An ode to the 20- and 30-something onscreen teens Millennials grew up with
Is the so-called Dawson casting the reason so many Millennials are trapped in a state of arrested development? Yes. Yes, it is.
TV Features Kitty
For years, they were everywhere: leaning against lockers, grabbing lunch in the school cafeteria, slow dancing at prom, nervously leaning in for their first-ever kiss—and fighting off serial killers/vampires/cheerleaders, depending on what genre you were into at the time.
They were wearing backpacks they’d casually-not-so-casually slung over one shoulder. They were decked out in the latest (and hottest) fashion trends. And they were, quite honestly, the living embodiment of that Steve Buscemi reaction gif. You know, the one where he’s smiling out from beneath a backwards-facing baseball cap, carrying a skateboard, and cheerily greeting a school room full of teens with an unforgettable, “How do you do, fellow kids”?
Yeah, that one.
That’s right, everyone: Once upon a time, the teenagers we fell in love with onscreen were not, in fact, teenagers. Not even close, to be honest. And I have the receipts to prove it, too. (Alexa, please play “Kids In America” by Kim Wilde.)
Melissa Joan Hart was 20 when she filmed the first episodes of Sabrina The Teenage Witch, and Nicholas Brendon was 26 when he began portraying Xander, a teen with seriously impressive facial hair on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. He was, incidentally, just one year younger than Robia LaMorte (who played Xander’s high school teacher, Miss Calendar) and Charisma Carpenter (a.k.a. Cordelia, his fleeting onscreen squeeze).
Half the teens in the first Scream film were played by actors in their late twenties. Harry Shum Jr. was 30 when his character Mike graduated high school on Glee. And Cory Monteith (RIP) was 27 when he began singing his heart out as Finn.
Think I’m done? Think again, because the cast of 90210 is riddled with 30-somethings playing school kids, too. Jason Earles was 30 when he starred as Miley’s teenage brother, Jackson, on Hannah Montana. The uncannily youthful Keiko Agena—or Lane Kim, to Gilmore Girls fans everywhere—was 27 (27!) when she was cast as Rory’s 16-year-old BFF in the series. Stacey Dash was 28 when she joined the virgin drivers of Clueless as Dionne. (Paul Rudd, meanwhile, was 26, but, y’know, he’s an ageless vampire so I don’t think he counts.)
Parminder Nagra was 27 when she taught us to Bend It Like Beckham. Tobey Maguire’s Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman was a cool 27, too, and we never even noticed. And don’t even get me started on the Chase Crawfords, Kerr Smiths, and Chad Michael Murrays of the world, because I know you don’t have the time.
Here’s the thing, though: I’m not even mad about the fact that I believed with all my heart, for a ridiculously long time, that all of these grownups were teenagers. That was on me and my naiveté. Also, it should go without saying that they were all magnificent (nearly all, anyway) and that they very much needed to be there. Remember, so-called Dawson casting—hiring adults well past adolescence to play teens—is done because, if actors are under the age of 18, they can only work for a certain number of hours. And, due to the nature of the content that they have to film (nobody wants to keep things PG really, do they?) older actors tend to feel more … well, more appropriate, I guess.
Like I say, I’m not mad. What I am, however, is absolutely convinced that these adult teens are the reason so many Millennials like myself find ourselves trapped in a state of arrested development. Think about it: Nowadays, we finally, finally, finally look like the teens we grew up watching, by which I mean we’re zit-free (most of the time) and able to afford some semblance of a daily hair and skincare regime. Plenty of us are still living at home. Some of us have facial hair, others have ditched the training bras at last, and still more of us feel way more comfortable in our skin now than we ever did in high school.
We are, essentially, the Hobbits of our society: We “come of age” at 33—and that’s likely because the benchmark for teen success, or for “aspirational teenhood,” if you prefer, was always so visibly portrayed by grown adults rolling their eyes at their suspiciously fresh-faced parents. (In all seriousness, please don’t make me invoke the seven-year age gap between Mean Girls’ Rachel McAdams and her onscreen mom, Amy Poehler, because I’ll do it. You know I will.)
For years, we have been unable to correctly guess a single person’s age, let alone fathom why restaurants and stores are hiring literal babies to serve us—literal babies who are, I hasten to add, just teenagers who look like actual teenagers. (Note to self: stop mentally accusing companies of breaking child labor laws and come to terms with reality.) So, yes, you better believe we find it oddly disconcerting when we’re presented with an onscreen teen who looks and sounds like a genuine non-screen teen, too.
Case in point? Tom Holland’s portrayal of Peter Parker was lamented online by (whisper it) men of a certain age, all of whom were inexplicably furious that their beloved Spider-Man was now a Spiderboy. And that’s in spite of the fact that, at 18, Tom is actually three years older than the suped-up high schooler he’s playing.
