Bianca Lawson has spent an almost supernatural amount of her career in high school hallways. She was 31 when she joined Pretty Little Liars as Maya St. Germain, a teenager dating Emily Fields, after already playing students in several earlier teen shows. Lawson somehow kept getting away with it, too. Hollywood needed someone who could apparently remain sixteen forever, and it had her number. | © ABC Family
Carey Mulligan was 27 when she slipped into Daisy Buchanan’s pearls, including flashbacks to the 18-year-old Louisville socialite who first captured Gatsby’s imagination. Baz Luhrmann mostly lets Mulligan do the time travel herself, with little more than styling and softer behavior separating past Daisy from present Daisy. Her delicate, old-fashioned screen presence helps enormously, even when the flashback arithmetic starts becoming rather generous. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Steven Spielberg introduces Frank Abagnale as a 16-year-old runaway, while Leonardo DiCaprio was 28 when Catch Me If You Can reached theaters. His baby face, oversized uniforms and eager grin effectively become part of Frank’s con, making him look just young enough for adults to underestimate him. DiCaprio may not pass a literal sophomore-yearbook test, but his boyish energy makes watching him impersonate pilots and doctors ridiculously easy to accept. | © DreamWorks Distribution
Moaning Myrtle is supposed to be the ghost of a teenage Hogwarts student, yet Shirley Henderson was 36 when she first floated into that bathroom. Her high-pitched voice, oversized glasses and wonderfully miserable energy somehow make the gap much easier to ignore than it has any right to be. Still, knowing Myrtle was played by a woman old enough to be several Hogwarts students’ mother makes every rewatch just a little stranger. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Regina George rules North Shore High like a corporate executive who happens to carry lip gloss, which probably helps explain why 25-year-old Rachel McAdams never feels wildly misplaced as a teenager. She was noticeably older than several of her co-stars, yet that maturity feeds Regina’s intimidating presence. Everyone else looks like they are learning the social hierarchy; Regina looks like she wrote the employee handbook, laminated it and weaponized it. | © Paramount Pictures
Jon Heder was 26 when he played 16-year-old Napoleon, and the movie wisely makes almost no effort to turn him into a conventional-looking teenager. The moon boots, stiff posture, wispy mustache and permanently irritated expression create a human being who seems to exist outside normal age categories anyway. Heder certainly looks older than Napoleon’s classmates, but Napoleon is so aggressively himself that ordinary casting logic gets kicked across the gym like a tetherball. | © Searchlight Pictures
Matt Damon was already in his early 40s when he stepped into Scott Thorson’s rhinestone-heavy world, while Steven Soderbergh’s film introduces Scott at just 18. Rather than burying Damon beneath digital de-aging, the movie lets his body language do the work: nervous, impressionable and visibly dazzled by Liberace’s extravagance. Damon sells the emotional imbalance beautifully, although those opening scenes require audiences to make one extremely charitable trip through Hollywood mathematics. | © HBO
Damon Salvatore is physically frozen in his twenties by vampire immortality, while Ian Somerhalder was already 30 when The Vampire Diaries premiered and 38 when it ended. Being undead gives the series a wonderfully convenient excuse: Damon is never supposed to grow older while the mortal world keeps moving. Cameras unfortunately follow different supernatural rules, so eight seasons gradually turn that permanently youthful vampire into one extremely well-preserved resident of Mystic Falls. | © Warner Bros. Television
Cher arrives in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again at 72 as Ruby Sheridan, mother of Meryl Streep’s Donna, and immediately makes the family tree perform an Olympic-level backflip. Cher is only three years older than Streep, a fact the movie seems almost proud of ignoring. Instead of chasing maternal realism, it gives Ruby platinum hair, a helicopter entrance and “Fernando.” If arithmetic has to lose a fight, this is at least a glamorous defeat. | © Universal Pictures
Greta Gerwig chose not to split Amy March between two actresses, leaving Florence Pugh to play both the adult Amy and her much younger teenage self. Pugh attacks the early scenes through behavior rather than pretending she physically looks 13: stomping, sulking, mispronouncing words and desperately trying to seem sophisticated. Once Amy grows up, the casting suddenly clicks perfectly, making youthful Amy the occasionally hilarious price the movie pays for keeping that continuity. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
Jennifer Grey was 27 when she played 17-year-old Frances “Baby” Houseman, the sheltered teenager spending one final summer with her family before heading off to college. What sells Baby’s youth is less Grey’s appearance than her nervous physicality: awkward dancing, impulsive reactions and absolutely no ability to act cool around Johnny. Grey makes her inexperienced without turning her childish, which is probably why the ten-year difference rarely jumps off the screen. | © Vestron Pictures
Olivia Newton-John herself worried that 29 was too old to play 17-year-old Sandy, and on paper she had every reason to be nervous. Grease barely bothers hiding that Rydell High is populated by suspiciously adult-looking teenagers, but Newton-John’s sweetness gives Sandy the earnestness the character needs. Then the finale throws her into leather pants beside John Travolta, at which point a twelve-year age discrepancy becomes approximately the fifteenth strangest thing happening onscreen. | © Paramount Pictures
Peter Parker is already attending college in Spider-Man 3, but Tobey Maguire was in his early 30s while playing a hero whose story had begun only a few years after high school. The trilogy’s relatively compressed timeline makes the distance more apparent with every sequel, especially beside classmates and coworkers meant to be Peter’s peers. Maguire still owns the role, though his infamous emo makeover accidentally makes Peter’s awkward attempts at youthful cool even funnier. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
Ryan Gosling was 42 when Barbie transformed Ken into a full-blown existential crisis with abs, prompting plenty of online complaints that he had aged out of the role. Of course, Ken is a plastic doll rather than a human being with a birth certificate, making the whole argument gloriously strange. Gosling ultimately turns that perceived mismatch into part of the performance: toy-like confidence on the outside, bruised middle-management energy bubbling underneath. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Winona Ryder was 27 when she played 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen, entering a psychiatric hospital during one of the most unstable periods of her young life. Ryder had already built much of her career around youthful outsiders, so the nine-year difference hides unusually well. Her brittle uncertainty keeps Susanna feeling impulsive and unfinished, while Angelina Jolie’s dangerously self-assured Lisa makes her seem even younger whenever the two women occupy the same room. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
Hollywood has never been particularly strict about matching an actor’s age to the character on the page. Sometimes a few extra years are easy to ignore; other times, we’re asked to believe a 30-year-old still has homework due on Monday. From suspiciously mature teenagers to stars playing decades younger, these actors stretched suspension of disbelief about as far as it could go.
