Summary

• Movie adaptations of The Twilight Saga were successful but received criticism for lack of self-awareness and tension, focusing more on romance.
• The cast were not all the right age for their characters, with some appearing too young and others appearing older.
• Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner were both actually the same age as their characters in the first Twilight movie.

The cast of the Twilight Saga weren't all the same age as their characters, although this is understandable given many of them played ageless vampires. The Twilight Saga was a phenomenally successful series of fantasy romance movies based on the novels of the same name. Twilight follows Bella Swan, a 17-year-old human girl who moves to the town of Forks and falls in love with her mysterious classmate, Edward Cullen. When Bella discovered Edward was a vampire, she was introduced to a world of the supernatural.

While the Twilight Saga’s financial success was impressive, the franchise didn’t fare well with critics. Some of the vitriol aimed at the Twilight movies was arguably the result of their popularity among a primarily teenage fan base, but there were also some legitimate criticisms. Like the source novels, the Twilight Saga’s adaptations were pretty low on self-aware humor and meaningful tension. The story focuses on the relationship between Bella and her love interests instead of the battle between werewolves and vampire factions. Furthermore, not all Twilight’s cast were the right age for their characters.

12 Kristen Stewart: 17 Years Old

Bella Swan: 17 Years Old

When Kristen Stewart was cast in the star-making role of Twilight’s teenage heroine Bella Swan, she was the same age as her character. Author Stephenie Meyer wanted Emily Browning for the role, but the Australian actor was considered too old to play the part, although she was only 20 at the time.

A canceled Paramount adaptation of Twilight stalled the movie’s production by two years as the rights changed hands, which left Stewart perfectly positioned to take on the role of Bella. Stewart had already impressed in director David Fincher’s Panic Room a few years earlier, and although critics weren’t kind to her work in the Twilight movies, she went on to become an acclaimed actor. Kristen Stewart earned an Oscar nomination and critical acclaim for her role as Princess Diana in the 2021 biopic, Spencer.

11 Robert Pattinson: 21 Years Old

Edward Cullen: 104 Years Old

Robert Pattinson was 21 years old when he gained the role of Edward Cullen. Edward is 104 years old when the story of the Twilight Saga begins. Meyer’s first choices for Edward, Charlie Hunman and Henry Cavill, were both too old to play the part by the time production began. Hunnam was 28 and Cavill was 25. Hunnam went on to star in Sons of Anarchy, while Cavill eventually portrayed Superman.

While Pattinson was also a few years too old to play a high school student, the actor’s youthful appearance made this more believable. While Edward is technically 104 years old, he was turned into a vampire at 17. As such, he should technically look like a 17-year-old throughout the Twilight saga, even as Patterson aged to 26 by the last movie in the franchise. Pattinson has gone on to take the role of Batman in the DC Universe movies.

10 Taylor Lautner 15 Years Old

Jacob Black: 15 Years Old

Taylor Lautner was a child actor best known as Shark Boy in the Robert Rodriguez movie Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D when he gained the role of Jacob Black at 15 years old. After Black played a minor part in the original Twilight, producers wanted to replace Lautner with an older actor for the sequels. However, Lautner famously gained a lot of muscle to hold onto the part and played Jacob in every Twilight sequel as a result.

While New Moon was the weakest Twilight movie, Lautner’s physical transformation bought the sequel a huge amount of publicity as fans of the series sparked the infamous “Team Edward/Team Jacob” debate. Lautner actually retired from acting shortly after Twilight ended, citing his uncomfortable feeling as a teen heartthrob. He has since returned though in a smaller capacity.

9 Ashley Greene: 20 Years Old

Alice Cullen: 104 Years Old

Ashley Greene was 20 years old when she took on the role of Alice Cullen in Twilight. Like Edward, his "sister" Alice is canonically 104 years old in the Twilight novels. While the 20-year-old could just about as a high school student in the early Twilight movies, this ittedly grew less believable as the series progressed.

However, the same issue arose with Pattinson’s Edward, who, despite ostensibly never aging, looked older in 2012’s Breaking Dawn Part 2 than he did in 2008’s Twilight. The movies got around this issue by limiting the number of scenes set in high school after the original movie, so there were fewer students to compare their appearances with. Greene didn't have the same kind of success as her co-stars after Twilight, although she picked up a lead role in the TV series Rogue and appeared in the Oscar-nominated Bombshell.