Exhibit B is Kiernan Shipka, who sparked a similar reaction when it was announced she’d be taking over the role of Sabrina Spellman from the aforementioned Melissa Joan Hart. Some of my pals, nostalgic for the old days, made it very clear they weren’t here for “Baby Sabrina”—although, as I’m sure you’ve guessed already, the talented Kiernan is actually two years older than the bewitching 16-year-old she won over critics as.
Finally, Exhibit C is (wait for it) Stranger Things, which sees its cast littered with actual teens—all of whom were cast when they were actual tweens. Here’s the problem, though: while a mere 20 months separates the first and third seasons of the never-ending sci-fi caper, the cast aged four years (four years!) in that same period. Season four, too, saw them heroically portraying the same kids they made famous all those years ago, despite most of them now being in their 20s. Which, I suppose, is even more jarring than if producers had hired 20- or 30-somethings in the first place.
I guess what I’m saying is this: Our idea of what a teenager looks like is well and truly warped. And while plenty of TV shows nowadays make a point of giving us actual teenage actors (here’s looking at you Ms. Marvel, Heartstopper, and the recent Gossip Girl reboot), there are also some that still adhere to that “cast an adult as a kid” trope of old. Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds and Ncuti “The Doctor” Gatwa were in their late twenties when the series kicked off.
The Derry Girls, too, were almost all similarly aged when the coming-of-age series started. And Nicola “The Wee Lesbian” Coughlan was in her thirties. Not to mention: There was just one ( one, people!) teenager in the cast of To All The Boys I Loved Before: Anna Cathcart, who played Kitty, Lara Jean’s kid sister, was 15 when the first made-for-Netflix film came out.
Like I say, it’s all a bit … confusing out there. So, to help you out, here are some signs that the high schooler you’re talking to is actually Never Been Kissed-ing you:
- They only ever carry the skateboard; they never actually use it.
- Their hair is impeccable, always (no sign of any frizz here, folks)
- In fact, strike that: They just look amazing, always. Never a pimple in sight.
- They’re constantly using the latest teen lingo (“that’s drip”) but it sounds every bit as natural as if they had glass marbles crashing around inside their mouth.
- Their sneakers are a distractingly blinding box-fresh white.
- Their clothes positively ooze “quiet luxury” and are way out of reach of their classmates’ monthly allowance.
- That or, y’know, they live in their cheerleader uniform/letterman jacket.
- Facial hair isn’t just peach fuzz or cute little whispery tufts: It’s fully established.
- Or they have an insanely prominent five-o’clock shadow.
- Male voices shouldn’t be as deep as this, right?
- Erm, also that bicep-baring, torso-hugging tank? Exposing way too many defined muscles for a teen, quite frankly.
- Is … is that a bald spot?
- They only ever stand in really good lighting.
- Their glasses don’t have any lenses in them.
- They look as if they’ve been attacked by a professional makeup artist’s brush on the way into school.
- They patently aren’t a bumbling pubescent, and you know it.
You can do this, everyone, I promise, even if Gen Z and the new Generation Alpha are far better at hair and makeup than we ever were, thanks to all the TikTok tutorials out there.
Hmm. Good luck, I guess … you’re going to need it.
33 Comments
You forgot the cast of Derry Girls
No, they didn’t:The Derry Girls, too, were almost all similarly aged when the coming-of-age series started. And Nicola “The Wee Lesbian” Coughlan was in her thirties.
My apologies, I was looking at the pics and reading the info underneath it and overlooked the part about Derry Girls.
“my apologies, I only look at pictures in books”
No mention of the entire cast Dazed and Confused?
Let’s not forget Martin Short playing a 10-year old in his 40.Actually, yeah, let’s forget that.
I remember it was a punchline that teens were being played by older adults even back in the 1990s:
Yeah, this ain’t new. People have been talking about this phenomenon since 90210, and that was 30 years ago. I remember what a big deal it was that Freaks and Geeks had actual teenagers in the cast, and how tiny they were in comparison to what we were used to seeing on those shows. There’s a lot of weird in this article, which I don’t even want to bother getting into, but the idea that Millennials are getting a late start because of Dawson’s Creek, and not because they graduated into the worst financial crash in 80 years (I graduated from college in May 2008, literally a few months before everything went to shit), along with the prohibitive cost of getting an education/student loan debt, is so ridiculous I’m having trouble getting my head around it.
It’s a very unfocused article. Half of it is just listing things. The title sets out a thesis that is only referenced in two paragraphs. The ending starts a new list that could have been a somewhat funny article (or even a slideshow!) all by itself.
The entire point of the article was to get you to click on it, thus activating 10,000 cookies to follow you around for the next 10 years. So in that regard, the article was a total success.
“People have been talking about this phenomenon since 90210, and that was 30 years ago.”
No, sweetums, YOU’VE been aware of it since then, it was going on long, long, long, long, long before that.
James Dean was 24 in Rebel Without a Cause.
