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Time Shifted Actor / Live-Action TV

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Time-Shifted Actors in live-action TV.

  • American Horror Story generally avoids this trope, preferring to age actors up or down when needed by using makeup and FX, but they have used it a couple of times, specifically when older actors needed to be aged down drastically rather than by a decade or two:
    • Dr. Arden/Hans Gruber, who first appeared in Asylum but later returned in Freak Show as one of the series' first recurring characters, is played by James Cromwell for the most part, but by his son John Cromwell in flashbacks to his youth (notably, this encompasses all the character's scenes in Freak Show).
    • In Coven, Fiona and Myrtle are played by series regulars Jessica Lange and Frances Conroy, respectively. However, since both those ladies are in their sixties, younger actresses were used to portray them as teenagers in flashbacks: Riley Voelkel as Young Fiona, Michelle Page as Young Myrtle. Amusingly, they don't do the same for the coven's servant Spalding, who is played by Denis O'Hare in both time frames.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024), although Zuko averts this trope this time, Katara is not played by Kiawentiio, instead by Meadow Kingfisher.
  • And the Winner is Love:
    • Chen Yu Qi plays Xue Zhi as an adult and Yu Xin Yan plays her as a child.
    • Luo Yun Xi plays Shangguan Tou as an adult and Ren Yi Fan plays him as a child.
    • Zou Ting Wei plays Mu Yuan as an adult and Wu Si Chen plays him as a child.
  • The flashback-heavy series Arrested Development used this all the time for the Bluth kids, but the George and Lucille were usually the regular actors. In Season 4, flashbacks had Seth Rogen and Kristen Wiig as the younger George and Lucille.
  • Several characters in Arrow, especially given the flashbacks and flashforwards in the show:
    • Oliver Queen is played by Stephen Amell as an adult and by Jacob Hoppenbrouwer as a child.
    • Tommy Merlyn is played by Colin Donnell as an adult and by Arien Bouey as a child.
    • His son William is played by Jack Moore as a (pre)teen and by Ben Lewis as an adult in a Flash Forward.
    • Zoe Ramirez is played by Eliza Faria as a child and by Andrea Sixtos as an adult in the same Flash Forward.
  • Awaken:
    • Namkoong Min plays Jung-woo as an adult and Oh Han-kyul plays him as a child.
    • Lee Chung-ah plays Jamie as an adult and Kwon Ye-eun plays her as a child.
    • Yoon Sun-woo plays Jae-woong as an adult and Jang Sun-yool plays him as a child.
  • Beyond Evil:
    • Shin Ha-kyun and Lee Do-hyun play Dong-sik.
    • Yeo Jin-goo and Jung Hyeon-jun play Ju-won.
    • Choi Dae-hoon and Choi Chan-ho play Jeong-je.
    • Lee Kyu-hoi and Park Kwang-il play Jin-muk.
  • Blossom made good use of Joey Lawrence's real life brothers Matthew and Andrew for a flashback episode or two.
  • Season Three of The Boys (2019) has Justiin Davis play a younger version of Giancarlo Esposito's character Stan Edgar. note 
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer did it three times, with a young actress playing Buffy as a girl. It was a different actress each time. Mimi Paley in "Killed By Death", Alexandra Lee in "Weight of the World" and Candice Nicole in "Blood Ties" presumably due to age considerations.
  • The BBC miniseries Casanova cast David Tennant as the young Casanova, Peter O'Toole as the old Casanova and John Sandilands and Zachary Fox as Casanova as a child.
    • James Holly, Brock Everett Elwick and Tom Burke played Casanova's son at different parts of his life.
    • Leonilda appeared as a baby, and at age 20 played by Naomi Bentley.
  • Centennial used makeup to show most characters aging, outside of brief, non-speaking childhood scenes. However, the character of Jim Lloyd was portrayed by Michael LeClair as a 16 year old and William Atherton as an adult. Also seen with the characters of the two Pasquinel brothers and Philip Wendell. In the latter case, it was the childhood version, played by Doug McKeon, who had the larger role in comparison with the adult, played by Morgan Paull.
  • Charmed (1998): The fourth season episode "The Three Faces of Phoebe" featured her bringing her past and future selves into the present with her which were both played by different actresses. In the finale "Forever Charmed" this is done with Piper as well, though the child form of her does not appear on screen with the adults.
    • Done even earlier in Season 1's "That '70s Episode", in which a time travel spell sends the sisters back to when Prue and Piper were children.
  • Cobra Kai:
    • John Kreese is portrayed by Martin Kove during the present, and by Barrett Carnahan 1960's flashbacks. The show does a Bait-and-Switch, by seemingly introducing Jesse Kove's character as John Kreese.
    • Terry Silver is introduced as Nick Marini during 1960s flashbacks, only to be played by Thomas Ian Griffith during the present. The show does another Bait-and-Switch by pretending Seth Kemp's character is Terry Silver.
  • Cold Case uses this extensively, as its stories are told mostly in flashbacks from cases often decades in the past. The only time they don't do this is in the few cases that are recent enough for it to make sense that the characters look the same.
    • A few early episodes attempted do to this through make-up rather than casting different actors. The results were not very convincing.
  • Similarly, in the 1998 miniseries of The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Gérard Depardieu, the protagonist was played in the prologue by Guillaume Depardieu.
  • The Crown (2016): As the premise of the series is to depict Queen Elizabeth II's entire reign with two seasons to cover each period, the plan is to have different actors play the characters each time the narrative skips forward.
  • CSI: NY did this during a flashback in the final episode of the 333 Stalker arc, "The Thing about Heroes," with Walter Curry playing Gary Sinise's character, Mac Taylor, as a 14-yr old in Chicago.
  • The Devil Judge:
    • Ji Sung plays Yo-han as an adult and Moon Woo-jin plays him as a child.
    • Kim Min-jung plays Sun-ah as an adult and Kim Ga-yoon plays her as a child.
    • Park Jin-young plays Ga-on as an adult and Park Jin-woo plays him as a child.
    • Park Gyu-young plays Soo-hyun as an adult and Yoon Byul-ha plays her as a child.
  • Four actors have played the eponymous character in Dexter in flashback scenes, including star Michael C. Hall.
