They say that people never age in Hollywood and that is often a lie. However, producers tend to cast actors in roles that they have aged out of either in numbers, looks or both.
Controversy stirred last week when the first trailer for Dear Evan Hansen was released and featured the 27-year-old Ben Platt reprising his Tony-winning title role. Audiences harshly called out the actor for being too old to play a high school student despite Platt openly speaking about his weight loss and physical changes.
“[I] grew my hair out, and was shaving to make sure that I didn’t look like I had five o’clock shadow all the time, you know,” Platt told Vanity Fair. “I was just stripping myself into being a teenager for the last time. For what is hopefully the last time.”
It is also interesting to note that every other “teen” actor in the film is way past high school age: Nik Dodani is 26, Colton Ryan is 25, Kaitlyn Dever is 24 and Amandla Stenberg is 22. However, those four actors were kept out of the conversation.
Throughout history, unless you are looking at Disney or Nickelodeon shows for the most part, actors playing teens are typically past the point of their teenage years. Between avoiding child labor laws and having actors a bit more emotionally mature to portray the awkward teenage years, using older actors is an easier practice for Hollywood.
Does it always work? Most of the time. Can we suspend our disbelief long enough to accept a 20-something year old is playing 16? Of course. In fact, we should be less focused on Platt and more focused on those CW shows that make it seem like you should have a perfect body before you graduate high school (we’re looking at you Riverdale).
Click through to check out our favorite teen performances from adult actors. What’s your opinion on the Ben Platt controversy? Leave a comment below or tweet us at @celebsecrets.
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