Timeshifted Actor

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

When a story spans decades, it is often not possible for the one actor to play the same character throughout. Heavy make-up might just let the 30 year old play 90, but never 10. Instead, multiple actors are used for the same role.

A Timeshifted Actor will usually be credited as playing 'Young Mr X' or 'Old Ms Y'.

Differentiated from the other actor replacement tropes by the passage of long stretches of story-internal time. If those long stretches of time have to pass during a short stretch of footage, an Age Cut will allow the actors to be swapped quickly.

This is especially popular in prequels and sequels, or in stories with a Framing Device in which 'Old Ms Y' recalls events of her younger days.

Sometimes the necessary resemblance between Mr X and Young Mr X will be achieved by use of a Real Life Relative. If only a photograph is required, an old picture of the actor/actress will suffice.

Compare and Contrast Role Reprisal.

Examples of Timeshifted Actor include:

Advertising

  • Played for laughs in a Visa check card commercial, where Charlie Sheen waits so long for a store's ID verification that he ages into Martin Sheen.

Anime

Film

  • Titanic had Kate Winslet as Rose in the main storyline, and Gloria Stuart as "Old Rose" in the frame story.
    • This marks the only time two actresses were nominated for Oscars for their portrayal of the same person in the same movie.
  • In I Am Sam, sisters Elle and Dakota Fanning play Lucy at two and seven, respectively.
  • In Iris, Kate Winslet played younger version of Iris Murdoch, and Judi Dench played the older version.
  • The Star Wars prequels cast Ewan McGregor as the young version of Obi-Wan Kenobi, a role originated by the late Alec Guinness. Most of the other characters who appear in the original trilogy, however, are played by the same actors, either because they're voiceover roles or because playing the older version involved heavy makeup that disguises the fact that the actor has aged in the opposite direction from the character. Anakin/Darth Vader has the record for most actors: There's child Anakin (Jake Lloyd), young adult Anakin (Hayden Christensen), suit Vader (David Prowse in the original trilogy; Hayden Christensen in Revenge of the Sith), voice Vader (James Earl Jones), fencing stunt double, and de-helmeted Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi (Sebastian Shaw, who also played his Force ghost form later.)
    • An unusual aversion of the trope: Ian McDiarmid plays Palpatine in both the original trilogy and in the prequels. He was in his late thirties when he first appeared in Return of the Jedi but wore makeup to look older; then, by the time The Phantom Menace was being made, he had become the right age to play "young" Palpatine. (He also wears the makeup at the end of the prequels as well: the reason for the change in his appearance is not the lapse of time but rather a Force-related injury sustained during a duel.)
    • Wilhuff Tarkin. Originally portrayed by the late Peter Cushing, he appeared briefly near the end of Revenge of the Sith, portrayed by Wayne Pygram, for a brief, non-speaking cameo.
  • Ewan McGregor also portrayed young Edward Bloom in Big Fish, while Albert Finney portrayed old Ed. Reportedly, the decision was made when somebody noticed the resemblance between McGregor and young Finney. Perry Waltson portrayed Ed as a child.
    • The resemblance is remarkable, but is pretty much lost on most movie-goers, as they are not familiar with Albert Finney's early work.
  • An aversion: Anthony Hopkins played Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, filmed in 1991, and in its prequel Red Dragon, which, despite being filmed in 2003, was set in 1980, and managed to pull it off.
  • Harrison Ford played adult Indiana throughout the Indiana Jones film series. River Phoenix portrayed "young Indy" at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Not enough for you? This spawned The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles which featured three time-shifted Indys: George Hall as the elderly Indy in the framing sequences, Sean Patrick Flanery as 16-year old Indy, and Corey Carrier as 10-year old Indy. Not to mention Ford reprising that role in one episode.
  • In the Harry Potter series, Hagrid is played in the present and the prologue of Harry Potter and Philosopher's Stone by Robbie Coltrane. The young Hagrid in the flashback scenes of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was played by former rugby player Martin Bayfield, who serves as Coltrane's body double in wide shots of the older Hagrid (Coltrane, however, dubbed the voice of young Hagrid).
    • When he regains a body at the end of Goblet of Fire, Lord Voldemort is portrayed by Ralph Fiennes [1] As "Tom Riddle", he's played by Hero Fiennes (Ralph's nephew) at age 11 and Christian Coulson (in Chamber of Secrets) and Frank Dillane (in Half-Blood Prince) at age 16.
    • Baby Harry Potter was played by the Saunders triplets (first names uncredited) in the first movie and by Toby Papworth in the last movie. It's somewhat amusing to note that by the last film, the Saunders triplets would be the same age Daniel Radcliffe was in the first film.