  • Doctor Who:
    • In "The Daleks' Master Plan", Sara Kingdom gets aged to death by the Time Destructor. Jean Marsh's mid-stage ageing is created with extensive makeup but the fully-aged version of her is played by May Warden.
    • In "The Time Monster", Benton is regressed by a time-manipulating alien goddess into an uncredited baby. Sadly, the baby "actor" died before his first birthday, as John Levine points out on the commentary track.
    • Elisabeth Sladen appeared over three Whoniverse TV shows, and a Big Finish-produced audio spinoff over 38 years as Sarah Jane Smith. In The Sarah Jane Adventures, she's played by an uncredited baby as a child, Jessica Mogridge as a child in flashback and Jessica Ashworth at age 13.
    • An uncredited extra plays the youthful Maren in "The Brain of Morbius", which is odd as the elderly Maren was played by Cynthia Grenville, a young woman in very heavy age makeup which they could easily enough have removed.
    • "Father's Day": We meet Rose Tyler as an uncredited baby and as a child played by Julia Joyce, and at age 19 by Billie Piper. Young Mickey Smith is played by Casey Dyer, while as an adult he's played by Noel Clarke. The same episode, however, contains a bizarre aversion — 20-year-old Jackie Tyler is still played by Camille Coduri, who plays her present-day self, and no effort is made to make her look any younger.
    • Companion Jack Harkness is played by John Barrowman as an adult, and in the Torchwood episode "Adam" by Jack Montgomery as a child.
    • In "The Girl in the Fireplace", Reinette is played by Jessica Atkins as a child, and Sophia Myles from her twenties onwards.
    • Queen Elizabeth I is played by Angela Pleasence in her later years ("The Shakespeare Code"), and Joanna Page as a young woman ("The Day of the Doctor").
    • In "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood", Tim Latimer is played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster as a teenager, and an uncredited Huw Rees as an elderly man.
    • "Blink" has an unusual example in which the character of Billy Shipton is played as a young man by Michael Obiora, then minutes later he appears as an old man portrayed by Louis Mahoney (originally, it was planned for Obiora to wear old age makeup before they decided to just go with an older actor). Shipton had been sent back 38 years in time and lived out the loop to the present in order to give a message to Sally Sparrow, the protagonist of the story.
    • "The Sound of Drums" introduces us to William Hughes (uncredited), portraying the Master as a child. Interestingly, this makes him the first Master, chronologically speaking.
    • In "The Unicorn and the Wasp", Lady Eddison is played by Felicity Kendal in 1926 and an uncredited woman 40 years earlier.
    • "The Waters of Mars": One-off companion Adelaide Brooke is played by Rachel Fewell as a child, and Lindsay Duncan as an adult.
    • In "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Big Bang", as well as flashbacks in "Let's Kill Hitler", Amy Pond is played as a seven-year-old by Caitlin Blackwood before being played as an adult by Karen Gillan. The two actresses are cousins. Also in "Let's Kill Hitler", a young Rory is played by Ezekiel Wigglesworth, while he's played as an adult by Arthur Darvill.
    • Michael Gambon plays the miserly Kazran Sardick in "A Christmas Carol"; his younger self is initially played by Laurence Belcher, then becomes a teenager as Danny Horn. (Then back to Belcher to get "shown his future").
    • In "The Impossible Astronaut", Canton Everett Delaware III is initially played by William Morgan Sheppard, before the TARDIS crew travel back in time to meet him played by Sheppard's son, Mark Sheppard. Like with Billy Shipton, the original plan was to use old-age make up on Mark until he suggested they use his father instead.
    • In "Let's Kill Hitler", Amy and Rory's childhood friend Mels, in actuality River Song before she regenerated into Alex Kingston's incarnation, is played by Maya Glace-Green as a kid and Nina Toussaint-White in the present. In "A Good Man Goes to War", River, then called Melody and in an even earlier incarnation is played by twins Harrison and Madison Mortimer, while in the opening two-parter "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon", she's slightly older and played by Sydney Wade.
    • "Listen" features Samuel Anderson playing Danny Pink's Identical Grandson, and Remi Gooding playing a child Danny Pink. There is also an uncredited child playing a young First Doctor.
    • "Demons of the Punjab", which has companion Yaz making shocking discoveries about the past of her grandmother Umbreen, has Umbreen played by Leena Dhingra in 2018 and Amita Suman in 1947.
    • The Doctor's frequent enemy Davros has been portrayed by a number of actors. However, in Series 9, he's portrayed by Julian Bleach. The Doctor also encounters Davros as a child, played by Joey Price.
    • Aversions:
  • A 2022 Flashback to 1979 in EastEnders features the Mitchell family, all played by younger actors than the main storyline.
  • Season 2 of Fargo acts as a prequel to Season 1 taking place nearly thirty years previously, with three characters carried over. Molly Solverson, the protagonist of the first season played by Allison Tolman, appears as a little girl played by Raven Stewart. Meanwhile, her father Lou, a semi-retiree in his 60s played by Keith Carradine in the first season, is now the thirty-something protagonist, being played by Patrick Wilson. There's a secondary character carried over in the form of Ben Schmidt, Gus's boss from the first season (where he was played by Peter Breitmayer), whom Lou ends up rather reluctantly working with in the second (where he's now played by Keir O'Donnell).
  • Zac Efron played the young Simon Tam in a Firefly flashback.
  • Several characters on The Flash:
    • Barry Allen himself is played by Grant Gustin as an adult. As a child, he's played by Logan Williams in seasons 1 and 2 and by Liam Hughes from season 3 on.
    • Iris West-Allen is portrayed by Candice Patton as an adult and by Amina Elkatib (seasons 1 and 2) and Sasha Rojen (from season 3 on) as a child.
    • Caitlin Snow is normally played by Danielle Panabaker. A brief flashback to her as a child has her played by Victoria Askounis.
    • Hunter Zolomon is played by Teddy Sears as an adult (voiced by Tony Todd as Zoom) and by Octavian Kaul as a child.
  • The 1990s young adult series Flash Forward often intersperses home video clips of five-year-old Tucker and Becca (who are also featured in the opening credits) into the plot. The characters are 14 years old when most of the action takes place.
  • The French and Saunders parody of Star Wars (The Phantom Millenium) naturally lampshades this, with Toby-Jugs Kenobi very keen to know if she'll grow up to become Alec Guinness.
