# Teens played by teens **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 23, 2020, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316 "2020-09-23T14:17:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/41 "2020-09-23T19:56:10Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > Ha! I have to disagree with you; this is actually what got me thinking about this topic! I saw an ad for this show and thought to myself that they looked absurdly older than middle-school aged, which got me thinking about how often teenagers are played by people too old to look the part, which got me wondering about the exceptions to that general rule. > [@Dangerosa](#): > > Agreed. I watched fifteen minutes or so, but couldn’t get over the “those are NOT teenagers” hurdle. Sometimes Dawson casting really works. 22-year-old Ralph Macchio when he was hoping to land high school student “Daniel LaRusso”: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/96sXaVCrl58/maxresdefault.jpg "1983 FIRST AUDITIONS FOR DANIEL & MR MIYAGI") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96sXaVCrl58) ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/42 "2020-09-24T10:36:07Z")
I haven’t seen the show, but I heard an NPR interview with the stars, who are the creators, and it’s my understanding that they aren’t supposed to be literal teens. The whole point, the way they discussed it, is about seeing your tween/teen years through then lens of your later life. Maybe it’s not coming off well, but no one is supposed to believe them as literal teens. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/43 "2020-09-24T12:07:54Z")
Its felt uncomfortable to me. But then there is so much media that if I don’t enjoy your premise - or get your point - in fifteen minutes, I can always watch something else. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/44 "2020-09-25T02:12:49Z")
The pilot episode of _Blossom_ was shown on July 5, 1990 when Mayim Bialik was 14. The last episode was shown on May 22, 1995 when Mayim Bialik was 19. The first episode of _The Big Bang Theory_ on which Amy Farah Fowler appeared was shown on May 24, 2010 when Mayim Bialik was 34. The last episode on which Amy Farah Fowler appeared was shown on May 16, 2019 when Mayim Bialik was 43. I think Mayim Bialik was closer to the age that her character was supposed to be in _Blossom_, where she was a teenager, than she was in _The Big Bang Theory_, where her character was an adult. ---
**Author:** ![razordance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e47774/32.png) [@razordance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/razordance)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/45 "2020-09-25T03:51:47Z")
“Sleepaway Camp” (just the first film, haven’t seen the whole series) struck me as odd at the time, and I think it’s because the actors playing teens were actually teens. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/46 "2020-09-25T07:22:25Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Melissa Joan Hart was […] 20 when she started on **Sabrina the Teenage Witch**. > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Looks like KJ Apa — “Archie” — was a teen during the first season of RIVERDALE. Related to both these … Kiernan Shipka was 17 when filming the first season of _The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina_. She was, of course, younger than that in _Mad Men_ - but ended the series as a teen playing a teen. I think Lachlan Watson is the only other member of the main “teen” cast of _tCAoS_ who is a teen, the others are all older. ---
**Author:** ![mcgato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/47 "2020-09-25T13:09:45Z")
Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner were about 14 and 15 when Game of Thrones started. I’m sure some of the other kids were teens, but those two appeared in most episodes over the years. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/48 "2020-09-25T13:17:28Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > And in the opposite directions, I started watching PEN15 a week or two ago. Even knowing it’s the case, it’s still hard to see how [these two 13 year old kids](https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/6c8/546/31d872c8058a04c6b0d8243c9ce9fc1d43-pen15-season-2-episode-06.rsquare.w1200.jpg) are actually 32 IRL. That is not hard to see at all. They look exactly like 30-year-olds pretending to be teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/49 "2020-09-25T13:48:27Z")
Another in the opposite direction; Netflix has a couple of series that are a sequel or prequel to the film _[Wet Hot American Summer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_Hot_American_Summer)_. I saw the prequel series, _[Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_Hot_American_Summer:_First_Day_of_Camp)_ and it seems a deliberate joke that the camp counselors, supposedly in their late teens, are played by actors who are obviously at least ten or twenty years too old. (Meanwhile, they had the youthful-looking Michael Cera playing a lawyer.) ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/50 "2020-09-25T14:05:57Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > > [@Joey\_P](#): > > > > And in the opposite directions, I started watching PEN15 a week or two ago. Even knowing it’s the case, it’s still hard to see how [these two 13 year old kids](https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/6c8/546/31d872c8058a04c6b0d8243c9ce9fc1d43-pen15-season-2-episode-06.rsquare.w1200.jpg) are actually 32 IRL. > > Ha! I have to disagree with you; this is actually what got me thinking about this topic! I saw an ad for this show and thought to myself that they looked absurdly older than middle-school aged, which got me thinking about how often teenagers are played by people too old to look the part, which got me wondering about the exceptions to that general rule. This show is different from most (all?) others though, in that they are not playing literal 13 year olds. They are playing themselves at that age but they are not trying to actually make the audience think they are passing as 13. (Also a lot of the things we see them doing would be reeeeeally skeevy if the actors were actually 13.) ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/51 "2020-09-25T14:16:36Z")
Didn’t see it mentioned, but according to my sloppy calculations, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was 16 or 17 when he started playing 14-year-old Tommy in _3rd Rock From the Sun_. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/52 "2020-09-26T02:48:48Z")
On the extreme other hand, [Melody Patterson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Patterson) was only 15 when she got the role of Wrangler Jane on _F Troop_. (Like Mila Kunis, she lied about her age.) The producers were unnerved when they found out her real age, since she was to be the love interest for Captain Parmenter (Ken Berry, who was exactly twice her age when the show started.) Fortunately, Parmenter was supposed to be shy around Wrangler, but they _really_ slowed the courtship down. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/53 "2020-09-26T19:33:00Z")
I remember reading a blind item from two or three years ago that an actress really pitched a fit when a director offered them a role in a film as a mother of a teenager and the actress thought she should be considered for the role of the **teenager**. The director turned her down. Lindsey Lohan and Hilary Duff were popular guesses. They are both in their 30s now. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/54 "2020-09-26T20:07:04Z")
On _8 Simple Rules_, two of the three kids were played by actual teenagers. When the show premiered, Martin Spanjers was 15 and Kaley Cuoco was 16 but Amy Davidson was 23. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/55 "2020-09-27T16:13:34Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > On the extreme other hand, [Melody Patterson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Patterson) was only 15 when she got the role of Wrangler Jane on _F Troop_ . (Like Mila Kunis, she lied about her age.) Another “lied about her age” (and did a fantastic job, so it’s easy to see why they believed her) was Brigitte Helm, who was apparently only 17 when she starred as Maria in _Metropolis_. She lied and said she was 20. You still get varying dates when you look her up, but it seems that there’s a pretty reliable story Fritz Lang told of finding out her real age after the fact. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2020, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316/56 "2020-09-28T00:21:39Z")
The most infamous case of a teen lying about being adult to get acting roles was Traci Lords in the 80s who lied about being an adult to make several pornographic films (which now of course are illegal to own). > **[Traci Lords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traci_Lords)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > Traci Lords (born Nora Louise Kuzma; May 7, 1968) is an American actress and singer. She entered the adult film industry using a fake birth certificate to conceal that she was two years under the legal age of eighteen. Lords starred in adult films and was one of the most sought-after actresses in that industry during her career. When the FBI acted on an anonymous tip that Lords was a minor during her time in the industry, and that pornographers... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teens-played-by-teens/921316.md?page=2)