  • Numerous actors portray Spock as he rapidly re-ages to adulthood in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. Throw in a scream by yet another (Frank Welker!) for good measure.
  • Star Trek (2009) has Leonard Nimoy reprising the role of Spock in a Time Travel-related plot while Zachary Quinto plays the role of young Spock. Older versions of many of the other characters also appear briefly.
  • In The Movie of To Kill a Mockingbird, the voice of Scout as an adult narrator was done by Kim Stanley, while Scout as a child was played by Mary Badham.
  • The Sandlot open and closes with an adult Scotty reminiscing about his childhood. (Benny also appears as an adult in the ending sequence.)
  • The Godfather starred Marlon Brando as the eponymous Vito Corleone, while The Godfather Part II had Robert de Niro as a younger Vito, in flashback sequences. This is particularly notable because both actors received Oscars for the role, the only time the same character has received two awards for different actors. The character also appeared in the same film as a boy, played by yet another actor.
    • In the same flashback scenes, the characters of Carmela Corleone, Peter Clemenza and Sal Tessio were all played by younger actors — as were Sonny, Fredo, Michael and Connie Corleone, who all appeared as babies and young children.
    • Michael Corleone's two children were also played by different actors from movie to movie. In fact, the boy who played Anthony Corleone in the second film was the older brother of the boy who played him in the first film.
  • In Dr. Zhivago, the eponymous character is played by Omar Sharif. At the beginning of the movie, there is a flashback with the young Yuri. The actor who plays the old Yuri really looks a lot like the actor who plays the young Yuri, because the two are father and son.
  • Every production of A Christmas Carol needs two young Ebenezer Scrooges, for the Ghost of Christmas Past sequence.
  • Truly averted in The Limey (1999), where the young Terence Stamp is shown by reusing footage from his earlier movie, Poor Cow (1967).
  • Almost Famous used Michael Angarano as the 9-year-old William Miller for the first 20-odd minutes and Patrick Fugit as his 15-year-old self for the rest of the movie.
  • In Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Forest Whitaker's younger brother Damon was used as a younger version of the main character during a flashback.
  • In the Tenacious D movie, The Pick of Destiny, amazingly similar-looking child actors are used for young Jack Black and Kyle Gass.
    • The kid who played Jack Black also played a young version of Black's character in Nacho Libre.
  • Averted in X-Men: The Last Stand, in which Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen play their characters' younger selves through digital effects. This was also used for Stewart's brief scene in X Men Origins: Wolverine.
    • Played straight in the opening of the first movie with the young Erik Lehnsherr, who would be Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen's character) in the present.
    • This is also done in X-Men: First Class, along with a Flashback with the Other Darrin with the new young Erik. Among the "young" versions of the characters are a young Beast, Xavier, Mystique, and Emma Frost.
  • In The Lion King (both movie and musical) Simba and Nala are played by one person as cubs and another as adults.
  • Richard Linklater's upcoming[when?] movie Boyhood looks to be an aversion to this trope. The movie takes place over 12 years, using the same cast. The catch is that the movie started production in 2002, and will not be released until 2013. This means that the actors will actually age with their characters.
  • Averted in Back to The Future Parts 1 & 2, each actor played the same characters and used heavy makeup to look the right age for the time period.
  • Watchmen tried to avert this to the best of their ability by casting young and then aging up. This meant that Carla Gugino and Jeffery Dean Morgan spent most of their screentime under heavy makeup.
  • In A Home at the End of the World, Colin Farrell's character is played by Andrew Chalmers and Erik Smith, and Dallas Roberts's by Jonathan Glover (no, not that one). Sissy Spacek, on the other hand, stays on throughout; eight years isn't that much when you're already over 50.
  • While a child actor had to portray the 10 year old version of title character in Little Big Man, Dustin Hoffman wore make-up to portray the character's centenarian self. He made his voice sound old by going into his dressing room and screaming at the top of his lungs for an hour.
  • In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, different actors play Benjamin as he grows younger into his "childhood". Daisy was also played by different actresses as a little girl and a teenager.
  • An interesting aversion was done in Stardust, where Michelle Pfeiffer's character goes from old to young and then ages rapidly throughout the film. Instead of using two different actors for the different ages, they used make-up to more accurately portray her aging.
    • Played straight with the character of Dunstan, who's first played by Ben Barnes (credited as "Young Dunstan") and then by Nathaniel Parker.