  • An episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had a flashback to before the Banks became rich, in which every major character excluding Ashley, who wasn't born at the time of the flashback, was played by a different actor. However, in a later episode where the cast are watching an old video tape of Vivian and Phil, they are played by the same actors. Which is bizarre when you think about it, as this footage was supposed to have been before the children were even born, and therefore Phil and Vivian would have been younger than in the previous flashback where they were played by younger actors.
  • On Full House young Danny was played by Phillip Glasser, whose other claim to fame is voicing Fievel in An American Tail.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Hodor has a different actor for flashbacks in Season 6.
    • Rodrik Cassel also has a different actor for flashbacks in Season 6 (note that Fergus Leathem/Young Rodrik looks a lot like Podrick Payne — actor Daniel Portman is Ron Donachie's son in real life, so logically Daniel looks like young Ron).
    • Old Nan has a different actress for flashbacks in Season 6.
    • Sebastian Croft and Robert Aramayo respectively played the child and young adult version of Ned Stark in the Season 6 flashbacks instead of Sean Bean.
    • In House of the Dragon, due to Season 1's many Time Skips, several characters have different actors to portray them as children, late teens then as adults/young adults, most prominently Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock then Emma D'Arcy by Episode 6 of Season 1, D'Arcy still did the Opening Narration of the series in the first episode), Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey then Olivia Cooke), Laenor Velaryon (Theo Nate then John Macmillan), Laena Velaryon (Nova Foueillis-Mosé, then Savannah Steyn, then Nanna Blondell), Aemond Targaryen (Leo Ashton then Ewan Mitchell) and Aegon II Targaryen (Ty Tennant then Tom Glynn-Carney). Ditto with the rest of the Targaryen-Hightower and Targaryen-Velaryon children.
  • The Glamorous Imperial Concubine:
    • Ruby Lin plays Fu Ya as an adult and Yu Jing Qiao plays her as a child.
    • Wallace Huo plays Lian Cheng as an adult and Yan Xu Jia plays him as a child.
    • Tony Yang plays Lian Xi as an adult and Chen Hong Jin plays him as a child.
  • Adam Kolkin plays a younger Kurt in Glee, bearing such an impossible resemblance◊ to Chris Colfer that many people were convinced that the flashbacks had been done using technology, or at the very least that the two were related in some way. They aren't.
  • The Golden Girls had occasional flashbacks to when Dorothy was a young adult. The casting director did a good job of finding an actress who looked like a younger version of Bea Arthur's character (Estelle Getty was simply able to take off the white wig and age makeup for her scenes).
    • An older flashback featured Sophia's mother, played by none other than Bea Arthur.
  • A couple of episodes of Good Eats feature Young Alton, played by John Herina, the same actor who plays his nephew in other episodes. They're not actually related, but Elton (the nephew) does have a shocking resemblance to his "uncle".
  • Gotham:
    • Throughout the show, Selina Kyle is a teenager played by Camren Bicondova. For the Distant Finale (which takes place a decade in the future), the grown-up Catwoman is played by Lili Simmons.
  • Henry Danger:
    • Three different boys played young Ray in the pilot episode, "Henry and the Bad Girl", and "Back to the Danger"
    • In "A Tale of Two Pipers", there is an adult Piper who is played by another appropriately aged actress.
  • Highlander: "The Prophecy"-young actor as the boy Duncan MacLeod subbing in for Adrian Paul who played adult Duncan.
  • On How I Met Your Mother, Josh Radnor plays "present day" Ted, while Bob Saget is the voice of "future" Ted. Every time we've seen flash-forwards of Ted in the future, however, he's played by Radnor in makeup.
  • iCarly had a young Sam and young Carly for a flashback.
  • Ice Fantasy: Ma Tian Yu plays Ying Kong Shi as an adult and Bian Cheng plays him as a child.
  • In From the Cold: Margarita Levieva plays a present-day Anya/Jenny who's grown and has a daughter, while Stasya Miloslavskaya portrays her in 1994.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): Daniel Molloy is portrayed by Eric Bogosian when he's 69 years old and by Luke Brandon Field when he's 20.
  • Kamen Rider: For this franchise, the trope usually takes the form flashbacks to when the young adult protagonists were children.
    • Keisuke Jin, the eponymous protagonist of Kamen Rider X, was the first Kamen Rider to be depicted in a childhood flashback.
    • Daisuke Yamamoto, the protagonist Kamen Rider Amazon, is seen as a baby in a photograph.
    • Interestingly, Kamen Rider Den-O has the time-traveling hero meet his teenage self at one point... and much much much later, when the actor leaves, production hits upon a solution: his teenage self's actor now plays the adult version in the present! The same series has a partial case: another character's history is altered so she is now ten years old but has much the same history. This makes it more The Nth Doctor as we'd never seen a younger version of her before, but it is meant to be the same character's actual younger appearance. When Time Travel is involved, this trope can get complicated.
    • Kamen Rider Wizard has childhood flashbacks where Haruto Soma (Shunya Shiraishi) is played by Kaito Nakashima, Koyomi (Makoto Okunaka) by Kanon Kobayashi, Rinko Daimon (Yuko Takayama) by Ichino Suehara, Shunpei Nara ( Junki Tozuka) by Ryusei Shoji, and Kosuke Nitoh (Tasuku Nagase) by Kirato Wakayama. There is also the recurring character Yuzuru Iijima (Shinta Sōma), himself in his mid-teens, who is played as a younger child by Reigo Mizoguchi.
    • In Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations, the young Takeshi Hongo/Rider 1 is played by Maito Fujioka, the real-life son of Hongo's original actor, Hiroshi Fujioka.
  • The King's Woman:
    • Dilraba Dilmurat plays Gongsun Li as an adult and Huangyang Tian Tian plays her as a child.
    • Vin Zhang plays Ying Zheng as an adult and Dong Li Wu You plays him as a child.
    • Liu Chang plays Jing Ke as an adult and Xu Wang Zi plays him as a child.
  • In Kung Fu (1972)'s Once an Episode flashbacks, young Kwai Chang Caine was played by Radames Perá. In the occasional flashback to teenage Caine, he's played by star David Carradine's younger brother Keith, with David usually (but not always) providing the voice.