Ron Howard was 20 when Happy Days started and Henry Winkler was 31. John Travolta was 24, Kenickie was 28, Olivia Newton-John was 30 and Stockard Channing was f*cking 24 when they made Grease.
And also, can we not pretend that we’re surprised that actors who are under 18 and have limits on how long they can work in a day and in fact on what they’re allowed to do on set and also the productions have to pay for tutors and block off time for school for aren’t as readily used to portray teenagers as older actors are?
High five, fellow 2008 graduate. Though in my case, I hung out in grad school for two years afterwards, hoping to ride it out but just accumulating more debt in the process.
GenX (at least the older part of it) graduated into a terrible economy in the early 1990s. That’s why an obscure Southern politican Bill Clinton won over Bush Sr. who had presided over winning the Cold War (the degree to which he was actually responsible for the fall of the Berlin wall or the breakup of the USSR is dubious of course). Clinton ran on the slogan “it’s the economy, stupid!” and won.
As a young Gen-X, can I blame Beverly Hills 90210 that aired 8 years before Dawson’s for my inability to guess ages correctly? I reemember lots of articles about how most of the cast were already in their 20s while playing high school sophmores. Gabrielle Carteris was 30 by the end of the first season, practically twice the age as the character she played. Ian Ziering was 27 and Luke Perry was 25. And let’s not forget all of those John Hughes in the mid-1980s, starring 20-somethings Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Matthew Broderick, and Andrew McCarthy playing high schoolers
Oh, earlier. The “teens” in the Breakfast Club (1985)? Only Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall were actual teenagers.
How old are you Kayleigh? Think I’m done? Think again, because the cast of 90210 is riddled with 30-somethings playing school kids, too. Everyone knows/knew that. It has been laughed about, etc for legit 30 years.Do better.
This was going on for decades before the 90s. Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver were 25 and 24 in the first season of Dobie Gillis in 1959.
(Yes, these clearly adult men are playing teenagers)
That’s why those baby boomers & silent generation folks just couldn’t seem to grow up!Seriously, this article is ridiculous.
If I was behind the counter and either of those two tried to buy cigarettes I’d card them. I definitely went to high school with guys that looked older.
The matron saint of this phenomenon is of course Stockard Channing who was 33 when she played Rizzo in Grease. Honorable mention goes to Eric Christian Olsen who played a high schooler who was 32 when he played a high school football player in Fired Up! I’m also going to give Cole Sprouse a shout out. He currently plays high schooler Jughead Jones on Riverdale (he also played a high schooler in the show’s first season six years ago. Don’t ask, it’s a long story.) at the age of 30. The funny part is he played an appropriately aged high schooler on The Suite on Deck which saw his character graduate high school in an episode that aired 12 years ago!
Chris Evans was 30 playing a high schooler in Not Another Teen Movie.
Take any phenomenon, claim it’s somehow Millennial-specific, hit Publish.
It’s a throwback to the early 2010s!
Is the so-called Dawson casting the reason so many Millennials are trapped in a state of arrested development?
Honestly, how the fuck is this an un-ironic article from 2023?
I mean I’m sure there are some people out there complaining that teens in reboots are played by actual teens but honestly I think people are more mad about reboots existing in the first place because it reminds them of the cruel nature of linear time. Like, I never watched either Sabrina so I don’t give a damn but I’m sure that there are a bunch of people who were more disappointed not because of Shipka or because of the change in tone/direction of the show, but because it made them realize (or more likely just reminded them) that the original show is old now, and so are they.
##Facial hair isn’t just peach fuzz or cute little whispery tufts: It’s fully established.##When I was in high school, several of my male classmates sported full beards and mustaches, along with thick, long bushy hair. They were only aged 17 or 18, but the hormones were surging!
I pin this entirely on actual Millennial Seth Rogen, who looked 30 at 17, and kind of kept it up until he got to his 40s and the age/appearance normalized.
The counterexamples are more interesting than the rule.In the opening credits for My So-Called Life, Claire Danes is 13 playing 15, and only by the last filmed episode was actually 15.
Many adults have portrayed teens, but none have done it with as much verisimilitude as the cast of Wet Hot American Summer. Especially when they went back and did it again 16 years later for the prequel.
Here’s the problem, though: while a mere 20 months separates the first and third seasons of the never-ending sci-fi caper, the cast aged four years (four years!) in that same period. It’s hard to choose which is the most nitpicky tangential ‘point’ raised in a rickety thesis, but the Stranger Things reference probably is it.They generally look like and with a couple of exceptions are within a year or two of high school seniors; a couple of the cast like Sadie Sink can even make a strong case to look younger. About the only thing slightly ‘jarring’ is that we’ve grown up with the cast and remember them well as pre teens only a few years ago, which isn’t all that different than seeing one of your cousin’s kids for the first time in a few years and wondering where the time went.But if you’re going to call out the show as ‘never-ending’, I don’t think that’s really your problem here.
Damn govt and their child labor laws.