Some of the Twilight cast were a little too old to play their characters, while others were technically way too young to play ageless vampires.
The cast of the Twilight saga wasn't all the exact same age as their characters, although this was pretty understandable given how many of them were playing ageless vampires. The Twilight saga was a phenomenally successful series of fantasy romance movies based on the novels of the same name.
Twilight tells the story of Bella Swan, a 17-year-old human girl who moves to the small town of Forks and falls in love with her mysterious classmate Edward Cullen. When Edward turned out to be a vampire, Bella was swept up into a world of vampires, werewolves, and centuries-old battles between them. SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT While the Twilight saga’s financial success was undeniably impressive, the movies didn’t fare too well with critics upon release. Some of the excessive vitriol aimed at the Twilight movies was arguably the result of their popularity among a primarily teenage fan base, but there were also some legitimate criticisms of the movies. Like the source novels, the Twilight saga’s adaptations were pretty low on self-aware humor and meaningful tension. The story of the saga often focused on the relationship between Bella and her love interests instead of the bloody battle between werewolves and vampires that raged behind them. Furthermore, not all Twilight’s cast were the right age for their characters. 9 Bella Swan/Kristen Stewart When Kristen Stewart was cast in the star-making role of Twilight’s teenage heroine Bella Swan, she was the same age as her character. Author Stephanie Meyers wanted Emily Browning for the role, but the Australian actor was a little too old to play the part. A canceled Paramount adaptation of Twilight stalled the movie’s production by two years as the rights changed hands, which left Stewart perfectly positioned to take on the role of Bella. Stewart had already impressed in director David Fincher’s Panic Room a few years earlier, and although critics weren’t kind to her work in the Twilight movies, she went on to become an acclaimed actor. 8 Edward Cullen/Robert Pattinson Robert Pattinson was 21 when he gained the role of Edward Cullen. Edward is 104 years old when the story of the Twilight saga begins. Meyer’s first choices for Edward, Charlie Hunman and Henry Cavill, were both too old to play the part by the time production began. While Pattinson was also a few years too old to play a high school student, the actor’s youthful appearance made this more believable. While Edward is technically 104 years old, he was turned at 17. As such, he should technically look like a seventeen-year-old throughout the Twilight saga. 7 Jacob Black/Taylor Lautner Taylor Lautner was a child actor best known for Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D when he gained the role of Jacob Black at fifteen years old. After Black played a minor part in the original Twilight, producers wanted to replace Lautner with an older actor for the sequels. However, Lautner famously gained a lot of muscle to hold onto the part and played Jacob in every Twilight sequel as a result. While New Moon was the weakest Twilight movie, Lautner’s physical transformation bought the sequel a huge amount of publicity as fans of the series sparked the infamous “Team Edward/Team Jacob” debate. 6 Alice Cullen/Ashley Greene Ashley Greene was twenty years old when she took on the role of Alice Cullen in Twilight. Like Edward, Alice is canonically 104 years old in the Twilight novels. While the twenty-year-old could just about pass as a high school student in the early Twilight movies, this admittedly grew less believable as the series progressed. However, the same issue arose with Pattinson’s Edward, who, despite ostensibly never aging, looked a lot older in 2012’s Breaking Dawn Part 2 than he did in 2008’s Twilight. The movies got around this issue by limiting the number of scenes set in high school after the original movie. 5 Rosalie Hale/Nikki Reed Nikki Reed was only fourteen when she worked with director Catherine Hardwicke on the actor’s breakout movie Thirteen. As such, Hardwicke’s vision for Twilight inevitably included a supporting role for Reed as Edward’s adoptive sister Rosalie Hale. While Reed was younger than both Pattinson and Greene while filming the first Twilight movie, Rosalie arguably looks a little older than her siblings. Fortunately, the Twilight movies were able to excuse this discrepancy. Rosalie’s tragic Twilight backstory meant she was a little more mature than the rest of the Cullen clan by the time she was turned by Carlisle. 4 Jasper Hale/Jackson Rathbone While it is not unusual for teen movies to cast older actors as children, the Twilight movies generally steered clear of this approach. Unlike Riverdale or 13 Reasons Why, the Twilight saga didn’t cast any actors in their mid-twenties as high school students. That said, Jackson Rathbone’s Jasper Hale was almost the exception to this rule. While Jasper is canonically 161 years old, he was turned at the age of 19. Despite this, Rathbone was 23 years old when filming the original Twilight. Since his co-star Robert Pattinson was only two years younger, this isn’t too noticeable, but the actor does look too old to be attending algebra class. 3 Esme Cullen/ Elizabeth Reaser While Rathbone was a little old to be playing a high schooler, Elizabeth Reaser had the opposite problem. At 32 years old, the actor was way too young to play the mother of the Cullen “children.” Although it is technically possible that she could have been a teen mother, the number of children she would need to have meant that the family’s cover story had to involve some level of adoption or fostering. Fortunately, the wealth of the Cullen family meant that their cover story was rarely questioned in Forks, provided they kept to themselves. 2 Emmett Cullen/ Kellan Lutz Kellan Lutz might have been younger than his Twilight co-star Jackson Rathbone, but the actor was arguably the least believable high school student in the Cullen family. Thanks to his imposing frame, Lutz looked every bit like his twenty-two years when filming Twilight. The actor couldn’t really pass for a nineteen-year-old in Twilight, let alone in the movie's sequels, and this made it tough to work out just how the family had evaded suspicion so far. However, Emmet’s relatively minor role in the story helped. 1 Carlisle Cullen/ Peter Facinelli Like Elizabeth Reaser, Peter Facinelli was technically much too young to play the father of the Cullen family. However, since Carlisle’s Twilight backstory explained that he was 365 years old by the time the story of the saga began, he got a pass. Carlisle managed to survive as a vampire successfully for centuries across various continents. As such, it does make sense that he would be able to keep a low profile in the town of Forks until Twilight’s infamous love story dragged his found family into an eons-old feud.
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