    • In Kung Fu: The Legend Continues young(er) but adult Kwai Chang Caine was played by David Carradine and Peter Caine (his son) was played by Nathaniel Moreau (and later Robert Bedarski).
  • The Legend of Mi Yue has a huge cast and covers a long time, so unsurprisingly it has many examples of this.
    • Mi Yue is played by four actresses: Liu Chu Tian as a young child, Li Jing Er as an older child, Chai Wei as a teen, and Sun Li as an adult.
    • Mi Shu is played by three actresses: Li Ni Ni as a young child, Hao Yi Lin as an older child, and Liu Tao as an adult.
    • Huang Xie is played by three actors: Gu Hao Feng as a child, Ding Nan as a teen, and Huang Xuan as an adult.
    • Mi Rong is played by four actors: Li Qing Yu as a toddler, Li Ze Kai as a child, Lou Zi Xuan as a teen, and Li Hong Liang as an adult.
    • Mi Heng is played by three actors: Wu Bo Lin as a young teen, Zhou Qi as an older teen, and Su Hang as an adult.
    • Ying Tong is played by three actors: Cao Ying Rui as a child, Lei Hao Wen as a teen, and Xue Yong Yu as an adult.
    • Ying Zhuang is played by three actors: Gao Rui as a child, Huang Zuo Can as a teen, and Chen Wei Chen as an adult.
    • Ying Dang is played by four actors: Yu Tian Yang as a toddler, Luqing Fu Yuan as a child, Yang Jia Hua as a teen, and Ba Tu as an adult.
    • Ying Ji is played by four actors: Zhang Hao Ting as a toddler, Shiyue An Xin as a child, Chen Hong Jin as a teen, and Zhu Yi Long as an adult.
    • Wei Ran is played by three actors: Yin Rong Hao as a child, Yue Xun Yu as a teen, and Zhang Jun Han as an adult.
    • Bai Qi is played by three actors: Yang Yan Duo as a child, Qiu Mu Yuan as a teen, and Zeng Hong Chan as an adult.
    • Su Chen Xi plays Mi Yin as a child and Xu Fan Xi plays her as an adult.
    • Jin Zhi and Liu Yi Hong play Lady Jing.
  • Legend of the Seeker:
    • Zeddicus Zu'l Zorrander is portrayed by Bruce Spence as an old man and by Gabriel Mann as a young man.
    • A Bad Future has Nicholas Rahl portrayed by Jack Hurst as a boy and by Paul Barrett as a middle-aged man.
    • Panis Rahl is portrayed by Sam Snedden in flashbacks and by Paul Barrett as an old man. In disguise, he also looks like John Rhys-Davies.
    • Zedd's brother Thaddicus is portrayed by Jon Brazier as an old man and by Gareth Williams as a young man in flashbacks.
  • The Legend of Xiao Chuo:
    • Shawn Dou plays De Rang as an adult and Lu Zhan Xiang plays him as a child.
    • Chen Hao plays Long Xu as an adult, Cary Ye plays him as a teenager, and Leo Pei plays him as a child.
    • Yang Yu Tong plays Pusage as an adult and Tao Yi Xi plays her as a child.
    • A Si Han plays Molugu as an adult and Xue Han Yu plays him as a child.
  • In Legends of Tomorrow, several characters end up meeting their past selves. Most end up being played by different actors, although Caity Lotz plays both the teenage and adult versions of Sara Lance.
    • Mick Rory is played by Dominic Purcell as an adult (although voiced by Steve Blum in his Chronos incarnation) and by Mitchell Kummen as a teenager.
    • Leonard Snart is portrayed by Wentworth Miller as an adult and by Trestyn Zradicka as a little boy.
    • Likewise, Snart's father Lewis is portrayed on The Flash by Michael Ironside, while his younger version is played by Jason Beaudoin.
    • Rip Hunter's adult actor is Arthur Darvill, while his younger version is played by Aiden Longworth.
    • Martin Stein is portrayed by Victor Garber as a middle-aged man, by Graeme McComb as a young man, and by an unknown baby as, well, a baby. Likewise, his wife Clarissa is portrayed by three actresses: Chanelle Stevenson as Clarissa in 1975, Emily Tennant in 1987 and 1992, and Isabella Hofmann as a middle-aged woman.
    • Ray Palmer is portrayed by Brandon Routh as an adult and by Jack Fisher as a boy.
    • In "Wet Hot American Bummer", Sara Lance and Ava Sharpe (normally played by Caity Lotz and Jes Macallan, respectively) take a de-aging potion and end up being played by Emily Murden and Vanessa Przada, respectively.
    • Nora Darhk was originally portrayed on Arrow by Tuesday Hofmann as a child. A teenage version was played by Madeleine Arthur, while an adult version was portrayed by Courtney Ford.
    • A crossover example with John Diggle Jr. (AKA Connor Hawke). He's played by Keon Boateng as a baby, Marcello Guede as a little boy, and Joseph David-Jones as an adult in a Bad Future.
    • Todd Rice (AKA Obsidian) is portrayed by Dan Payne as a young man (although we never see his face) and by Lance Henriksen as an old man.
    • Kuasa was originally voiced by Anika Noni Rose in Vixen, before being recast as Tracy Ifeachor for Legends. A younger version of Kuasa is played by Nakai Takawira in one episode.
    • Zari is played by Tala Ashe as a twentysomething from 2042, and by Gracelyn Awad Rinke as a child in the present day.
  • Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
    • A time-traveling H. G. Wells was a recurring character. One actor portrayed him in season 2, another in season 3, and then both portrayed him in different episodes of season 4. The difference was explained by one being an older (by sixteen years) incarnation of the other.
    • Jimmy Olsen gets hit by an aging ray in the episode "Brutal Youth". Rather brilliantly, his aged self is played by Jack Larson, who previously played Jimmy in The Adventures of Superman.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Child Galadriel is played by Amelie Child-Villiers, while her adult self is played by Morfydd Clark.
  • Lost has needed these occasionally due to its flashback structure.

    We've seen Jack, Sun, Locke, Ben, Charlie, Sawyer, Eko, Faraday, Sayid, Kate, Hurley, Yemi, Juliet, Rachel Carlson, Alex, Jacob and the Man in Black as children in flashbacks. Locke, Ben, Alex, Jacob and the Man in Black have also been depicted as newborns. "Cabin Fever" saw Locke as an infant, a child, a teenager, and an adult.

