If he was talking about 13 Reasons Why, I’d be backing him up completely. James Cameron revealed that he has already filmed Avatar 3 as he didn’t want his child actors to have the “Stranger Things effect” where the actors “look like they’re 27”, which is just an uncalled-for dig.
Like I said in the intro, if Cameron said 13 Reasons Why instead of Stranger Things, I’d be 100% behind him. In that show, the actors who were supposed to be ‘high schoolers’ looked like they were already living in a studio apartment, married, and maybe even had a kid on the first season of the show, even though that was supposed to be their character’s freshman year.
And if he said that 13 Reasons Why and almost every other high school-based project that Netflix does has a terrible case of its actors looking like they’re 25+, I’d also agree.
Throughout the entirety of its existence, Netflix has had a horrid time casting actors in younger roles as they are either too young or too old, though it mostly is the later. Shows like 13 Reasons Why, Sex Education, Ginny & Georgia, Outer Banks, Riverdale, and all the rest of the crap shoot suffer from exactly this issue, and many of them right from the get-go.
But, truth be told, that’s kind of the case for all high school inspired shows and movies.
Aside from movies and shows like Mean Girls, Spider Man (early Tom Holland movies), American Graffiti, It, Back to the Future, The Outsiders (with some exceptions), Full House, That 70’s Show (the later seasons), Boy Meets World, and maybe Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan still looks slightly old for a high-schooler, even for a senior), the rest of the movies and shows out there have the ‘too old looking’ problem because the producers need to hire older, more mature actors.
Now, of course, there’re always plenty exceptions, but the vast majority of would-be child actors are either laughably bad or lack the maturity and dedication that is required to be an actor on a 10-hour T.V. series or a $10M-$100M budget, 3-hour long movie.
But, like I said, there are exceptions…such as Stranger Things.
I’m not going to get into how great nearly every aspect about Stranger Things is, but just to prove a point, the young child actors and actresses (who aren’t so young now) were fantastic in portraying nerdy/superpowered middle school and then high school students. Yet, even better, they never actually looked too old for the role, in spite of what James Cameron says.
Perhaps it’s down to the costume and makeup departments, but Stranger Things has really impressed me with how the show has been able to keep actors and actresses, such as Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Caleb McLaughlin, and Gaten Matazzaro, younger than they actually are.
Obviously, the show can’t keep doing this forever as this past season was kind of pushing my suspension of belief at times, but I never did think they looked 27 or older as James Cameron claims. At worst, the ‘child’ actors and actresses looked their normal age (18-21), though even that wasn’t all the time.
Still, the show can’t afford any more massive time delays (like the 3-year break between Seasons 3 and 4) between seasons or else Cameron will be proven right. Oh, I linked the article below that Cameron was quoted in if you want to read what he said in full.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Netflix/Stranger Things) (Stranger Things 4 | Volume 1 Final Trailer | Netflix – YouTube)
Other Source: (Variety) (James Cameron: Avatar 2 Kids Had to Avoid Stranger Things Aging – Variety)
