Tuesday, February 22, 2011
I NOTICED SOME LOVELY TWEENS DOWN BY THE KIDS' CLUB ... MAYBE WE CAN FIND A NICE SPOT NEAR THEM BY THE POOL AND SEND OVER A COUPLE OF VIRGIN MAI TAIS. THEY MAY BE INTERESTED IN TWO SOPHISTICATED MEN LIKE US: Robyn Bahr asks a damn good question -- what happens on Modern Family as the kids grow up? For how long can Manny Delgado be an old soul in a tween body? (They're already looking to recast Lily to have speaking lines.)
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Well, Phil and Claire's kids aren't likely to be problematic from a casting side, and Manny has a long way to go till his chronological age catches up with his personality age. Lily's the only real issue from a recasting perspective. Now, there are story problems (Haley is credible heading to the local community college, while Alex is not), but not that would require recasting.
ReplyDeleteAnd sometimes, a production can hit the jackpot with a child actor and not know what they have--see, e.g., Kiernan Shipka.
A 15-16 year old Manny won't be sweet and funny anymore -- he'll just be oogy. I agree that the Dunphy kids can potentially go on indefinitely (with an asterisk for Luke, for whom it's too soon to tell what he'll turn out to be), but Manny will just get sad after a while.
ReplyDeleteEh. If Modern Family is around that long, the kids getting older is only going to add that many more storylines. If they need a "new" cute little kid, Cam and Mitch could adopt another baby. Seriously, which would make complete sense in the scheme of things anyway.
ReplyDeleteAt the least writers are working with kids who can ACT so the potential for interesting storylines is still there. We have seen what happens with shows with lesser quality child actors who eventually grew up. CoughTwoandAHalfMenCough
I think Kim's right that Manny is the big issue; the other kids can grow as-is and remain in character. Rico Rodriguez II is only 12 now; it's a question of when and how his growth spurt hits.
ReplyDelete"a sitcom version of Oscar Wao." A thought I never would have had but for the article. I can't even imagine it.
ReplyDeleteActually I think there might be a small potential problem with the Dunphy kids--the actor who plays Luke and the actor who plays Alex are the same age. They were both 12 while filming the current season. How far apart are they supposed to be in age? Seems like Alex is about true to age, maybe playing up a little, while Luke is playing down a few years. Eventually he's going to grow larger than her, possibly a lot larger, and he'll seem older than his character should be. That could happen at a time where it feels normal, or not. You can't really predict these things.
ReplyDeleteThey're good actors. It's actually kind of amazing that they have such a large cast full of good actors, kids and adults alike. Whatever they decide to do will probably be OK. I don't think their growing into adults will be a problem--they will just join the adult cast. Haley can grow up and she'll just be another member of this extended adult family. It's the in-between years that could prove awkward. But I'm sure they'll figure it out. They just have to be flexible.
I do hope that when the twins open their mouths, it turns out they're good actors. Because they have been so perfect so far! But perhaps that's too much to hope.
Whenever the talk turns to kid actors, I remember poor Michael Fishman, who in the first season of Roseanne was as natural and unaffected a kid actor as you cuold have hoped for. Just great. But by the series' end (and for years prior) he was just cringe-worthy bad. (As was the show, but that's another post - seriously, has there ever been a show that traversed so wide a gulf in quality over its tenure?)
ReplyDeleteBoth ER and West Wing had significant gulfs between their peaks and troughs.
ReplyDeleteI think the article makes an incorrect assumption that the series needs to always treat these characters as teenagers (or younger) to be funny. I'm not sure that is true at all. I think a lot of material could be made out of Manny going through puberty, growing up, the Dunphy kids becoming young adults, etc.
ReplyDeleteI thought of Roseanne, too. (Actually I thought of Roseanne back when we were looking at the character descriptions a while back--the Dunphys and the Conners both have a popular eldest daughter, a smartass middle daughter, and a weird, not-too-bright youngest son. It breaks down a little at a closer viewing--Becky had good grades and Darlene didn't).
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, DJ was awesome as a little kid, just perfect and so wonderfully weird. Like Luke, but darker. I think in the beginning he was quite a bit younger than Luke and Manny were (just checked—he was 7 when the show premiered), and his stiff line readings felt more natural to such a little kid. Once he got older, it was just AWK. And the girl they cast as his girlfriend (later to appear on The L Word, the only time I can think of seeing her again) was even worse. To me, Gould and Rodriguez seem much more in control than Fishman did even in his good years.
Man, I love Roseanne.
Also, the article suggests a "Father of the Bride II" scenario where Claire and Gloria both get pregnant at the same time. But a true "Father of the Bride II" scenario would be Claire and HAYLEY getting pregnant at the same time. It'd be plausible.
ReplyDeleteThey shouldn't do it--it'd get tiresome. But they COULD do an episode where it SEEMS like that's going to happen but doesn't. Maybe even that's too soapy. They should do it on Big Love instead, with Nikki and Carol Lynn (AND Adeline!). Because that show doesn't have enough going on.
it's odd that I've never thought about this on shows with live actors, however the fact that the Simpson kids never aged always bothered me.
ReplyDelete