    Walt was already a 10-year-old child during seasons 1 and 2, but also appeared as an infant in the season 2 episode "Adrift". However, the season 2 episode "One of Them" averted this by using an actual photo of a teenage Evangeline Lilly (Kate) for a flashback scene where her character's father is looking at a photo of his daughter. Emily Locke appeared as an adult and as a teenager when she was pregnant with John.
    • Due to time travel, Lost showed younger versions of characters in its fifth season without explicitly revealing who they were as a form of a twist. A younger Charles Widmore (two, one in 1954 and one in 1977), Danielle Rousseau when she was shipwrecked in 1988, Eloise Hawking (again, two, in 1954 and 1977) and Charlotte Lewis (in 1974 and 1977) appeared that year. The actress who played 1977 Eloise also appears in a flashback with Daniel Faraday the same episode that era's Eloise first appeared.
    • In the second half of the show, after pre-Island flashbacks were mostly gone, Aaron, Ji Yeon and Desmond's son Charlie appeared as newborns around 2004/05 (in-story) and as toddlers in 2007. Similarly, Clementine Phillips was shown as a baby photograph in a pre-Island flashback and as a child in 2007.
    • In season 5, Ethan and Miles appeared during the islanders' time travelling as babies in 1977 and as children in flashbacks (Ethan's while Alex was a baby around 1988).
  • Malcolm in the Middle had disturbingly similar-looking actors for the younger versions of the cast in the flashback episodes.
    • Amusingly, by the final episode, the flashback actors were about the same ages as the main cast had been in the first season.
  • Merlin had Mordred played by twelve-year-old Asa Butterfield in the first two series, after which he was Put on a Bus and not seen again until series 5, seven years later due to a Time Skip, where he's now played by twenty-three-year-old Alexander Vlahos.
  • The 2011 mini-series version of Mildred Pierce had Morgan Turner as Veda in her preteen and early teenage years (through age 14-15), and Evan Rachel Wood as Veda in her late teens and early twenties.
  • Les Misérables (2018): As usual, child actors play the young versions of Cosette, Marius, and Eponine before the three converge in Paris.
  • My Country: The New Age:
    • Yang Se-jong and Moon Woo-jin play Seo Hwi.
    • Woo Do-hwan and Kim Kang-hoon play Nam Seon-ho.
    • Kim Seol-hyun and Uhm Seo-hyun play Han Hee-jae.
    • Jang Hyuk and Ji Eun-sung play Yi Bang-won.
    • Lee Hyo-je and Kim Min-ho play Yi Bang-seok.
  • My Hero (2000): The talking babies Ollie and Cassie Sunday, while voiced by child actors that remain throughout the show, are physically portrayed by infant actors whom are swapped out every season.
    • 3x04 averts this mostly; Ardal O'Hanlon continues to play Amusing Alien George Sunday as his body rapidly ages to the extent that he is forced to pretend to be his own grandfather. Eventually, however, he ages even further and appears played by an elderly actor, but his voice is still dubbed by O'Hanlon. Hilarity Ensues when an attempt at reversing George's physical age works too well, regressing him into a baby which appears as O'Hanlon's adult face superimposed over an infant actor.
  • My Name Is Earl has had flashbacks to the title character's childhood using appropriately-aged actors.
  • In the Season 7 finale of TV's Mystery Science Theater 3000, Dr. Forrester experiences rapid aging as part of an extended 2001 reference. Old!Forrester was played by Jack Beaulieu, Trace Beaulieu's father.
  • The Nanny: Renee Taylor plays Fran Fine's mother Sylvia in the present day, but during the flashbacks to Fran's childhood, Fran Drescher (Fran) plays Sylvia.
  • William Morgan Sheppard and Mark Sheppard, mentioned above under Doctor Who, also appeared as older and younger versions of the same character in an episode of NCIS.
    • Sean Harmon, son of Mark Harmon, sometimes plays young Gibbs in flashback episodes. Similarly, Adam Campbell plays young Ducky, courtesy of his resemblance to a younger David McCallum.
  • Nirvana in Fire:
    • Hu Ge plays Mei Changsu and Zhang Zhe Han plays Lin Shu, Mei Changsu's original identity.
    • Liu Tao plays Nihuang as an adult and Pan Xiao Yang plays her as a teenager.
  • Northern Exposure: Tara Subkoff plays 15-year-old Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner).
  • Novoland: Eagle Flag: Chen Ruo Xuan plays Ji Ye as an adult and Liu Shi Jie plays him as a child.
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi: Alongside Ewan McGregor reprising his role of Obi-Wan, Hayden Christensen returning as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, and Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse reprising Owen and Beru Lars, Grant Feely and Vivien Lyra Blair portray Luke and Leia respectively as ten-year-olds.
  • In Once Upon a Time:
    • In the episode "Stable Boy", the fairytale world plot flashed back to when the teenage Regina (still played by Lana Parrilla) met Snow White and her father. Child Snow was played by Bailee Madison, who could easily pass for (adult Snow) Ginnifer Goodwin's daughter or young sister.
    • Regina's mother, Cora, is played by Barbara Hershey as a middle-aged and older woman in the show's present and in flashbacks with Regina as a young woman, and by Rose McGowan as a late-teens or early-twenties woman (Dawson Casting, as McGowan was in her late thirties at the time) in a few episodes with flashback sections to her early life.
    • In the last scene of Season 6, and the whole of Season 7, Adult Henry is played by Andrew J. West. Jared S. Gilmore reprises his role of Young Henry in a handful of Storybrooke scenes.
  • In a non-time example, Orange Is the New Black has transgender character Sophia played transgender actress Laverne Cox, and by Cox's twin brother M. Lamar as her pre-transition self.
  • Our Miss Brooks: "The Dream" features older versions of Mr. Conklin, Walter Denton, Mrs. Davis, Mr. Boynton and Mrs. Boynton née Brooks played by series regulars Gale Gordon, Richard Crenna, Jane Morgan, Robert Rockwell and Eve Arden respectively.
  • The Outer Limits (1995):
    • In "Dark Matters", there are two examples:
      • Paul Stein is played by Gregory Smith as a child and John Heard as an adult.
      • Kevin Stein is played by Shane Meier as a teenager and David Cubitt as an adult.
