How many times have you stopped in your tracks while watching a movie, raised your eyebrow, and took a long look at the actors portraying specific characters? Most of the time, these actors are heavily placed under the microscope whenever they’re playing characters who are obviously supposed to be younger than them. Simply put, there’s seemingly nothing more wild than watching an adult actor portray a teenager in a movie. But for those familiar with the Hollywood umbrella, it happens more often than you might think.
Specifically, this exact situation has been constantly examined during the ever-popular 1978 musical Grease. As die-hard supporters of the engaging musical already know, most of the actors and actresses portraying the teenagers at Rydell High School were much older than the characters they were portraying. More specifically, folks took obvious notice of star John Travolta — but considering how often we see the hip-swinger in the film, that’s hardly a major surprise.
John Travolta’s real age and character age in Grease explained
Interestingly enough, Travolta was amongst the youngest members of the Grease cast. Born on Feb. 18, 1954, Travolta was only 23 years old during filming for the movie in 1977. With that being said, Travolta’s character of Danny Zuko — widely known as the leader of the T-Bird group and resident bad boy — was actually an 18-year-old senior attending Rydell High with the rest of his friends. Drawing up the math, Travolta was actually 5 years older than his Grease character — which certainly isn’t an uncommon trend in Hollywood.
Due to child labor laws, it’s much easier and more effective for directors, producers, and studios alike to hire adult actors and actresses to portray younger characters. Of course, shows such as Stranger Things have managed to make the former concept work in its favor, but back in the ‘70s, the landscape of children working on sets was much different than what it is today.
Even at just 23 years old at the time of filming, Travolta had already easily become a household name thanks to his breakthrough role in 1977’s Saturday Night Fever just a year earlier. So when the time came for the starring roles in Grease to be promptly cast, it was obvious that the creators behind the project needed to look no further than a young and talented Travolta — who was undoubtedly the hottest working actor in Hollywood at the time.