Top 10 Dark Truths About Teen Movies

It isn’t uncommon for actors to play characters who are different ages than they are. Typically, actors are older than their characters but, in the case of “A Cinderella Story” Hilary Duff was 15 years old when she played 17-year-old Sam Montgomery. At the start of filming, Duff’s Prince Charming classmate in the movie, Chad Michael Murray, was also not the age of his character. However, unlike the younger Duff, Murray was… 22 at the time. Certainly makes that big, climactic kiss in the rain a little hard to watch now, doesn’t it?

Given how popular the movie was, and still is, many are probably not aware that the “Grease” movie was based on a play, one that debuted in 1971 - seven years prior to the release of the film. In those seven years, a few things had changed that required adjustments to the script. For instance, the murder of actor Sal Mineo in 1976 changed things. In the stage version, the song “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee” made reference to Mineo. The filmmakers decided to change the line and instead added a lyric about Elvis Presley. They filmed the scene with the new lyric on August 16, 1977, which – we’re not joking – was literally the day that Elvis passed away.

One thing no 17-year-old wants is to have their parents watching them while they’re hooking up. But, if they’re doing it on a movie set, they don’t get a choice in the matter as Christopher Mintz-Plasse can attest. Mintz-Plasse played McLovin in the 2007 film “Superbad” and, being that he was underage, the law required that his mother be on set for certain scenes - including his character getting lucky at the party. Try watching the scene again with the knowledge that his mom is sitting just off screen. We’re cringing even more, if that’s at all possible.

In “The Kissing Booth 3” there’s a scene on the boardwalk in which Elle tells Lee that she’s been making decisions for everyone else, but hasn’t been taking herself into account. However, taking Joey King into account at that moment, probably would’ve meant letting her indulge on some snacks. On “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” King revealed to guest host Chelsea Handler that she was actually, as she put it “violently high” during the shooting of the scene. She admits it was unprofessional, but her acting is stellar enough that no one was the wiser, so we honestly might consider her more of a professional for the accomplishment.

For the 2000 film, “Bring It On”, all of the actors playing cheerleaders had to go through a pretty extensive cheer training. The good news is that they did well and were actually quite convincing as cheerleader performers. However, it turns out that some of the folks behind the scenes dropped the ball when it came to researching the technicalities of the cheer competition circuit. The most obvious blunder is probably that high school cheer squad uniforms can’t have exposed midriffs. The National Federation Interscholastic Spirit Association also has rules in place that prohibit high school competitors from performing fly-overs, basket-tosses with head-over-heels rotation, and stunts that are more than two bodies high, all of which can be seen in the movie.

Did you know that the term “full-frontal” isn’t PG? Well, at least according to the people who were deciding on movie ratings back in 2008 when “Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging” was released. The film is based on the novels, “It's OK, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers” and, the one closer in title, “Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging”. While all three of those terms were deemed okay for young adult readers, the line was drawn at “full-frontal” for young adult movie-goers. In order to get a PG rating, the movie’s creators were required to make the title adjustment.

In March of 2003, the Iraq War began. In April, Warner Bros. released the Amanda Bynes teen comedy “What a Girl Wants”. These two things have nothing to do with each other except for the fact that the former was the reason for a marketing decision made by the latter. The original poster for the theatrical release showed Bynes making a peace sign with her right hand. The film, about a girl who goes to London to find her father, isn’t political or about the war in any way. Yet, the studio felt that the peace sign was making too much of a potentially political statement about the recently launched war. Preferring to avoid any misrepresentations, they reworked the campaign. Bynes’ hand was moved to her hip for the movie’s US release.

Although both films center around high school cheerleaders, “Bring It On” and “Sugar & Spice” are two pretty different stories. Not only is the latter a heist movie with a darker comedic tone, but it’s also got a much whiter cast - and, supposedly, that was done on purpose. Both films came to be around the same time, and both actually auditioned some of the same actresses during the pre-production process, including Gabrielle Union. We obviously know that Union got the part in “Bring It On”, but she said she only took that audition because she didn’t get cast in “Sugar & Spice”. To quote Union from an MTV interview, “Sugar & Spice” “didn’t want to go Black on any of the characters.”

“Kids” was one of the most simultaneously praised and reviled films of the ‘90s. With its blunt teen attitudes and depictions of sexuality, it was a dark - and realistic - view of a section of the under-18 population in America. But, it turns out that the stuff wasn’t just happening on camera. There were also some less than savory things going on behind the scenes, including the arrest of actor Justin Pierce - who played Casper in the film. As cinematographer Eric Edwards recalled, one of the times Pierce ended up behind bars was during filming, after he reportedly got in a physical altercation. The details aren’t clear, but Edwards said the crew ended up having to bail him out.

Given how dark this film is, you might be wondering how anything behind the scenes could match the darkness of the movie itself. Well, how about the fact that Winona Ryder re-auditioned for the film after getting a makeover because, as she put it, she knew they thought she wasn’t pretty enough. Although, on the dark scale that’s nothing compared to the fact that actress and head Heather Kim Walker has a snarky line in the film about a brain tumor and it was a brain tumor that resulted in her passing in 2001. Then there was actor Jeremy Applegate whose character Peter Dawson hopes he never takes his own life - but, sadly, in the year 2000 we’d find out that was his cause of death.