Disney Channel Stars Who Are Much Older Than We Realized

From 2002 to 2007, Anneliese van der Pol played Raven Baxter's BFF Chelsea Daniels on Disney Channel's That's So Raven, which followed teenage psychic Raven through high school. When the show aired, van der Pol — who was born in 1984, according to her IMDb page — was already a few years older than the character she was portraying. While she still managed to pull off acting like a younger teen, by the time the show wrapped she was in her 20s and still playing a high school student.

It's hard to imagine anyone else in the role, but the part actually went to someone else before Daniels landed it. "I auditioned for That's So Raven in 1999 or 2000," van der Pol told Media Mikes. "I didn't have real good representation at the time. Nobody really knew of me. I just went to a big open casting call with hundreds of girls. Luckily they noticed something in me. I did three more auditions. They dyed my hair. They then ended up casting somebody else, fired her, and then they finally cast me." Thank goodness because van der Pol was meant to play Chelsea.

Jason Earles played Miley's older brother, Jackson, on Hannah Montana. He made a pretty convincing 16-year-old, but he was nearly 29 when the show premiered, as noted by J-14! That means for most of the series' run Earles was playing a teenager when he was already in his 30s.

When the show started filming, the Disney Channel star didn't have any idea it would become as popular as it did, so he probably didn't think he'd be playing a teenager for half a decade. "I think we all were really optimistic that the show would get picked up and that the kids would like it, but for it to turn into as popular a family show as it has, I think we're all pleasantly surprised by that," Earles told The Star Scoop.

As an adult, Earles was better able to appreciate just how special the show was. "Instead of just a kid show on the Disney Channel, it feels like something you could put on network television, 8:00 at night, and families would sit around and watch together," he said.

Disney Channel's Sonny With a Chance was centered on the characters on a teen sketch show. One of those teens was Tawni Hart, played by Tiffany Thornton. Thornton was quite a bit older than her comedic counterpart, and she turned 23 in 2009, the year the show debuted. That same year, she starred in the high school comedy Hatching Pete, also on the Disney Channel.

Even though she was playing a teen, in her real life, Hart was living the life of a typical 20-something. The year after Sonny With a Chance debuted, Thornton announced her engagement to her boyfriend, Christopher Carney, as reported by People. She married him in 2011 (via Us Weekly), with her Sonny With a Chance co-star Demi Lovato as a bridesmaid. Thornton continued to play Tawni Hart on the Sonny With a Chance spin-off, So Random!, which aired for one season from 2011 to 2012, in spite of being in her mid-20s and married. The last episode aired in March 2012, a month after Thornton announced that she was pregnant with her first child.

Given the title High School Musical, we'd expect all the movie's stars to be, well, high school-aged. While that holds true for many of the actors involved in the franchise, a few were quite a bit older than their on-screen counterparts. Lucas Grabeel, who played the snarky and ultra-talented Ryan Evans, was born in 1984, according to his IMDb page, making him 21 when the first film debuted. In the third film, his character, Ryan, graduates from high school, but Grabeel was well past his high school years at that point.

Grabeel is thankful for the role, especially because his character was a role model for many young people. "Now, Ryan is not officially gay in any of the movies, but I think anyone that watches him can identify with who he was in high school: someone trying to figure it out," the Disney Channel star told Billboard. "And I have young men in high school come up to me saying that, though it's hard to talk about their sexuality, seeing that kind of character represented in a good light and a fun way was really helpful to them."

Monique Coleman is another actress who had to act younger than her age in the High School Musical films. Coleman told Billboard that playing the role of Taylor McKessie was special to her because it provided some much-needed representation on the Disney Channel. "It was really important to me because, at that time, there weren't really any other African-American girls on the Disney Channel, except for Raven [of That's So Raven]," Coleman said. "There also weren't African-American female characters like Taylor. The idea that I could portray a character that anyone could see and say, 'Yeah, a black girl can be the smartest girl in school. She doesn't always have to be sassy' — that was part of what really drew me to it."

If Coleman sounds much wiser than her years, that's because she was much older than the teenage character she played. The actress was about 25 years old when High School Musical debuted, according to her IMDb page. That's nearly a decade older than her character!

Booboo Stewart is another of Disney's seemingly ageless stars. He was 21 when the first Descendants film came out in 2015, according to his IMDb page, and he spent the first half of his 20s playing Jay, the teenaged son of iconic Aladdin villain Jafar, right through 2019's Descendants 3. Being older than your character isn't a bad thing, though, and age has brought Stewart wisdom. Because the Descendants franchise wasn't his first foray into a major series (he had a role in the Twilight films as a teenager), Stewart knows how to manage the many challenges and temptations that can come with so much fame.

"I've been around [the industry] from such a young age that I feel like I know how to handle it," the Disney Channel star told Sarah Scoop. "I know who I am, so I try not to let that affect me, and I have friends and family who can tell me when it's gotten to my head just a little bit. They'll say, 'Reality check here!'" He continued, "I think it's really important to surround yourself with people who you know are your true friends."

It's quite fitting that Jedidiah Goodacre plays Chad Charming, the high school-aged son of Cinderella and Prince Charming in the Descendants franchise. Not only is he attractive and, well, charming, but, by what we can only assume is some sort of fairy tale magic, he doesn't appear to age. Born in 1989, Goodacre was 26 when Descendants came out. That's already a pretty advanced aged to be playing a teenager, but Goodacre has us wondering if he's sipped from the fountain of youth. Descendants 3 features a 30-year-old Goodacre looking as fresh-faced as the Prince Charming Jr. he's supposed to be. 

How does he stay looking so young? Goodacre isn't too sure. "I don't know," the Disney Channel star told Candid. "I have to give a lot of credits to my parents. They're the ones who made me. I can't say there's too much that I do that's outside the norm. I do really love to workout. I do a lot of CrossFit. I love doing that. I love hiking with my dog and I think having a dog that I love so much keeps me playful and youthful."

While most of the big age gaps on the Disney Channel have actors playing teens or tweens, sometimes an adult character is portrayed by an older actor. One example is Lilan Bowden from Andi Mack. The show tells the story of a teenage girl who finds out that her older sister, Bex, is actually her biological mother and the person who has raised her is her grandmother. 

Since Bex was a teen mom and Andi is only 13, it seems safe to guess that the youthful-looking Bowden is in her 20s. In reality, the actress was 32, according to her IMDb page, when the show debuted in 2017. Regarding her character, Bowden told D23, "Bex is an example of how it's never too late to want to improve upon yourself, it's never too late to admit your mistakes, it's never too late to want to change or adjust who you are," adding, "Just because you've always been a certain way doesn't necessarily mean that you're stuck in this archetype now — you can be many things."