In the film *Interstellar* (2014), the oldest cast member at the time of filming was **Ellen Burstyn**.
### **Specific Details:**
* **Actor:** Ellen Burstyn
* **Born:** December 7, 1932
* **Age at Time of Filming:** She was **80 years old** during the majority of principal photography (which took place between August and December 2013) and turned **81** just as filming concluded.
* **Role:** She played the **elderly Murphy "Murph" Cooper** (often credited as "Old Murph").
### **Role Context and Detail:**
Ellen Burstyn's character is central to the film's emotional climax and its unique narrative structure:
1. **Dual Appearance:** Burstyn appears in two distinct ways. First, she is seen in a series of documentary-style interviews at the beginning of the film, where she reminisces about the "blight" and the dust storms that plagued Earth. At this point in the movie, her identity is not yet revealed to the audience; she is simply an unnamed elderly survivor.
2. **The Reveal:** It is only in the film's final act that the audience realizes these interviews are part of a historical record at a museum dedicated to the mission.
3. **The Reunion:** Burstyn's most prominent scene occurs at the very end of the movie on "Cooper Station," where she portrays Murph on her deathbed. She is reunited with her father, Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), who has barely aged due to time dilation, while she is now over 100 years old narratively.
4. **Mixing Reality with Fiction:** Christopher Nolan intercut Burstyn’s "interview" footage with clips of **real-life survivors** of the 1930s Dust Bowl (sourced from Ken Burns’ 2012 documentary *The Dust Bowl*). While these real survivors were technically older than Burstyn, they were not "cast members" hired for the production; rather, their existing archival footage was licensed for the film.
### **Other Older Cast Members:**
For comparison, the other prominent senior cast members were younger than Burstyn:
* **Michael Caine** (Professor John Brand) was born on March 14, 1933, making him approximately **80 years old** during filming, but he is roughly three months younger than Burstyn.
* **William Devane** (NASA official) was born in 1939, making him **74** at the time.
* **John Lithgow** (Donald) was born in 1945, making him **67/68** at the time.