    • In "A Stitch in Time", Theresa Givens is played by Corrie Clark as a 15-year-old in 1976 and Amanda Plummer as a 35-year-old in 1996.
    • In "Vanishing Act", Mark McPhee is played by Brennan Kotowich as a child in 1970 and by Richard Ian Cox as an adult in 1980 and 1990.
    • In "Glyphic", there are two examples:
      • Cassie Boussard is played by Shannon Beaty as a five-year-old and by Rachael Leigh Cook as a 17-year-old.
      • Her brother Louis is played by Ryan DeBoer as a child and by Brad Swaile as an adult.
    • In "Fear Itself", Bernard Selden is played by Max Peters as a child and by Arye Gross as an adult.
    • In "The Balance of Nature", Barbara Matheson is played by Fiona Loewi as a young woman and by Barbara Rush as an elderly one.
    • In "Joyride", Theodore Harris is played by G. Patrick Currie as a 25-year-old in 1963 and by Cliff Robertson as a 63-year-old in 2001.
    • In "The Human Operators", the operator of Starfighter 31 is played by David Kaye as a child and by Jack Noseworthy as an adult.
    • In "Tribunal", there are two examples:
      • Karl Rademacher is played by Alex Zahara in 1944 and by Jan Rubes in 1999.
      • Leon Zgierski is played by Roman Danylo in 1944 and by Peter Boretski in 1999.
    • In "Seeds of Destruction", Linda Andrews is played by Christine Elliott as a child and by Jessica Tuck as an adult.
    • In "Replica", Nora Griffiths is played by Ginger Page as a child and by Sherilyn Fenn as an adult.
    • In "Time to Time", Lorelle Palmer is played by Jessica Amlee as a five-year-old in 1969 and by Kristin Lehman as a 25-year-old in 1989.
    • In "Dark Child", Laura Sinclair is played by Rhonda Dent as a teenager and by Nora Dunn as an adult.
  • Power Rangers:
    • In Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Season 2's "Rangers Back in Time" two-parter saw Lord Zedd turn back time. The six Ranger teens (as well as Bulk and Skull) became children with age-appropriate actors, though the school principal and their teacher were played by the same people. Master Vile tried the same trick for the final arc of Season 3, with the child actors being brought back (except for young Kimberly's, as Katherine had joined up by then). As the arc was resolved in a two-parter of its own, a young Tanya was introduced before her teenaged self appeared.
    • In the Power Rangers Zeo two-part episode "Rangers of Two Worlds," Billy underwent accelerated aging as a side-effect of his personal solution to the Master Vile situation, portrayed by an uncredited older actor who remains unindentified as of 2020. The real-world reason this happened was David Yost leaving the show because of off-camera gay bashing he was the target of, the two-parter serving to write his character off without Yost's involvement.
  • The Pretender:
    • The series features frequent flashbacks to Jarod's childhood, so most of the main characters have a secondary actor who plays them in flashbacks. Jarod has two, one who plays him as a young child and one who plays him as a teen. And they spun young Jarod off as a clone. Averted with Jarod's mother, whose appearances are mostly in flashbacks and dream sequences; for her few present-day appearances, she's played by the same actor, aged up.
    • In the episode "Collateral Damage", Jarod investigates an incident during the Vietnam War, and interviews a Vietnamese immigrant who witnessed the incident as a child. In a variation from the "Young/Old Character" crediting convention, the child actor who plays him in the flashbacks is credited as "Le Xuan Duc", while the actor playing his adult self is credited as "Lenny Duc", the Naturalized Name he adopted after immigrating.
  • The Princess Wei Young:
    • Li Yi Xiao plays the real Wei Young as an adult and Zhao Shu Ting plays her as a child.
    • Vanness Wu plays Tuoba Yu as an adult, Huang Tian Qi plays him as a child and Huang Hai Ge plays him as a baby.
  • Every episode of Psych also begins with a flashback, with younger actors playing Shawn and Gus. However, Corbin Bernsen, who plays Shawn's father, just wears makeup and a hairpiece to make him look younger. We get a Lampshade Hanging, of course.
  • Psychopath Diary:
    • Yoon Shi-yoon plays Dong-sik as an adult and Kim Yeon-Ung plays him as a child.
    • Jung Su-bin plays Dong-chan as an adult and Jin Yu-chan plays him as a child.
    • Park Sung-hoon plays In-woo as an adult. Another actor (whose name isn't listed on wiki pages) plays him as a child.
    • Yu Bi plays Ji-hoon as an adult and Yang Hee-jae plays him as a child.
  • In Pushing Daisies, two of the main characters are Ned (played by Lee Pace) and Chuck (played by Anna Friel). However, every episode opens with a flashback to Ned's childhood, where Ned and Chuck are played by Field Cate and Sammi Hanratty, respectively. Olive (Kristin Chenoweth), Emerson (Chi McBride) and Lily (Swoosie Kurtz)also got a flashback each in season 2, in which they were played by Samantha Bailey, Stephen Wash, Jr. and Mackenzie Brooke Smith, respectively.
  • Happens all over the place in the Quantum Leap three-parter "Trilogy", where Sam helps out a woman named Abigail Fuller at ages 10, 21, and 35, and his leapees each appear in the preceding part. Following this trope more closely, Abigail is played by one actress at age 10 and another at ages 21 and 35, while the first actress is in the third episode as her daughter Sammy Jo.
  • The Really Loud House:
    • "Heart and Soul" shows a flashback featuring Justin Allan as a younger Lincoln (Wolfgang Schaeffer) and Ava Torres as a younger Luna (Sophia Woodward).
    • "Spelling and Doorbelling" shows a flashback featuring Parker Quinn Werdann as a younger Luan (Catherine Bradley).
  • All the major non-AI characters of Red Dwarf have had childhood versions of themselves played by different actors.
    • Adult Rimmer is played by Chris Barrie. Young Rimmer appeared in three episodes, played by Simon Gaffney. A teenage Rimmer in the series X episode, "The Beginning", was played by Philip Labey.
    • (Initially) 20-something Lister is played by Craig Charles. Lister has appeared as a teenager (played by Charles' younger brother Emile), and as a baby (played by Danny John-Jules' real-life nephew Alexander).
