This wasn't Keeley's first run with Hamlet, though. In the 80s he was cast as Cladius in a production in Edmonton that starred Joe Ziegler, who directed the latest Stratford version. To look a little older for the part, he grew a beard but still played it as a young man. There's nothing in the play that states he has to be an old man. He's Hamlet's uncle.
Uncle can be the same age.
Keeley talks about his past roles with great enthusiasm, whether or not they were well received by critics. He cites playing De Flores in The Changeling at Stratford as a great memory. But I remind him that reviewers savaged the 1989 production. They tore us apart. And rightly so.