  • The Goddess of 1967, both for the female lead (Bree Beadman is the young version of Rose Byrne) and her mum (Satya Gumbert is the young version of Elise McRedie).
  • Dabbs Greer played the older version of Tom Hanks' character in The Green Mile.
  • The Butterfly Effect was set around three different periods where the main character is around 8-10, then around 14-16 and finally the present 20 odd. Not only did casting need to find child look-alikes for the main character, but all the other main characters; they did a pretty good job, too.
  • Citizen Kane, being a fictionalized biopic, presented the title character in all ages. All of them are Orson Welles in makeup, except for eight-year-old Kane, played by Buddy Swan.
  • In the movie of The Time Traveler's Wife, the daughter Alba is played at five years old and eight years old by two sisters. This also allowed them to be on screen together.
  • In Atonement, Briony is portrayed as a child and adult by two newcomer actresses who bear a remarkable resemblance to each other. Then Vanessa Redgrave shows up as the elderly version in the final scene.
  • Averted in the film Ghosts Of Mississippi, which took place over five years (1989-1994). However, neither the protagonist's children nor those of his second wife age one bit.
  • A strange case in Gangster No. 1. Paul Bettany plays the unnamed gangster in the '70s, and Malcolm McDowell plays him in modern times, but none of the other characters change actors. Also, Bettany is much taller than McDowell.
  • In the Soviet sci-fi film Moscow Cassiopeia, a minor character is first shown as a teenager and then (due to the main characters experiencing Time Dilation) as an adult. They are, obviously, played by different actresses. This serves more to give closure to a minor subplot involving a love letter that she anonymously sent to the boy who would become The Captain that she wrote with her off hand in order to hide her handwriting. She admits it was her as an adult.
  • Bobbie Anderson, Jean Gale, Jeanine Anne Roose, Ronnie Ralph, and Georgie Nokes play the child versions of, respectively, George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), young Mary Hatch (Donna Reed), Violet Bick (Gloria Grahame), Sam Wainwright (Frank Albertson), and Harry Bailey (Todd Karns) in It's a Wonderful Life.
  • In Balto, Rosy was voiced by Juliette Brewer as child, and played by Miriam Margolyes as an adult.
  • A very unique and artistic version in the film I'm Not There inspired by the music of of Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan's life and public persona: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett (yeah, the actress), Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw.
  • Notably averted in Tron: Legacy, where relatively new techniques are used to make Jeff Bridges appear much younger than he actually is during the flashback sequences. Also helps him to portray Clu.
  • Also averted in Ant-Man for Michael Douglas, thanks to the same techniques.
  • In The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Bilbo Baggins is played by Ian Holm, even during the scene in the opening sequence where he obtains the One Ring during the events of The Hobbit. The actual films for that particular book will cast Martin Freeman in the role of the character.
  • Averted in |Toy Story 3 where (the now adult) Andy is actually still voiced by the same actor that played him in the first two Toy Story films. Played straight during the film's prologue, however.
  • The Shawshank Redemption features a shot of Red's prison file, complete with mug shots that look like a much younger Morgan Freeman. The actor in the mugshots? One Alfonso Freeman.
  • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has a short scene at the end with the grown up Kings and Queens of Narnia. Rachael Henley, Mark Wells, Noah Huntley and Sophie Winkleman play the older versions of the Pevensies, which are played by Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley and Anna Popplewell, respectively. Rachael and Georgie Henley, who play the two versions of Lucy, are real life sisters.
  • The 1990s film of Little Women had Kirsten Dunst play the younger Amy, and Samantha Mathis play the older Amy.
  • Played with in Walk Hard. While a young Dewey Cox is portrayed by a child actor, John C. Reilly plays him all the way from age 14 into Dewey's 70s, and Dewey's first wife is portrayed by the same actress (in her thirties) from age 12 to her elder years. This is Played for Laughs.
  • Hilariously inverted in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, when Dr. Evil returns to his lair and his evil organization in 1999 after thirty years of being cryogenically frozen ... and sees that his wife, Frau Farbissina, looks exactly the same as before.
  • Mission to Mars has a brief one of these in a flashback montage. Interestingly, the boy playing Gary Sinise's character as a boy was Sinise's own son, Mac Canna.
  • In Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Kida is voiced by Natalie Strom as a child, but by Cree Summer as an adult.
  • In Top Gun: Maverick, Miles Teller plays the thirty-years-older Bradley Bradshaw, who was played in the first Top Gun as a child by twins Aaron and Adam Weis.

