Why do they keep casting grown adults as teenagers?

[Will Ross]

Labor laws teenagers can only work but so many hours.

 

[Bud Bundy]

I get it gives them a pass to add sex scenes but watching Euphoria after watching Kobra Kai where the actors at least look their ages I can’t help but notice it promotes the agenda

Adults can work more hours. That is as deep as it goes.

 

[Techniec]

Yep, and child actors eventually grow up too, which can be unpredictable on the body. hard to pretend to be a teen for 7 seasons if you change drastically over the seven years. and age badly or grow a foot taller then needed.
Have some Greg Oden looking breh playing a senior in highschool, because he really was in highschool when you started.

 

[Luke Cage]

The opposite can happen too. You cast the jonah hill type to be the dopey best friend and he comes back after summer looking like Chris Hemsworth cause he was a late bloomer. Now you gotta rewrite his character progression entirely.

 

[RaspberryFitted]

Child Labor Laws

The most blatant disregard for them is The Twilight Zone Movie accident.

 

[RaspberryFitted]

Ironically Ralph Macchio was like 22 when he played Daniel Larusso in the original

That’s the same age he was when he played Johnny in The Outsiders.

 

[Will Ross]

Hollywood also uses older actors to play 20's and 30's

 

[Peter Popoff]

It's the same reason I can't watch all American no more. Them high schoolers are in their late 20's and mid 30's. Feels weird. At least be in college.

 

[beenz]

Child actors are more difficult.

You have to work with the parents often
Child labor laws
They are usually in school so the scheduling is harder
They are often worse actors
And you get in trouble (as you should) for sexualixing them.

Think MTV skins or Netflix Cuties

this here is the EXACT reason.

 

[IsThatBrothaMouzone?]

Because of child labor laws and kids having to go to school a certain number of hours a day.

A young looking 19- or 20-year-old can work a full 14-hour day of filming.

This 100%.

Much easier to use 20-year olds to play 15-year olds than to actually get a 15-year old.

However....it REALLY depends on the show. Sitcoms like Cosby Show, Blackish, Roseanne etc., used actual kids and teens. Stranger Things on Netflix used teens as well.

Then you have Fresh Prince where Will Smith was in his mid-20s playing a 15/16 year old.

Some shows want to display year over year physical/emotional etc., growth while other shows want the "kids" to remain consistent from season to season.

Remember that Fresh Off the Boat show with the Asian family. The Asian kid playing Eddie probably didn't even come up to Constance Wu's shoulders at the start. After 4 years, dude was towering over the whole damn cast...dude must have been pushing 6'2" in the final season when he was probably not even 5'0" in season one.

 

[MikelArteta]

None of the cobra Kai main teens are actually teens

Is that what you're trying to say?

they kind of were in the first season
i think in this season only kenny, the younger son in the family and that asian chick are actually their correct ages kid wise

 

[Rembrandt]

Think MTV skins

Crazy how fast they cancelled this whole the UK version got 3 whole movies to end it a few years ago

 

[MikelArteta]

It's the same reason I can't watch all American no more. Them high schoolers are in their late 20's and mid 30's. Feels weird. At least be in college.

naming it all american kind of pigeonholed them into hs

and yeah at least riverdale did a time lapse becasue it was getting ridiculous

 

[Gold]

Crazy how fast they cancelled this whole the UK version got 3 whole movies to end it a few years ago

Literally came down to a number.

Iirc, in Uk the age of consent is 16.

In US its 18 in most states. So having 16yr sex scenes would be "ok" in the uk but not in the states.

If the kids were 18, would have been fine i think

 

[JetFueledThoughts]

None of the cobra Kai main teens are actually teens

Is that what you're trying to say?

I don’t watch Cobra Kai but I watched Euphoria last night and was almost at myself because 90% of the women at this ‘high school party’ looked smashable.


It’s weird to watch. And I also can’t imagine how a 16 year old girl feels looking at a 23
year old woman feeling like she should look like that