Actors Who Played Much Younger Characters

Something that you may not always think about when you watch a TV show or film is the age of the actors on screen. That’s a good thing because it means the performers are able to convince you they are the people on screen. Plenty of actors who played much younger characters have done just that, and it’s only occasionally that they get found out for this.

It’s something that’s quite common in shows where the characters are kids or teens because not everyone has the maturity and skill at that age to perform how they need to. However, these aren’t the only times actors have aged down significantly on the big and small screen, with this sort of thing happening surprisingly often.

Several cast members in Mean Girls were much older than high school age

Rachel McAdams is the perfect example of an adult playing the role of a young person. You see this kind of thing a lot in teen dramas where the high school students are pretty much all in their 20s in real life. Although most of the cast of the teen comedy movie ‘Mean Girls’ was in the right age bracket, McAdams was around her mid-20s. It didn’t really matter, though, because we’re not sure who wasn’t buying Rachel as high school mean girl Regina George. Also, she was apparently in good company because Daniel Franzese, who played Damien Leigh, was around the same age as McAdams.

Emilia Clarke had a good decade on Daenerys in Game of Thrones

Anyone who’s read the ‘Game of Thrones’ books will know that Daenerys was initially written to be 13. Although HBO aged the character up by a few years when they began making the fantasy drama ‘Game of Thrones,’ Daenerys was still quite a bit younger than Emilia Clarke. There was around a decade’s difference between the two, meaning the actress perhaps brought a little more maturity to the part. The show wasn’t against hiring people around that younger age bracket, given Maisie Williams was 12 when she was selected to play Arya Stark. However, it doesn’t really matter because Clarke was exceptional in the role and never made us question the casting.

Jason Earles was almost 30 when he played Jackson Stewart in Hannah Montana

Miley Cyrus was newly a teenager when she began appearing on the sitcom ‘Hannah Montana,’ which aligned her nicely with her character’s age. The same can’t be said for Jason Earles, who played Jackson Stewart, the sibling of Miley’s character. While his being older worked well for him playing Miley’s big brother, the character was only 16 at the start of the show. Earles, meanwhile, was almost out of his 20s at the time. When the series eventually ended, he was around his mid-30s, not that you would have guessed it by watching him. Thankfully, Earles did an impressive job of not looking out of place amongst the rest of the younger cast.

Emma Thompson was nearly double the age of Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility

If you think that a 35-year-old can’t convincingly play a 19-year-old, then you probably haven’t watched the 1995 period drama ‘Sense and Sensibility.’ Emma Thompson portrays teenager Elinor Dashwood in the film, and 35 is around the age she was when she took on this role. Evidently, most people didn’t have a problem with it, given that she was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the Oscars for her portrayal. The movie also still stands as one of the most acclaimed and successful Jane Austen adaptations, partly because Thompson did such an outstanding job in the role. We wouldn’t have swapped her for anyone.

Shirley Henderson was several decades older than Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films

Many of the students in the fantasy ‘Harry Potter’ films were a similar age to the actors who played them, allowing the cast to essentially grow up on the big screen. However, some people who were brought in to play younger characters had a bit more of an age gap, such as Shirley Henderson, who portrayed Moaning Myrtle. Though the ghost doesn’t have a specified age, if she lost her life as a student, she would have been a teenager. That’s quite a contrast to Shirley Henderson’s age at the time of filming, with her first appearance in the franchise coming in her late 30s. That’s around two decades difference, not that we noticed at all.

When they say that age is just a number, they really do mean it sometimes. The actors who played much younger characters might have had quite a few years on their on-screen roles, but it didn’t affect their performance one bit. We believed each and every one of them in their parts, just going to show how incredible they are at their jobs.