Live-Action TV

  • In Rome, Gaius Octavian is played by Max Pirkis as a teenager and Simon Woods as an adult. The change happens while he goes to war. Upon seeing the adult Octavian for the first time, his mother makes a remarks about military rations having made an effect on him. The trope is bizarrely averted, however, with Vorenus's children, who should be in their thirties by the final episode. One is played by the same actress who played her as a fourteen-year-old, the other two are played by actors who are at most twelve.
  • In the 1996 Miniseries Rhodes, Cecil Rhodes was played by Martin Shaw and "Young Cecil Rhodes" was played by Shaw's son, Joe Shaw.
  • Similarly, in the 1998 miniseries of The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Gerard Depardieu, the protagonist was played in the prologue by Guillaume Depardieu.
  • The BBC miniseries Casanova cast David Tennant as the young Casanova, and Peter O'Toole as the old Casanova.
  • Cold Case uses this extensively, as its stories are told mostly in flashbacks from cases spanning the gamut of 1 to 100 years in the past.
    • A few early episodes attempted do to this through make-up rather than casting different actors. The results were not very convincing.
  • Malcolm in the Middle had disturbingly similar-looking actors for the younger versions of the cast in the flashback episodes.
  • Patrick Dennis in Auntie Mame and its musicalization Mame.
  • The Wonder Years features an adult narrator, and his childhood self the main protagonist.
  • Zac Efron played the young Simon Tam in a Firefly flashback.
  • On How I Met Your Mother, Josh Radnor plays "present day" Ted, while Bob Saget is the voice of "future" Ted. Every time we've seen flash-forwards of Ted in the future, however, he's played by Radnor in makeup.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation
    • An episode of had an older Alexander (Worf's young son) played by James Sloyan. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had then-teenage Jake Sisko (normally played by Cirroc Lofton) played by Tony Todd in a flash-forward. That and Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome results in four different Alexanders.
    • Child versions of Picard, Keiko, Guinan, and Ro appear in "Rascals", though it is not a flashback. The person who played young Guinan also played Whoopi Goldberg's character as a child in Sister Act. The actor who played young Picard earlier played Picard's nephew Rene in "Family".
  • In Pushing Daisies, two of the main characters are Ned (played by Lee Pace) and Chuck (played by Anna Friel). However, every episode opens with a flashback to Ned's childhood, where Ned and Chuck are played by Field Cate and Sammi Hanratty, respectively. Olive (Kristin Chenoweth), Emerson (Chi McBride) and Lily (Swoosie Kurtz)also got a flashback each in season 2, in which they were played by Samantha Bailey, Stephen Wash, Jr. and Mackenzie Brooke Smith, respectively.
  • Every episode of Psych also begins with a flashback, with younger actors playing Shawn and Gus. However, Corbin Bernsen, who plays Shawn's father, just wears makeup and a hairpiece to make him look younger. We get a Lampshade Hanging, of course.
  • Charmed's fourth season episode "The Three Faces of Phoebe" featured her bringing her past and future selves into the present with her which were both played by different actresses. In the finale "Forever Charmed" this is done with Piper as well, though the child form of her does not appear on screen with the adults.
    • Done even earlier in Season 1's "That '70s Episode," in which a time travel spell sends the sisters back to when Prue and Piper were children.
  • Four actors have played the eponymous character in Dexter in flashback scenes, including star Michael C. Hall.
  • Lost has needed these occasionally due to its flashback structure.