8 Nikki Reed: 19 Years Old

Rosalie Hale: 90 Years Old

Nikki Reed was only 14 when she worked with director Catherine Hardwicke on the actor’s breakout movie Thirteen. She picked up an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance there, leading to her casting in Twilight. As such, Hardwicke’s vision for Twilight inevitably included a ing role for Reed as Edward’s adoptive sister, Rosalie Hale. While Reed was younger than both Pattinson and Greene while filming the first Twilight movie, Rosalie looks a little older than her siblings in a few ways.

Fortunately, the Twilight movies were able to excuse this discrepancy. Rosalie’s tragic Twilight backstory meant she was a little more mature than the rest of the Cullen clan by the time she was turned by Carlisle. This helped explain both her older appearance and her more abrupt and reactionary attitude towards those who infringed on her family, including Bella.

7 Jackson Rathbone: 23 Years Old

Jasper Hale: 161 Years Old

While it is not unusual for teen movies to cast older actors as children, the Twilight movies generally steered clear of this approach. Unlike Riverdale or 13 Reasons Why, the Twilight Saga didn’t cast any actors in their mid-20s as high school students. That said, Jackson Rathbone’s Jasper Hale was almost the exception to this rule.

While Jasper is canonically 161 years old, he was turned into a vampire at the age of 19. Despite this, Rathbone was 23 years old when filming the original Twilight. Since his co-star Robert Pattinson was only two years younger, this isn’t too noticeable, but the actor does look too old to be attending Algebra class. Of course, since he was a soldier, it might also explain why he looks older and more war-torn than his fellow Cullen siblings in the Twilight movies.

6 Elizabeth Reaser: 32 Years Old

Esme Cullen: 110 Years Old

While Rathbone was a little old to be playing a high-schooler, Elizabeth Reaser had the opposite problem. At 32 years old, the actor appeared way too young to play the mother of the Cullen “children.” It's a good thing that the cover story for the Cullen vampires is that Esme and Carlisle adopted all of their children during their travels. Fortunately, the wealth of the Cullen family meant that their cover story was rarely questioned in Forks, provided they kept to themselves.

It also helps that, in their actual age, Esme is the same age as most of her kids, so they all pretty much grew up together in the world of vampires. Reaser has enjoyed a notice career outside of Twilight, with roles in Grey's Anatomy, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Handmaid's Tale, as well as movies like Young Adult and Dark Harvest.

5 Kellan Lutz: 22 Years Old

Emmett Cullen: 90 Years Old

Kellan Lutz might have been younger than his Twilight co-star Jackson Rathbone, but the actor was, in the eyes of many, the least believable high school student in the Cullen family. Thanks to his imposing frame, Lutz looked every bit like his 22 years when filming Twilight. The actor couldn’t really for a 19-year-old in Twilight, let alone in the movie's sequels, and this made it tough to work out just how the family had evaded suspicion so far.

However, Emmet’s relatively minor role in the story helped. It also helped that most of the students saw the Cullen teens as model-like. Though they might not have participated in team sports while attending high school in Forks, the other students likely saw Emmet as something of the jock archetype compared to his siblings, which would explain his stature.

4 Billy Burke: 42 Years Old

Charlie Swan: 44 Years Old

Billy Burke was the oldest character in the main cast, and that makes sense because Charlie Swan is also the oldest main character in the series, although some ing characters were older (like 55-year-old Gil Birmingham and Billy Black). Charlie is Bella's dad, and his age reveals he was 27 when Bella was born. At the start of the series, he was a 44-year-old police chief, and that is only two years older than Burke when he started playing him.

At 42, Burke was also the most experienced actor in the main cast of Twilight. He started his acting career in 1990, which was the year that Kristen Stewart was born. Since Twilight, Burke has had success on television, with roles in Revolution, Zoo, 9-1-1: Lone Star, Maid, and Fire Country. He also voiced James Gordon in Batman: The Long Halloween, which connects him with Robert Pattinson, who is the big-screen Batman now.

3 Mackenzie Foy: 11 Years Old

Renesmee: Newborn

Renesmee wasn't in Twilight, but she did make her debut in Twilight: Breaking Dawn. She was born in the first Breaking Dawn movie and was a CGI creation. However, when she was seen next, Mackenzie Foy played the character. Foy was 11 when cast to play Edward and Bella's daughter, and she played her as a toddler at that age. However, the story made that possible by showing that a baby born a vampire ages rapidly, both physically and mentally.

Since the two last movies were shot back-to-back, Foy didn't have to worry about aging anymore and this is the age that Renesmee stayed for the rest of the story. As for Foy, she went on to have a nice career as a child actor, with roles in big-budget movies like Interstellar and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.