Emily Kinney was cast as the character of Beth in The Walking Dead when she was 26 years old, while her character on the show was 16. Could you tell from her real age in the show?
Leonardo DiCaprio was cast as16-year-old Frank Abagnale Jr in Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can at the age of 27 years old. The plot of the movie is about a teenager who faked his age, pretending to be 27 years old to earn millions of dollars as a doctor, pilot, and even a priest. Therefore, DiCaprio was in retrospect was true to his character.
Tom Holland was the closest to being the correct age, as Peter Parker in the Spider-Man movies. When he was at 20, he was cast as a 15-year-old version of the character.
Stacey Dash became famous for her role in Clueless. In the movie, 29-year-old Dash played 17-year-old Dion and it won her fame.
Tom Welling was built like a 14-year-old boy at the age of 24, therefore becoming the “oldest” Superman. But fans were able to suspend their disbelief and fell in love with the character he played. Smallville became one of the WB’s biggest hits and ran for ten seasons.
Jason Earles was cast to play the 14-year-old teenage brother of Miley Cyrus in Hannah Montana, when he was in his mid-30’s. Amazingly, looking at the image, you can’t say that Earles wasn’t a baby-faced teenage boy.
Kitsch was cast as the 16-year-old high school fullback Tim Riggins in Friday Night Lights when he was 27 years old. Although he wasn’t the protagonist, his character won the hearts of the audience. They were obsessed with Kitsch and his bad boy good looks.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a classic teen comedy about a teenager who convinces his friends to skip school with him for a day. One of those friends is Cam, who is scared of his dad and serves as the emotional heartbeat of the story. Played by 30-year-old Alan Ruck, the performance is surprisingly mature. No one doubted that Alan wasn’t a teenager during filming.
Every actor in Beverly Hills 90210 was beyond high school age when they were cast as 14 to 17-year-olds. The biggest though is Gabrielle who played 17-year-old school newspaper editor Andrea while she was 29 in real life.
Henry Winkler played high school dropout Arthur Fonzarelli in Happy Days, and no one realized he was 29-years-old at the time. When the show ended after ten years, Winkler was almost 40 while the Fonz was supposedly just out of his teens.
Michael was cast as 17-year-old Marty Mcfly in Back to the Future when he was 24. The age discrepancy isn’t significant, but the franchise has three movies. When Back to the Future Part III came out, Fox was 29-years-old and still playing a 17-year-old character.
Emma Thompson won an Oscar for her work in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility in 1995. She played 19-year-old Elinor Dashwood, while she was 35 years old. Besides this, she also wrote the screenplay for the film and finally won the Oscar for her writing.
Before Felicity Jones made her living as a big budget movie star, she showed up in small budget dramas. She played an 18-year-old foreign exchange student in New York in Breathe In at the age of 30. It’s not her first time to play the younger woman. Her character in Like Crazy was a massive hit on the festival circuit and made her a fan favorite.
When Barbara Streisand initially decided to turn Yentl into a movie, she was almost thirty. When she finally made the film after another decade of waiting, she was 41-years-old. The character she played was in her late teens. She was cast with such an age discrepancy because of her involvement in the film. She became the first woman to win a Golden Globe for directing.
Stockard Channing played Rizzo in the movie Grease. She was a decade older than her character when she was 34 years old. The role though helped push her to new heights.
One of the most memorable characters from the Harry Potter franchise is Moaning Myrtle. 36-year-old Shirley Henderson was cast to play Myrtle who was killed at 14-years-old in The Chamber of Secrets. Disguising the actress to make her look like a ghostly teenager turned out to be a lifesaver for the production, so the directors didn’t need to recast actor after four years.
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, was a huge hit when it premiered on television in 1997. One of the standout actresses on the show was Charisma Carpenter, who played the most popular girl in school; Cordelia Chase. The character was 16 while Carpenter was 27.
Eric Christian played a high school football star in teen comedy Fired Up when he was 30 years old. He looks every bit his age in the film while he tries to pass for a teenager hungry for female attention.
When Paul Wesley was cast to play a teenage vampire in Vampire Diaries he was 12 years older than his character. When the show ended after eight seasons, he was a full two decades older than his role.
Wood Harris fooled everyone in the film Remember The Titans with his extraordinary acting. He was 31 years old at the time and played one of the high school football team’s players. He was subsequently nominated for acting awards at the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards and the NAACP Image Awards.