We've seen Jack, Sun, Locke, Ben, Charlie, Sawyer, Eko, Faraday, Sayid, Kate, Hurley, Yemi, Juliet, Rachel Carlson, Jacob and the Man in Black as children in flashbacks. Locke and Ben have also been depicted as newborns. "Cabin Fever" saw Locke as an infant, a child, a teenager, and an adult. "Dead Is Dead" had Alex as a newborn and a child.

Walt was already a 10-year-old child during seasons 1 and 2, but also appeared as an infant in the season 2 episode "Adrift". However, the season 2 episode "One of Them" averted this by using an actual photo of a teenage Evangeline Lilly (Kate) for a flashback scene where her character's father is looking at a photo of his daughter. Emily Locke appeared as an adult and as a teenager when she was pregnant with John.

    • Due to time travel, Lost showed younger versions of characters in its fifth season without explicitly revealing who they were as a form of a twist. A younger Charles Widmore (two, one in 1954 and one in 1977), Danielle Rousseau when she was shipwrecked in 1988, Eloise Hawking (again, two, in 1954 and 1977) and Charlotte Lewis (in 1974 and 1977) appeared that year. The actress who played 1977 Eloise also appears in a flashback with Daniel Faraday the same episode that era's Eloise first appeared.
    • In the second half of the show, after pre-Island flashbacks were mostly gone, Aaron, Ji Yeon and Desmond's son Charlie appeared as newborns around 2004/05 (in-story) and as toddlers in 2007. Similarly, Clementine Phillips was shown as a baby photograph in a pre-Island flashback and as a child in 2007.
    • In season 5, Ethan and Miles appeared during the islanders' time travelling as babies in 1977 and as children in flashbacks (Ethan's while Alex was a baby around 1988).
  • In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Season 2's "Rangers Back in Time" two-parter saw Lord Zedd turn back time. The six Ranger teens (as well as Bulk and Skull) became children with age-appropriate actors, though the school principal and their teacher were played by the same people. Master Vile tried the same trick for the final arc of Season 3, with the child actors being brought back (except for young Kimberly's, as Katherine had joined up by then). As the arc was resolved in a two-parter of its own, a young Tanya was introduced before her teenaged self appeared.
  • The Pretender uses this trope with most of its main cast. There are three different actors for Jarod (child, teen, adult), and two for Sydney, Miss Parker, and Angelo.
    • And they spun young Jarod off as a clone.
  • The Sci-Fi Channel Original Series Taken spans three generations of families, with the characters in the familes being played, mostly, by age-specific actors.
  • A couple of episodes of Good Eats feature Young Alton, played by the same actor who plays his nephew in other episodes. They're not actually related, but Elton (the nephew) does have a shocking resemblance to his "uncle."
  • In the Season 7 finale of TV's Mystery Science Theater 3000, Dr. Forrester experiences rapid aging as part of an extended 2001 reference. Old!Forrester was played by Jack Beaulieu, Trace Beaulieu's father.
  • My Name Is Earl has had flashbacks to the title character's childhood using appropriately-aged actors.
  • The 1990s young adult series Flash Forward often intersperses home video clips of five-year-old Tucker and Becca (who are also featured in the opening credits) into the plot. The characters are 14 years old when most of the action takes place.
  • One set of Top Gear teasers featured (incredibly well-cast) child versions of the three hosts musing about what they'd do when they grew up, as well as commenting on "the new kid" - mini-The Stig driving a red wagon (aww!).
