Watching the movie, it's striking how until the 90s, high school kids were played by actors in their 20s and even 30s. In this film, none of the main characters looks young enough to be in high school.
shareIt's still happening in the present and didn't stop in the 90's. There is a show called Pretty Little Liars. I haven't watched a single episode of the show, but I read up on stuff and know that most of the cast was in their 20's when the show started. And their characters remained at a certain age for a few seasons. 17-18 range. Most of the cast now is in their early 30's and late 20's. The show didn't age them until halfway through Season 6, but even then it still didn't match the characters with the cast members' real age.
I mostly know this from a Lucy Hale interview I randomly came across where she was talking about how old she was when the show started and how old her character was and that as she got older, her character remained the same age. Then when they jumped ahead 5 years, she was still playing a character 5-6 years younger than her actual age.
Also Lucy Hale is 28 at the time of this post. She has a movie being released probably sometime in 2018 called Dude, which is a movie about high school kids. Although she was about 26-27 when filming the movie, she is playing a senior year high school student in the movie. So it's still common to cast actors/actresses in their late 20's as high school kids.
Another thing, I'm 29 and I can still pass for 16-18. Everyone thinks I still look that age. So I could probably be cast as a high school student too.
There are always exceptions but in general movies and TV shows started using actors that actually looked like kids (whether they were kids or not) fairly recently.
shareI just recently watched the movie and had that same thought. It was a little off-putting, to be honest. Most of the time I don't mind adults playing high school kids since some adult actors (especially if they're in their early twenties) can pull it off, but all of the high school characters here looked too old.
shareJamie Lee Curtis was 21
Eddie Benton (Wendy) was 22
Michael Tough (Alex) was 17
Most of the others I'm not sure about, but they were probably in their early 20's. The clothing and hairstyles made some of them appear older. Jamie looked older than her age in Halloween as well.
When it comes to slasher flicks, there is often a lot of nudity and violence, which could play a role in why this trope occurs in the genre so much. There are obvious reasons why no one wants to have a teenager in a nude scene. As for the violence, there are some directors and studios who might not be comfortable using young actors in these scenes and it may be the case that many parents of teenage actors feel the same way.
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