I’ve said for a while now that I’d be interested in a Love Bug remake starring Ben Affleck in the Dean Jones role and Matt Damon in the Buddy Hackett one. But I was thinking about it last night—Affleck is considerably older than Dean Jones was when he made the original. The character of Jim Douglas is supposed to be too old and washed-up to get jobs as a race car driver. The movie was made in 1968. Dean Jones was born in 1931. This means that actors the same age as he was then would be born in 1983. So instead of Ben Affleck, Chris Hemsworth? Though Ben Affleck is the same age now that Buddy Hackett was then.

It’s hardly new information that people are aging differently now than they did in the past. Stephen Fry is the same age Sir Alec Guinness was when he made Star Wars; he is a year younger than Peter Cushing was. Maybe it’s not fair to point out Paul Rudd as being the same age Wilford Brimley was when the latter made Cocoon, but so is Dave Bautista? Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken are the same age Don Ameche was. And I’m specifically going here for roles where the people were supposed to be old, and maybe I’m not being entirely fair in picking people of that age, but believe me, there are other options who make the comparison even more ridiculous.

I’ll admit that they’re doing wonders with plastic surgery these days, but I don’t think that’s it. Certainly I can’t picture half the people I’ve mentioned so far having any, and I’ve been sticking exclusively to men for complicated reasons to do with sexism in Hollywood. I think men in Hollywood are less likely to have work done. All of these are factors, but I don’t think they explain everything. There’s a lot going on, and I think it’s mostly that the lives we’re living these days age you less than people aged in the past.

For one thing, we’re spending a lot less time tanning. You look at old stars, and even the British ones were often tanned. There were exceptions, but there was definitely the expectation of “a healthy glow” for the camera, even in B&W filming. And of course, if you filmed outside on a regular basis, you were just going to tan regardless, because effective sunscreen wasn’t really a thing. I grew up in the ’80s (I’m midway between Jim Douglas and Tennessee, really), and when I was a kid, the highest SPF you could get was 15, and that’s better than what they had when my mom (born in 1944) was growing up.

And, of course, there’s less smoking now, but I’m not sure we can give it all that much credit. I’m quite sure several of the people I’ve named still smoke. But I’m sure a lot of them don’t, and I’m sure that enters into it. No smoking, less drinking, healthier eating—it all adds up, and it adds up to looking younger for longer. It’s probably less notable in the average person than in our movie stars, but it’s probably true that I look younger now than my mom or my grandmothers did at my age—and I definitely haven’t had work done. Wouldn’t even if I could afford it.

It’s of course true that every generation has probably had its Paul Rudds—I actually had an uncle who grew a beard so he’d stop getting carded, because he had a baby face. When I was a kid, we made jokes about Dick Clark’s lack of aging; when I was born, he was about the age that Ben Affleck is now, and he continued looking pretty much that way for years. I’d note that it turns out he didn’t drink, come to that, but my uncle definitely did as is obviously true of anyone who’d grow a beard to avoid getting carded. But you can’t use that excuse for Robert Downey, Jr.; while he was my age when he was acting in Iron Man, he’s now a year older than Wilford Brimley was in Cocoon: The Return, and no one would buy a movie about Robert Downey, Jr., as an old man even after all his hard living.

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