  • On Full House young Danny was played by Phillip Glasser, whose other claim to fame is voicing Fievel in An American Tail.
  • All the major non-AI characters of Red Dwarf have have had childhood versions of themselves played by different actors.
    • Adult Rimmer is played by Chris Barrie. Young Rimmer appeared in three episodes, played by Simon Gaffney.
    • 20-something Lister is played by Craig Charles. Lister has appeared as a teenager (played by Charles' younger brother Emile), and as a baby (played by Danny John-Jules' real-life nephew Alexander).
    • Lister, Cat and Kochanski have all appeared as young children when briefly de-aged, played by uncredited actors.
  • In Kung Fu's Once an Episode flashbacks young Kwai Chang Caine was played by Radames Perá. In the occasional flashback to teenage Caine, he's played by star David Carradine's younger brother Keith, with David usually (but not always) providing the voice.
    • In Kung Fu: The Legend Continues young(er) but adult Kwai Chang Caine was played by David Carradine and Peter Caine (his son) was played by Nathaniel Moreau (and later Robert Bedarski).
  • In the Doctor Who episodes "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Big Bang", as well as flashbacks in "Let's Kill Hitler", Amy Pond is played as a seven-year-old by Caitlin Blackwood before being played as an adult by Karen Gillan. The two actresses are cousins. Also in "Let's Kill Hitler", a young Rory is played by Ezekiel Wigglesworth, while he's played as an adult by Arthur Darvill.
    • A eight-year-old version of the Master is shown in a flashback in the episode "The Sound of Drums".
    • Michael Gambon plays the miserly Kazran Sardick in the episode "A Christmas Carol"; his younger self is initially played by Laurence Belcher, then becomes a teenager as Danny Horn. (Then back to Belcher to get "shown his future").
    • In "The Impossible Astronaut", Canton Everett Delaware III is initially played by William Morgan Sheppard, before the TARDIS crew travel back in time to meet him played by Sheppard's son, Mark Sheppard.
    • The episode "Blink" has an unusual example in which the character of Billy Shipton is played as a young man by Michael Obiora, then minutes later he appears as an old man portrayed by Louis Mahoney. The character had been sent back 38 years in time and lived out the loop to the present in order to give a message to Sally Sparrow, the protagonist of the story
    • In "Let's Kill Hitler", Amy and Rory's childhood friend Mels, in actuality River Song before she regenerated into Alex Kingston's incarnation, is played by Maya Glace-Green as a kid and Nina Toussaint-White in the present. In "A Good Man Goes to War", River, then called Melody and in an even earlier incarnation is played by twins Harrison and Madison Mortimer, while in the opening two-parter "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon", she's slightly older and played by Sydney Wade.
    • We meet Rose Tyler as an uncredited baby and as a child played by Julia Joyce in "Father's Day", and at age 19 by Billie Piper. Also in "Father's Day", Mickey Smith is played by Casey Dyer, while as an adult he's played by Noel Clarke.
    • Companion Jack Harkness is played by John Barrowman as an adult, and in the Torchwood episode "Adam" by Jack Montgomery as a child.
    • Elisabeth Sladen appears over three Whoniverse TV shows, and a Big Finish-produced audio spinoff over 38 years as Sarah Jane Smith. In The Sarah Jane Adventures, she's played by an uncredited baby as a child, Jessica Mogridge as a child in flashback and Jessica Ashworth at age 13.
    • One-off companion Adelaide Brooke is played by Rachel Fewell as a child, and Lindsay Duncan as an adult.
    • In "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood", Tim Latimer is played by Thomas Sangster as a teenager, and an uncredited Huw Rees as an elderly man.