    • Lister, Cat and Kochanski have all appeared as young children when briefly de-aged, played respectively by an uncredited actor, Perri Michael and Holly Earl. Lister has also been turned into an old man, also played by an uncredited actor.
  • In the 1996 Mini Series Rhodes, Cecil Rhodes was played by Martin Shaw and "Young Cecil Rhodes" was played by Shaw's son, Joe Shaw.
  • In Rome, Gaius Octavian is played by Max Pirkis as a teenager and Simon Woods as an adult. The change happens while he goes to war. Upon seeing the adult Octavian for the first time, his mother makes remarks about military rations having made an effect on him. The trope is bizarrely averted, however, with Vorenus' children, who should be in their thirties by the final episode. One is played by the same actress who played her as a fourteen-year-old, the other two are played by actors who are at most twelve.
  • The mini-series Roots cast LeVar Burton as teenaged Kunta Kinte and John Amos as an adult. For most other characters, heavy makeup was used to show them aging.
  • Royal Tramp:
    • Huang Xiao Ming plays Xiao Bao as an adult and Wang Cheng Yang plays him as a child.
    • Wallace Chung plays the Kangxi Emperor as an adult and Shi Lei plays him as a child.
  • In The Sarah Jane Adventures, Rani Chandra is played by Anjli Mohindra as a teen, and Souad Faress as the Mad Old Woman of Bannerman Road in a Bad Future in the story "The Mad Woman in the Attic".
  • Smallville:
    • Tom Welling is the regular actor for Clark Kent but Jackson Warris plays the young version of him.
    • Michael Rosenbaum is the regular actor for Lex Luthor but his younger actor is played by Matthew Munn.
    • Miranda Cosgrove plays the young Lana Lang, who is regularly played by Kristin Kreuk.
    • Allison Mack plays Chloe Sullivan in a regular basis but is played by Victoria Duffield as a kid.
  • Spinning Out: Maya Misaljevic as Serena (Willow Shields).
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • In "1969", General George Hammond is normally played by the late Don S. Davis. After traveling back in time, they meet Lieutenant George Hammond played by Aaron Pearl.
    • In "Fragile Balance", Jack's teenage clone is portrayed by Michael Welch.
    • Others include Linea (Bonnie Bartlett as old, Megan Leitch as young), Dr. Ernest Littlefield (Keene Curtis as old, Carson Be... sorry, Paul McGillion as young), Orlin (Sean Patrick Flanery as adult, Cameron Bright as child), Cassandra Frasier (Katie Stuart as child, en Rennison as teenager, Pamela Perry as old)
    • Catherine Langford takes the prize with five actresses. First, there are the two portraying her in the original film (Kelly Vint as a child, Viveca Lindfors as an adult). Then there are the actresses from the show (Nancy McClure as young circa 1945, Glynis Davies as adult in 1969, Elizabeth Hoffman as primary appearance).
    • Because Adria grows from infancy to adulthood in a matter of days, the premiere episode of season 10 has four different actresses play the part first as a newborn, then at ages 4, 7, and 12. Her adult version is played by Morena Baccarin.
  • Star Trek:
    • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
      • "Firstborn" had a character prove to be a time-travelling older Alexander (Worf's young son), played by James Sloyan. That and Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome results in five different Alexanders. (Most would say four, but Worf has a photo where Alexander is played by yet a fifth actor, when you'd think it'd have been easy to call up one of the existing ones.)
      • Child versions of Picard, Keiko, Guinan, and Ro appear in "Rascals", though it is not a flashback. The person who played young Guinan also played Whoopi Goldberg's character as a child in Sister Act. The actor who played young Picard earlier played Picard's nephew Rene in "Family".
      • Played straight at first in "Tapestry", as Marcus Nash plays young Picard when he sees himself getting stabbed, but then averted when Patrick Stewart plays young Picard for the rest of the episode, as the adult Picard was reliving his past.
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: "The Visitor", which was a Flash Forward episode, had then-teenage Jake Sisko (normally played by Cirroc Lofton) played by Tony Todd.
    • Star Trek: Discovery: Some of these may cross over into The Other Darrin, since only about a decade separates Discovery from The Original Series. In addition, a number of TOS actors have since died, and of course none of remaining ones still look the same as they did 50 years ago.
      • Michael Burnham is played by Sonequa Martin-Green as an adult and by Arista Arhin as a little girl in flashbacks.
      • Spock is played by Ethan Peck (previously portrayed by Leonard Nimoy, Zachary Quinto, and several others) as an adult and by Liam Hughes as a little boy.
      • Harry Mudd was originally played by Roger C. Carmel. A slightly younger version (by 10 years) is played by Rainn Wilson.
    • Star Trek: Picard:
      • Elnor is portrayed by Ian Nunney as a child and Evan Evagora as an adult.
      • In Season 2, Guinan is initially portrayed as an older version of herself, still played by Whoopi Goldberg. Picard even notes that she looks older despite her species being biologically immortal. She explains that they can choose to age if they want to. When Picard time-travels to the 21st century, he runs into a younger Guinan, this time played by Ito Aghayere.
    • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is in much the same position as Discovery, but as a more direct prequel to The Original Series it has even more examples. In addition to the aforementioned Ethan Peck as Spock:
      • Nurse Christine Chapel was originally played by Majel Barrett, while her ten years younger self is played by Jess Bush.
      • Fresh-faced Cadet Nyota Uhura is played by Celia Rose Gooding, while her older, more confident self was originally played by Nichelle Nichols.
      • Lieutenant James Tiberius Kirk is played by Paul Wesley, while his brother, Lieutenant George Samuel Kirk, is played by Dan Jeannotte. In TOS, both Kirk brothers were played by William Shatner.
      • Young Montgomery Scott puts in an appearance played by Martin Quinn, who looks much younger than James Doohan looks as Scotty from ten years later.
  • Star Wars: Ahsoka: In the present day of the show, Rosario Dawson plays Ahsoka Tano, who at this point in the timeline is somewhere in her mid-forties. However, flashbacks to the Clone Wars have the teenage Ahsoka played by the teenage Ariana Greenblatt, which really hammers home just how young Ahsoka was when she first went to war.
  • St. Elsewhere: The two-part story "Time Heals" features younger versions of several main and recurring characters: the 1935 and 1945 versions of Donald Westphall are played by Joshua Harris and Michael Sharrett respectively, the 1945 versions of Daniel Auschlander and his future wife Katherine Wellingham are played by James Stephens and Devon Ericson and the 1965 version of Luther Hawkins is played by Sean Williams.
