About: Dawson casting

Dawson casting is an observed cultural phenomenon and movie trope in film and television in which many of the actors appear and are really much older than the characters they portray. The concept is observable in teen dramas such as Glee, Gossip Girl, and Pretty Little Liars where adults are cast to play teenage characters. An example of this is Pretty Little Liars character Spencer Hastings, who is 16 but is portrayed by actress Troian Bellisario, who was 24 years old at the time of shooting. Derry Girls is a non-American example of Dawson casting of teenage characters. The term was originally circulated on the Internet in response to the casting choices of Dawson's Creek, though the phenomenon predates that series, with examples such as the 1948 film Joan of Arc, the 1978 film Grease, th