    • In "The Unicorn and the Wasp", Lady Eddison is played by Felicity Kendal in 1926 and an uncredited woman 40 years earlier.
    • In "The Girl in the Fireplace", Reinette is played by Jessica Atkins as a child, and Sophia Myles for the rest of her life.
  • In The Sarah Jane Adventures, Rani Chandra is played by Anjli Mohindra as a teen, and Souad Faress as the Mad Old Woman of Bannerman Road in the story The Mad Woman in the Attic.
  • In Torchwood, Jack's brother Gray is played by Ethan Brooke as a child and Lachlan Nieboer as an adult.
    • In a flashback in Children of Earth, young Clem MacDonald is played by Gregory Ferguson. As an adult, he's played by Paul Copley.
    • In a Torchwood: Miracle Day flashback, Jack's past lover Angelo is played by Daniele Favili as a young man, and an uncredited actor as an old man the following episode.
    • The Quantum transducer showed flashbacks of several people in the considerable past in the episode "Ghost Machine".
    • In "Random Shoes", Eugene Jones is played by Luke Bromley in 1992 and Paul Chequer in 2007.
    • The memory alterer Adam Smith from the episode "Adam" is mostly played by Bryan Dick. When he forces himself into the memories of Jack's childhood, he's played by Rhys Meyers.
  • Blossom made good use of Joey Lawrence's real life brothers for a flashback episode or two.
  • An episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had a flashback to before the Banks became rich, in which every major character excluding Ashley, who wasn't born at the time of the flashback, were played by different actors. However, in a later episode where the cast are watching an old video tape of Vivian and Phil, they are played by the same actors. Which is bizarre when you think about it, as this footage was supposed to have been before the children were even born, and therefore Phil and Vivian would have been younger than in the previous flashback where they were played by younger actors.
  • The Golden Girls had occasional flashbacks to when Dorothy was a young adult. The casting director did a good job of finding an actress who looked like a younger version of Bea Arthur's character (Estelle Getty was simply able to take off the white wig and age makeup for her scenes).
  • Adam Kolkin plays a younger Kurt in Glee, bearing such an impossible resemblance to Chris Colfer that many people were convinced that the flashbacks had been done using technology, or at the very least that the two were related in some way. They aren't.
  • iCarly had a young Sam and young Carly for a flashback.
    • Miranda Cosgrove, who plays the regular Carly, was a 'young' Lana Lang on Smallville. Making her someone who has been both a younger version of a main character, and had a younger version of one of her main character.
  • The 2011 mini-series version of Mildred Pierce had Morgan Turner as Veda in her preteen and early teenage years (through age 14-15), and Evan Rachel Wood as Veda in her late teens and early twenties.
  • William Morgan Sheppard and Mark Sheppard, mentioned above under Doctor Who, also appeared as older and younger versions of the same character in an episode of NCIS.
  • CSI: NY did this during a flashback in one of the "333" arc episodes, with a teen actor playing young Mac.
  • Highlander "The Prophecy"-young actor as the boy Duncan Macleod subbing in for Adrian Paul who played adult Duncan.
  • Angel did it, understandably, with Connor after his Plot-Relevant Age-Up.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer did it twice, with a young actress playing Buffy as a girl. It was a different actress in "Killed By Death" than in "Weight Of The World", though, presumably due to age considerations.

