Holding back the hands of time

SYLVESTER Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Escape Plan”

In the past, when stars hit the big 5-0, they bit the bullet, read the chilling handwriting on the wall, pragmatically folded their tents, and made way for younger luminaries to take their place. These days? Not so much.

More often than not, senior stars are still trying to keep their long-running careers afloat and alive, thanks to cosmetic procedures that keep the wages and ravages of aging at bay, and the availability of many more lead roles for senior stars than ever before.

Robert de Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer feistily chewed up the scenery in the recent release, “The Family” megged by the similarly iconic and “old” French filmmaker, Luc Besson.

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger beat up and trounced a veritable army of nasty villains in “Escape Plan.” Anthony Hopkins shares stellar billing with younger leads Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman in “Thor: The Dark World.” And other senior leads like Denzel Washington and Harrison Ford are hard at work on their new starrers, even if they’re already on the wrong side of 60!

Paradigm shift

It’s a radical paradigm shift that should be celebrated and encouraged because, like wine, thespic talent gets better and better with the passage of the years. Some “eternally youthful” performers like Cher and Pfeiffer look young enough to still play romantic leads, but most other senior luminaries are not just resigned but even happy to play characters their own age— or older! As long as the roles are meaty and will “stretch” them further as actors, they take on all comers!

ROBERT de Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer chew up the scenery in “The Family.”

Robin Williams’ gambit to beat the odds related to aging is to revive his career as a sitcom star with a new weekly show, “The Crazy Ones.” It’s like coming full circle for the comedian, who launched his stellar career in the 1970s with the sitcom “Mork and Mindy.”

Even older seniors like Clint Eastwood, Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Sean Connery, Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Sophia Loren, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Barbra Streisand, and John Travolta aren’t hanging on to past glories, but coming up with new thespic or directorial achievements, proving that age really is just a number when it comes to artistic output!

Local examples

In local show biz, Eddie Garcia and Gloria Romero are only two of the veteran leads whose careers have been given a new lease on life by the current popularity of teleseryes. They may no longer be as popular as some of their younger costars, but they provide the grit and depth that their shows need, to strongly connect with viewers.

Without their all-important and galvanizing presence, many young stars’ callowness and shallowness would be glaringly, embarrassingly obvious; so the newbies should thank their “grandparents” in the biz for keeping their shows as successful as they continue to be!

On his latest GMA 7 teleserye “Akin Pa Rin ang Bukas,” Cesar Montano manages to look young enough to be believable as the boyfriend of the decidedly younger Solenn Heussaff. And on their own series, “Genesis,” Lorna Tolentino and Snooky Serna are still camera-ready—and -worthy.

Time does march on for all of us, but for some stars who take good care of their “stellar capital,” it moves to a decidedly slower, more gracious beat!