I'm as old as...

Shamelessly thieved from Rol at My Top Ten but expanded to a top twenty because I couldn't choose. The basic premise, in Rol's words is:

All this got me looking further into famous people who are the same age as me. I made a list and asked myself for each of them: do I really think I'm as old as they are? Are they older than me in my head... or younger? It's an interesting game to play.

I simplified this a bit, and just picked a random selection of (semi-) famous people who were born in the same year as me. And that's calendar year, not school year. Anyway, here goes, numbered but in no particular order:

1. Uma Thurman.

In my head, Uma is younger than me. That's because, in my head, she still looks like she did in Pulp Fiction, or Kill Bill, or Dangerous Liasions. Hmm. Mostly Dangerous Liasions, actually.

2. Matt Damon

Poor old Matt. They really did a number on him in Team America: World Police but if he'd retired after Good Will Hunting, that still would have been a good career, I reckon. And because it's youthful Will I associate Matt with, I thought him younger than me.

3. River Phoenix

Younger, of course. He'll always be younger than everybody, right?

4. Melania Trump

In my head... well, I had no clue, to be honest. I think when there's that much make-up and (allegedly) surgery involved, you can probably forgive me for not being able to form an opinion. And she's got bigger problems, to be honest.

5. Rachel Weisz

In my head, not younger or older than me but just exactly the right age for me... sigh.

6. Ethan Hawke

I used to think he was younger than me, because he played lots of fresh-faced roles. But as he's gotten older, a grizzled quality has emerged that would make me think him older than me. I'm not (too) grizzled yet, I hope.

7. Beck

I thought him younger than me, until I looked up the relatively recent picture of him shown left. Now I would think him older.

8. Vince Vaughn

Another who has made the transition in my mind from younger to older than me. Maybe being charged with drunk driving ages a man...?

9. Andre Agassi

I thought him older, if I'm honest. Maybe that's because he went bald early, but more likely because he was winning tennis grand slams when I still felt like a kid.

10. Louis Theroux

I would have pitched Louis as being pretty much the same age as me, in part because I could imagine him being in the same year at school as me, and us getting along. I am probably not alone in this delusion. Who doesn't like Louis?

11. Samantha Mathis

As a younger man, I had a bit of a thing about Samantha that was based almost exclusively on her role in the rom-com Jack and Sarah, when I thought of her as being about my age. By the time she appeared in American Psycho though, I had started to think of her as older than me.

12. Sadiq Khan

Blimey, the Mayor of London is my age. And I've done what with my life, exactly? If I'm honest, I thought him younger than me but hoped he was older.

13. Glen Medeiros

Something might have changed your love for him now, eh ladies? The 80s crooner has morphed into used-car salesman, by the look of it. I thought him older than me, not least because when he was famous girls my age liked him, so he had to older, right?

14. Claudia Schiffer

A difficult one. When I was young, I thought her older, because in 1989 when she was the Guess jeans girl she looked impossibly wonderful to gawky, gauche, teenage me (who had this poster on his wall). But now, I think of her as younger because (you guessed it) to me she's still the impossibly wonderful Guess jeans girl...

15. Christopher Nolan

I thought him younger than me, if I'm honest. A film-maker who could realise Memento had to be younger, brighter, fresher than me, right? Of course, I forget that when that came out, I was younger, brighter, fresher too. Oh time, you cruel sod.

16. Bernard Butler

If pushed, I probably would have plumped for Bernard being younger than me, solely because when Suede emerged he looked so fresh-faced and fey, so impossibly clean-shaven, that even to the youthful me he seemed young. Pah! What did the youthful me know?

17. Debbie Gibson

Ah, the perennial Electric Youth is not so youthful any more, is she? But for similar reasons to Bernard, I would have thought her younger - when she hit the airwaves, I felt too mature to like her, too grown up for such fluff. I know, I know...

18. Mariah Carey

As with Melania, I can honestly say I had no clue as to whether Mariah was older or younger than me. I think this is because every picture I have seen of her for the last 25 years has been so rigorously airbrushed or Photoshopped (example left is very recent), who could possible know if the subject was 25 or 50? Not this boy, for sure.

19. M. Night Shyamalan

I remember clocking Shyamalan's cameo in Sixth Sense and thinking, "God, he's young (damn him)." And that thought has stuck. Funny how first impressions last, eh?

20. Simon Pegg

I thought Simon the same age as me, not just because all his cultural references align so well with mine but also because, as we have already established, basically I am Simon Pegg, right?

I had fun doing that (cheers, Rol), probably much more fun than you all had reading it (sorry about that). If you have any comments to make that you haven't already made over at Rol's place, fire away...