Music

  • In the video to "The Miracle", the members of Queen are played by kids.
  • In Moonwalker, the same actor played young Michael Jackson in a sequence that parodies "Bad" and later played him in "The Jacksons: An American Dream."
  • The Spice Girls video for "Mama" has child actors playing the girls intercut with pictures of the real girls as children.

Theatre

  • In the musical Follies, the four middle-aged main characters all have younger doubles, who appear in the very frequent flashbacks. Several minor characters also have younger doubles to mimic their dance steps.
  • The musical Les Misérables requires a child to play young Cosette (whose face is on the poster) and a young lady to play adult Cosette. Young Eponine has a walk on role just after the "Castle on a Cloud" number, and grown-up Eponine becomes a major character a few songs later.
    • Notably, the two young actresses alternate between these roles.
    • The twenty-year run of the show means there has been at least one case of an actress who played Young Cosette as a child returning to play grown-up Eponine.
  • In the musical Gypsy, two child actresses play Baby June and Baby Louise at the opening of the show, only to grow up (with help from some strobe lights) into the adult actresses who play Dainty June and Louise.
    • Presumably, the boys that Rose kidnaps en route to LA also grow up to be some of the Farmboys, although it's never stated outright which boy is which.
  • In the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Aspects of Love, two actresses play Jenny at age 12 and age 15. In the Broadway production they were similar-looking sisters, but the original London production had two non-related girls.
  • Mame follows Patrick Dennis, both as a 10 year-old and as a young adult. As such, there are two actors. And they sing a duet at the start of act 2.
  • In Once On This Island, Ti Moune ages from a small child to a young adult in the space of about five seconds as part of a song, requiring the use of this trope.

Video Games

  • In Metal Gear Solid 3, a prequel to the first Metal Gear young Ocelot is voiced by Josh Keaton instead of Patric Zimmerman, who voices "present day" Ocelot. There's also SIGINT, voiced by James Mathis, who is revealed later in the series to actually be a young Donald Anderson, played by Greg Eagles in Solid. But then that Anderson was a fake anyway.
  • The Longest Journey features April Ryan and Young April Ryan.
  • In Final Fantasy X, the adult Tidus was played by James Arnold Taylor, while the young Tidus was voiced by Cree Summer. In Kingdom Hearts, the young Tidus was voiced by Shaun Fleming.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • In Superman: The Animated Series, teen and adult Clark are not voiced by the same person. (However, in Legion of Super-Heroes, the same actor voices teen and adult Clark equally convincingly.)
    • Another DCAU example is the Justice League Unlimited episode, "Kids' Stuff." Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern are magically made into children and voiced by age appropriate actors.
  • Jason Todd in Batman: Under the Red Hood is played by three different actors for when the character is a child, a teen and an adult.
  • In the Ben 10 franchise, Tara Strong voiced the titular ten-year-old in the original series. When the character was aged up to fifteen for Alien Force, Yuri Lowenthal took over and continued on in Ultimate Alien. The same applies for the respective actors behind Gwen and Kevin.
    • Meanwhile, Fred Tatasciore has voiced an adult Ben and Tara Strong an adult Gwen.
  • Averted in The Simpsons, in which the actors will voice their characters' young selves in flashbacks and the children's voice actors voice the character's adult selves in future episodes.
  • Futurama averts this trope with the main crew, who are played by the same actors when we see them as children and as older adults. The trope is played straighter with many of the secondary characters (such as Fry's brother).
  • Recess: All Growed Down averts this trope during the scene when we see the nine-year-old cast as kindergarteners, however, this led to some awkward moments regarding the voices of Mikey and Vince, as their voices already broke (Mikey's during the break between the end of the series and production on the DTV movies, and Vince mid-way through the first season). Played straight somewhat as T.J.'s voice actor was replaced with a much younger kid with a higher voice (making his portrayal of T.J. loathed among the fandom), which worked well for his kindergarten scenes.
  1. ↑ in his brief appearance at the end of Philosopher's Stone, Ian Hart, Quirrel's actor voices him
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