20 actors who played teenagers as adults

Jason Earles didn’t just have to play a teenager as a 30-something for multiple years on Hannah Montana. He also had to do press, promotion, and engagements with the cast and other Disney Channel stars, who were well over a decade his junior. In retrospect, Earles playing Jackson Stewart was … an interesting choice. 

Most of the actors in Euphoria are much older than the characters they portray. Jacob Elordi joked ahead of filming season 3 that he will have a backache walking down the halls. But Alexa Demie is significantly older than her character. She’s in her early thirties ahead of filming the next season. 

Darren Barnet rose to fame for portraying a high school student in Never Have I Ever, and he was in his mid-twenties when he began filming the role. Barnet had graduated to his thirties by the time the show finished airing. 

Much of the Riverdale crew was older than the character they portrayed, but Ashleigh Murray had the greatest age gap. Sure, she looked young, but it might’ve been a stretch to say a 28-year-old could realistically play a sophomore in high school. 

It’s understandable why casting directors hire adults to play teenagers when the characters are expected to engage in very adult behavior, but at some point, the age gap gets too wide. Most of the Pretty Little Liars cast had at least a four-year age difference between them and their character, but Bianca Lawson’s was the biggest. She was 31 when she began playing 16-year-old Maya. 

Multiple members of the Grease cast were in their thirties when they filmed the musical. When looking at the ages of the cast at the time of filming, it seems like the casting director adhered to an age minimum rather than a maximum. While playing 18-year-old Rizzo, Stockard Channing was 33 years old.

Unless a teen show is filmed for the Disney Channel, the teens are likely going to be portrayed by adults (and even the Disney Channel pushes the limit sometimes). Most of the cast of Outer Banks is at least in their twenties, with Chase Stokes in his thirties and over a decade older than his character. 

It turns out that various classic teen movies have cast adults as teenagers. When Stacey Dash played Dionne in Clueless, she was 28, playing a senior in high school. The movie never mentions anything about Dionne repeating a grade or starting school late, so it’s safe to assume the character was 17 or 18 years old. 

There’s been plenty of outrage surrounding the ages of the women Leonardo DiCaprio dates, but not much about the ages of the characters he’s portrayed. In the public’s defense, his dating record is much longer. The actor played a character with a major age gap only once. DiCaprio was 28 when he played a 17-year-old in Catch Me If You Can. 

Judd Nelson became a teen icon when he played the rebellious John Bender in The Breakfast Club. Nelson gained lots of teenage fans, but he was already well past that part of his life as a 25-year-old when the movie came out. 

Adults playing teenagers has been going on for decades. When Henry Winkler began playing Fonzie in Happy Days, he was 28 years old. Fonzie, meanwhile was still in high school. 

The age gaps in Dirty Dancing were all sorts of problematic. Baby was 17, and Johnny was 25. Jennifer Grey was 27 while filming, while Patrick Swayze was 34. Grey had also just finished filming Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where she plays another younger character. 

Timothy Granaderos began playing a teenager in 13 Reasons Why in his late twenties and continued into his early thirties. The actor was in good company, though. Most of the cast was significantly older than the characters they were portraying. 

Perhaps part of the reason Spider-Man was so amazing is because the actor who played him wasn’t a teenager. Andrew Garfield wasn’t even close when he took his turn as the superhero. Garfield was 27 when he began playing the 17-year-old character. 

As we all know, a 12-year-old and a 17-year-old look very different. The limits can be pushed just a bit when a character is nearing adulthood versus when they’re just about to enter their teen years. In Little Women, Amy is shown as young as 12 years old, meaning Florence Pugh, as a 23-year-old, had to portray a character who was not yet a teenager. 

The Plastics acted more maturely than the typical teenager in Mean Girls, so it’s understandable why the filmmakers cast actors who were already adults. While playing Regina George, a junior in high school, Rachel McAdams was 26. 

Keiko Agena was 27 when she began playing 16-year-old Lane Kim in Gilmore Girls. Alexis Bledel, meanwhile, was 19 when she began playing Lane’s 16-year-old BFF Rory Gilmore. 

As noted, Jennifer Grey was much older than her character in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and so was Alan Ruck. The actor was 29 years old when he was playing a senior in high school. 

There’s a reason the teenagers we see in movies don’t look anything like the teenagers we know in real life. Jesse Metcalfe played teen heartthrob John Tucker in John Tucker Must Die as a 28-year-old in real life. 

Ben Platt was in his early twenties when he originated the role of 17-year-old Evan Hansen on Broadway. However, by the time he reprised the role for the film adaptation, he was 27. Many viewers like it when the original stage actor plays the same role in the film adaptation, but in this case, it felt a little off.