The internet is all abuzz over the announcement that 36-year-old Oscar-nominated actress Amy Adams will play Lois Lane in Zach Snyder’s upcoming “Superman: Man of Steel” movie, due to her nine-year age difference from co-star Henry Cavill.
In all fairness, that’s exactly what people said about Sir Ben Kingsley making out with Mary-Kate Olsen in The Wackness when he was 64 and she was 22. And I’m sure you all remember the outrage over Kevin Spacey and Mena Suvari’s 20-year age difference in American Beauty (and the universal disgust with the 26-year age difference between Woody Allen and Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan, Woody Allen and most of his female co-stars in any movie, etc.). So when you think about those examples, it really doesn’t seem like much of a double standard at all!
Fortunately, a few people are speaking out in defense of the casting choice, such as comics writer Mark Millar, who tweeted:
“Can I just say that Amy Adams as Lois is inspired casting? She’s the best big-name actress of her generation and Lois SHOULD be in her thirties.”
“[Lois] won a Pulitzer and [had] kind of given up on guys by the time she meets Superman,” Millar continued “She can’t be a 25-year-old. She needs to be formidable and Donner got this when he cast 30-something Kidder opposite 24-year-old Reeve. It’s why [‘Superman Returns’ actress] Kate Bosworth didn’t work.”
It should also be noted that the most iconic pair of actors to play Superman and Lois Lane, were Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder — who was four years older than Reeve at the time.
So is this just a case of cultural bias against “older” women dating younger men? Maybe. Or perhaps people are just afraid that the age difference will turn the entire film into a box-office dud, just as it did with this colossal waste of 106 minutes, am I right folks?
Is perfect woodland creature Amy Adams really too old to play Lois Lane? [ONTD]