Laura Linney looks way too old for this role

Nah, I don't think he looks young for 48 at all. Compare him to Tom Cruise, for instance, who is older.

Laura Linney just looks really old for her age - compare her to Lori Loughlin or Paula Marshall or Jane Leeves, who is slightly older.

Yeah ... I agree with you, this is what real life looks like ... it is a lot more realistic to me that Linney's and Bateman's characters would be married than some of the other stuff that goes on in this show, and even most TV shows like deadly violence happening in public all the time.

Maybe she wanted someone different from her YOUNGER husband?

My OP was about how old she looks, though, not how old she is chronologically. She definitely looks older than 53. Compare her to someone like Kim Dickens who is 52 now - there is literally no comparison, makeup or not. And it's not like Kim is glammed up in the zombie apocalypse, either.

She *is* five years older than Bateman. And no, that's not what necessarily happens - she is just not aging well.

Ah, at least one normal person in the thread. :)

I don't know where this misconception originated from, but if anything, women age a lot slower than men. If you take a man and a woman of the same age (over 35, let's say), the woman's face is always going to be smoother (or in the majority of cases). That's nature's way of keeping them sexually attractive for as long as possible. Men get wrinkled a lot earlier. (Many are also prematurely gray, and I won't even mention the balding.)

Besides, we already mentioned several women same age upthread who look a lot better for that age than Laura Linney - so no, it's not about *women* in general, it's about her.