To hate it when much older actresses play teenage characters?

[Chamomileteaplease]

Why do directors/casting directors do this?? I cannot understand it.

On the Railway Children thread someone said that the girl who played Phyllis was 20!

And in How to Build a Girl I looked up the main character who was supposed to be 16 and it was all about her being 16 really and the actress was 27 .

Can anyone tell me why this happens? Surely it detracts from the plot/message/character?

Why only actresses?

Could you tell? If not why the fuck does it matter?

Acting is pretend

It is to do with child labour laws I think. There are rules and relations to how much they can work. So by using adults, they can put in the desired hours needed to film.

I thought it was working restrictions, in that you can get more time out of adult actors, don't need chaperones or school provision etc. I don't find it distracting if the story and acting are good enough, but then I'm also very unobservant so often don't really notice.

I agree, OP - especially when it’s supposed to be a high school teen drama 😂

Because the older actor might just be better?

John Travolta and Olivia Newton John etc were all in their 30s as I recall. Playing high school students. Still a good film.

Would you rather actual teenagers be taken out of school and subjected to gruelling, rigorous filming schedules, as well as crippling pressure? Sounds super healthy, right? Great way to spend a childhood.

I watched Buffy when I was a teenager and remember my Granddad being very critical of the actress who played Cordelia looking 30. I didn’t see at at the time. Watched it again a year or two ago and Granddad was right! I found it very hard to suspend belief with a 27 year old playing a 16 year old.

@PuppyMonkey

Because the older actor might just be better?

John Travolta and Olivia Newton John etc were all in their 30s as I recall. Playing high school students. Still a good film.

Grease made perfect sense to me as a child.

Only much later as an adult did I stop and ask, why were Danny and Sandy so old? (And the rest of the characters, for that matter.) I also as a child had no idea that Rizzo was pregnant and struggling with the fallout of that.

There's a lot that sails over your head and that you don't question with the innocence of youth!

Surely it's for child labour laws. Sometimes they shoot early mornings and do long hours. They don't want the hassle plus having to have tutors on set.

Could be worse...I hate it when 35 year old woman play mothers to late teens/early 20s with 60 year old husbands.

I hate it when teenagers in TV shows (who are usually played by actors in their 20s) have mums played by actresses in their 30s and their dads played by actors in their 50s.

Most of the One Tree Hill cast back in the day were mid 20s playing 15 up whilst Lucas’s Mum was only in her 30s at the time.

The actress playing Connell’s Mum is Normal People is only mid 30s whilst Paul Mescal who plays Connell is mid 20s.

That’s the sort of thing that bugs me more.

Plus actresses in their teens or twenties being paired up with actors 20 or 30 years older. Think Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in most things. It’s quite gross how normalised these things become.

The mothers in the tv shows all had to be child or teenage mothers. The boyfriends all have girlfriends young enough to be their daughter.

Child labour laws
Doing storylines that are hard hitting so might want someone older to handle it
Availability of actresses within the right age

I mean it depends really. Bella and Ryder in home and away arw older but look their characters age. VJ got reheaded and was clearly way older.

Sandy and co in Grease, obv not 17/18 bit on lots of movies you wouldn't know unless you looked.

If a movie features abuse, drugs etc then whilst you might want your 15 to character to experience it, you might not want a 14/15 to actress/actor

Cross posted Lucille!

@Sorka

I watched Buffy when I was a teenager and remember my Granddad being very critical of the actress who played Cordelia looking 30. I didn’t see at at the time. Watched it again a year or two ago and Granddad was right! I found it very hard to suspend belief with a 27 year old playing a 16 year old.

Again, I didn't see that either.

I wonder if I was just terrible at judging age when I was younger, or if I believed Americans went to school for so much longer than we did... I just didn't question it at all.

Because their are limits in how much a child can work that would affect filming schedules. Because teenagers can change radical in looks in a very short space of time (sudden growth spurts, obvious puberty changes etc) and as films /TV series are rarely filmed in strick sequential order this can be a continuity nightmare.

The actress playing Connell’s Mum is Normal People is only mid 30s whilst Paul Mescal who plays Connell is mid 20s. The big issue there though was the passage of time, then playing from teens to mid 20s so the parents playing mid 30's to mid 40s

It’s icky. It feeds the idea that teen girls are basically women and therefore fuckable rather than almost grow children.

Can you imagine if they recast all the Austen adaptations with appropriately aged actors/actresses?

Jeniffer Ehle was 27 playing 20 year old Lizzie and Julia Sawalha was 28 playing a 15 year old!

The big issue there though was the passage of time, then playing from teens to mid 20s so the parents playing mid 30's to mid 40s

Whilst I get that, it’s still a bit dubious that a 35 year old had an 18 year old son.

@kistanbul

It’s icky. It feeds the idea that teen girls are basically women and therefore fuckable rather than almost grow children.

What, in The Railway Children? Or Jane Austen adaptions?

Who rememerbs the Golden Girls, IRL her mum was only about 5 years older than her.

I was thinking more of teen dramas and horror films, but it all feeds the same idea of teen girl = woman.

Emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility! She was 36, Elinor is meant to be about 19!

@PuppyMonkey

Because the older actor might just be better?

John Travolta and Olivia Newton John etc were all in their 30s as I recall. Playing high school students. Still a good film.

According to google they were 23 and 28 respectively, so still old but not quite 30s.