21 of the Most Obvious Adults Playing Teenagers

We’ve all had to come to accept that some parts of movies and TV shows are just gonna look weird due to the logistics of how they’re made. Characters are going to drink brandless beverages, the whole world is going to look suspiciously like California and teenagers are going to look like twentysomethings. After all, real teenagers would require navigating schooling and labor laws and stuff. Who wants to deal with that?

Sometimes, though, it’s like they didn’t even try to convince us those jaded geezers are fresh-faced adolescents. For example, Redditor Fun_Protection_6939 pointed out to r/Movies that while Grease is an “excellent movie … literally none of them look and sell me as teenagers in high school, especially John Travolta.” They also cited Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird, who gave “a sublime performance, but I don’t think she really looked the part for a high-schooler.”

They then asked for the “most egregious cases where a clearly aged actor plays a teenager?” and their fellow Redditors presented a laundry list of classic old-timers trying (and failing) to recapture their youth.