Back to school! From Chase StokesTo Nicola Coughlin, plenty of TV stars have played teenagers years after aging out of the demographic.
In fact, shows tend to gravitate towards older actors for roles that are too difficult to fit in their schedules. There are also certain confines that create difficulties in the casting process when aiming to include young stars.
“It’s all because of the labor laws. The number of hours that children are allowed to work are highly restricted, which limits the amount of time that producers can actually have adolescents on set,” casting director Todd ThalerVice in May 2017 “Within those limited hours that children can work, part of that time includes education, rest and meals.”
However, casting older actors in teenage roles has its own set of problems. Crystal ReedFor instance, she made her debut as a Beacon Hills high schooler Allison Argent. Teen Wolf premiered on MTV in 2011. The actress was 26 when the episode premiered on MTV in 2011.
Reed left the show after three seasons, partly due to the age gap she and her character had. “I felt like, creatively, there were things I wanted to do differently, and I wanted to explore other avenues of film and TV,” she told Entertainment Weekly in March 2014. “I wanted to jump into different characters. You know, I’m 29. So I think the age difference was something I wanted to change as well because she’s 17. I love the show so very much. So I went to [executive producer Jeff Davis] and talked about it and he said, ‘We’ll write you a great ending.’”
Reed returned to her in March 2022. Teen WolfWhen Paramount+ announced plans for a revival movie, role
Other series — such as Pretty Little Liars — handled the problem with time jumps. The creator of the Freeform drama. I. Marlene King, explained the decision to age the characters by five years in season 6, calling it “a group consensus.”
In October 2015, New York Comic-Con revealed the identity of the executive producer. Troian Bellisario, Lucy Hale, Ashley BensonAnd Shay Mitchell were “ready to play close to their own ages” after the slow-moving timeline of Rosewood kept them as teenagers for years. “It was time to age up the show, make it a little edgier and more mature,” she said.
Scroll down to see which actors portrayed high school students long before they actually left the actual hallways!
