: “I lied two years ago to get this part in Love Potion #9. They said, ‘We want an older scientist.’ I go there and I say I’m 29. After a while, you have no idea how old you are because you’ve lied so many times. I always said I would never lie, but one time, when I didn’t it worked against me. So I figure you just keep them guessing.”  Nicki Minaj, Rachel McAdams, Nicole Scherzinger and Jennifer Lopez have also been caught lying about their age by a few years. Which makes me wonder what the point is.

In fact this magazine was the the first to notice that Paloma Faith was lying about her age, and this even resulted in her real age being reported in a recent interview with the ES Magazine. Congratulations on coming clean Paloma. Doesn’t it feel great?

Other celebrities who are lying about their age include:

Agyness Deyn knocked six years off her age: “When I decided I would really do modelling I was like 18, and I think at the time that was quite old for a new face, so we knocked off a few years,” she admitted to The Guardian in 2012. “I’m 29, I feel like that’s the age when you start to think about life. What is this all about? Who am I?”

Jessica Chastain is incredibly vague about her age as this article in HuffPo from 2011 states:  “Chastain, who is about 30 but will not disclose her exact age, grew up in northern California and dreamed of becoming an actress from about the age of 5.”  Chastain herself says, I don’t like revealing how old I am. I played a teenager in a movie recently and Brad Pitt’s wife in another so I like to think I can be any age I need to be.”

I do get her point but actors do look a certain age, and it is usually around their own. A bit of googling reveals Chastain is 36. As beautiful and stunning as she is, she does not look 16 and could not realistically play a teenager.

It is not just women lying, rapper Eminem knocked two years off his age when he was interviewed by Howard Stern. James Blunt also knocked two years off his real age and Nelly took three years off his.

Researching this article has made me feel that if I had to lie to get a part then I would seriously consider it, otherwise: what is the point?

What do you think?

 

Midnight in Paris – Review

It’s hard to go into a film fresh, viewing it as a single work, as opposed to comparing it to similar films or previous films from the creator. Especially when it comes to Woody Allen.

 

He is a writer/director who has had, in many critics’ eyes, a very specific golden age. There’s been many calls of a ‘return to form’, but these are often followed up by huge flops.

 

Sweet and Lowdown was followed by Small Time Crooks, Match Point by Scoop and Casandra’s Dream, Vicky Cristina Barcelona by Whatever Works.

 

Everyone wants to see him hit his heights again, and so are constantly comparing his recent output to early greats like Annie Hall and Manhattan. However, this is unfair to Allen, and it’s a point he makes well in his most recent ‘return to form’.

 

While many could see Midnight in Paris as a love letter to a bygone era, it can also been seen as a dig at critics who are always looking for something greater in the past.

 

After all, it’s about a screenwriter who has been successful in the Hollywood system but who is trying to break out in writing something real, a true work of art, his great American novel.

 

Allen has been doing this his whole career – yet he’s been trapped by mainstream success. Even in Annie Hall, Alfie suffered a similar problem.

 

Like the critics who endlessly long for the days of Hannah and her Sisters, Owen Wilson’s Gil longs for Paris in the 1920’s. And, through one of the most simple time travel devices ever, he manages to find it.

 

Hemingway, the Fitzgerald’s, Dali, Picasso and many more all happen to be holidays in Paris and Gil takes a tour of his dream world with the greatest hosts he could imagine. However, it’s when he meets Marion Cotillard’s ‘art groupy’ that things start to get real for him.

 

Not only does she highlight the problems he’s facing with his soon-to-be wife in the real world, she, too, also longs for a different era, declaring Paris in the 20’s to be boring.

 

As a movie, it’s the most fun Allen has been in a while. While not really touching upon some of the bigger issues Allen has handled in the past, it doesn’t matter as its so funny, charming, and beautifully shot.