Hollywood casting is truly a hit-or-miss situation. Sometimes the casting is so perfect that you couldn’t picture a better ensemble. Then, other times, you’re questioning how no one said anything to stop it from happening. Way more often than it should, Hollywood keeps casting women who are way too young to play adult celebrities’ moms.

We don’t know why, but Hollywood seems to have a mental block when properly casting mothers. At first glance, many seem fine — until you see the actor’s ages. You’d think there would be a sizable difference between the actors, but some are as little as 10 months. From 10 months to 12 years older, we don’t understand why Hollywood has a problem casting moms properly.

And on top of that, sometimes the actresses who play the moms are younger than their on-screen children. We have questions (and you probably do too).

With the latest news of Emmy Rossum being cast as Tom Holland’s mother, despite only being 10 years older, everyone wants to know: “Why does Hollywood not know how to cast moms?” From the X-Files to Alexander, there’s a lot more miscasting than you think.

Check out these actresses who were way too young to be cast in these mother roles below.

A version of this article was originally published on Feb 2022.

Okay, so we understand the MCU is based on the comics and that Elizabeth Debicki’s character and her son Will Poulter’s characters were “created,” as we learned in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. However, while Poulter and Debicki play mother-son, they only have a two year age-difference between them.

Twitter exploded when word came out that Emmy Rossum would be playing Tom Holland’s mom in the new mini-series The Crowded Room despite her only being 10 years older than him. However, it’s noted that she’ll be in flashbacks from Holland’s early childhood in the show, but it doesn’t make it much less odd.

Get ready y’all because Amy Poehler was only seven years older than her on-screen daughter played by Rachael McAdams in Mean Girls.

We all loved David Duchovny when he played Agent Fox Mulder in The X Files, but we don’t love the fact that Rebecca Toolan was only one year older than Duchovny when she played Agent Fox Mulder’s mom.

In the movie Alexander, Colin Farrell was 28 years old at the time and Angelina Jolie, who played his mother, was only 11 months older than him at the time.

In the 2019 hit film Glass, Charlayne Woodard played Samuel L. Jackson’s mother despite being five years younger than him.

Now people were quite upset that Nicole Kidman was cast as Jason Momoa’s mother in Aquaman, despite only being 12 years older than him — the same age difference as Momoa and his wife at the time Lisa Bonet. Per CinemaBlend, Kidman responded to the criticism by saying, “In the context of the superhero world, it all evens out. Atlanna doesn’t really age.”

So when Sally Field played Tom Hanks’ mama in Forrest Gump, she was only 10 years older than him. And apparently, they even played lovers in the 1988 film Punchline, six years before.

In Riding in Cars With Boys, Drew Barrymore played Adam Garcia’s mom despite the fact that she was two years younger than him.

Okay, seriously we were today years old when we found out that Estelle Getty, who played Bea Arthur’s mom in Golden Girls, was literally one year younger than Arthur. Apparently, a lot of time was spent on making Getty look much older than in her 60s.

Angela Lansbury was only two years older than Laurence Harvey when she played his mom in The Manchurian Candidate.

Jessie Royce Landis was literally less than a year older than Cary Grant when she played his mom in North by Northwest, only 10 months to be exact.

Carla Gugino was only seven years older than Malin Akerman when she played her mother in the 2009 film Watchmen.

Remember when we were all obsessed with Once Upon a Time? We know that the plot of the show had a time warp so Jennifer Morrison and Ginner Goodwin were supposed to be around the same age. But that doesn’t make it any less weird when Morrison would call Goodwin, who was one year older than her, “mom.”

In real life, besties Laura Dern and Reese Witherspoon had to play mother and daughter once for the 2014 film Wild, despite Dern only being nine years older than Witherspoon.

For the Mamma Mia sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Cher appeared as Meryl Streep’s mother. But here’s the thing: Cher was only three years older than Streep.

In the 2009 Star Trek film, Winona Ryder was cast as Zachary Quinto’s mother, despite only being five years older.

We all loved Little Miss Sunshine, but we don’t remember the fact that Toni Collette was only 11 years older than her on-screen son played by Paul Dano.

Jennifer Coolidge was only 12 years older than her son in the American Pie movies.

Okay, remember Benjamin McKenzie’s mother played by Kelly Rowan? Well on The O.C. Rowan and McKenzie were only 12 years apart.