  • In an episode of Supernatural with flashbacks to Sam and Dean's pasts, the younger Sam was played first by Alex Ferris and then Colin Ford while Dean was played by Ridge Canipe as a child and by Brock Kelly.
  • Super Sentai: For this franchise, the trope usually takes the form of childhood flashbacks of the predominantly teenaged/young adult protagonists.
    • The first notable example is Choushinsei Flashman, the backstory of the Five-Man Band being that they were subject to Alien Abduction as small children.
    • Another major example is Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman, the backstory of the Five-Man Band being that they lost their parents 20 years prior.
    • Choujin Sentai Jetman has Creepy Child Tran (Miku Kuga) rapidly mature into Tranza (Yutaka Hirose).
    • In Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, Burai (Shiro Izumi) is played by Hisashi Sakai in a flashback to his childhood. Keeping in mind that Burai is the first official Sixth Ranger of the franchise, this becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when...
    • ...in the next series, Gosei Sentai Dairanger, Hisashi Sakai plays Kou, the second Sixth Ranger and a rare example of a Kid Hero in the franchise. Kou himself is subject to this trope when a flashback has him played by a younger child actor. The final episode averts this trope with a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, 50 years in the future, which not only has the Five-Man Band appear in old age make-up cheering on their identical grandchildren, but even includes a photograph of Hisashi Sakai made up as a 60-something Kou.
    • A peculiar example occurs in Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger, the Opening Titles of which has the Power Trio appear as children who change into adults, peculiar in that it doesn't really reflect anything that occurs in the show.
    • A major example in Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters, where the Power Trio face a Big Bad who came to being 13 years prior: 20-year-old Hiromu Sakurada (Katsuhiro Suzuki) is played by Ryu Hashizume at age 7, 28-year-old Ryuji Iwasaki (Ryoma Baba) is played by Koudai Matsuoka at age 15, and 16-year-old Yoko Usami (Arisa Komiya) is played by Kokoro Hirasawa at age 3. Hiromu's older sister, 27-year-old Rika Sakurada (Risa Yoshiki) is played by Rin Mizumoto at age 14.
    • In Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger, Daigo Kiryu (Ryo Ryusei) appears in flashback as a child played by Itsuki Shibuya, Souji Rippukan (Akihisa Shiono) by Ayumu Yamada, Yayoi Ulsahde (Marie Iitoyo) by Rinka Nakayama,
    • Power Rangers Dino Force Brave, a Korean-commissioned Sequel Series to Kyoryuger produced in Japan and dubbed into Japanese as Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger Brave, has brothers Kwon Juyoung (Kim Se-yong) and Juhyeok (Lee Se-young) respectively played as children by Rui Takahashi and Ryu Hashizume.
    • A special, very spoilery example occurs in Ressha Sentai ToQger, where we are often shown glimpses of their childhoods of the Five-Man Band. Ultimately, it is revealed that what appears to be a team of young adults were actually children all along, having been artificially aged to fight the bad guys who have conquer their hometowns and captured their families. Special mention goes to the films ToQger vs. Kyoryuger, they transform and fight in spite of the fact that a monster has temporarily regressed them to their true ages, and ''Super ToQ #7 of Dreams, where we catch up with their heroes ten years in a future, now having matured naturally, then ending up travelling through time to fight alongside their child incarnations.
    • The eighth episode of Shuriken Sentai Ninninger is a Time Travel Episode which sees Fuuka and Takaharu Igasaki, a high schooler and her elder brother respectively, go back and meet themselves ten years in the past. A later episode has a flashback to when their father, Tsumuji, was a teenager, and another shows their grandfather, Yoshitaka, as a young man of about Takaharu's age.
    • Uchu Sentai Kyuranger has Lucky (Takumi Kizu) played as a child by Rei Tanaka, Stinger (Yosuke Kishi) by Hinata Igarashi, and Hammie (Sakurako Okubo) by Maharu Nemoto.
    • In Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger, a flashback to ten years prior has Kaito Goshikida (Kiita Komagine) played by Yumeki Uenoyama.
  • The Sci-Fi Channel Original Series Taken spans three generations of families, with the characters in the families being played, mostly, by age-specific actors.
  • The TV adaptation of The Thirteenth Tale features three.
    • Vida Winter is played by four actresses: Vanessa Redgrave as an old woman, Sophie Turner as a young woman, Madeleine Power as a pre-teen, and Maggie Waller as an even younger child.
    • Emmeline March is played by Antonia Clarke as a young woman and Madeleine Power (again) as a pre-teen.
    • Margaret Lea is played by Olivia Colman as an adult and Isabel Barlow as a child.
  • In This Is Us, the Pearson triplets are played by three different sets of actors for each decade: the present-day adults, 1990s teenagers, and 1980s children. Averted with Mandy Moore, who plays Rebecca from young adulthood into her elder years and actually had to talk the crew out of having an older actress play present-day Rebecca - a decision she ultimately came to regret as she had to be put under heavy makeup for those scenes.
  • In Timeless, Agent Denise Christopher (AKA Dhriti Sirivastava) is normally played by Sakina Jaffrey. When the Lifeboat team travels to 1981, they meet Denise as a young policewoman, played by Karen David. Also, a minor bad guy is briefly shown in his late teens, played by Ryan Cargill, before a Time Skip, after which he's played by Teddy Sears.
  • One set of Top Gear teasers featured (incredibly well-cast) child versions of the three hosts musing about what they'd do when they grew up, as well as commenting on "the new kid" - mini-The Stig driving a red wagon (aww!).
  • In Torchwood, Jack's brother Gray is played by Ethan Brooke as a child and Lachlan Nieboer as an adult.
    • In a flashback in Children of Earth, young Clem MacDonald is played by Gregory Ferguson. As an adult, he's played by Paul Copley.
    • In a Miracle Day flashback, Jack's past lover Angelo is played by Daniele Favili as a young man, and an uncredited actor as an old man the following episode.
    • The Quantum transducer showed flashbacks of several people in the considerable past in "Ghost Machine".
    • In "Random Shoes", Eugene Jones is played by Luke Bromley in 1992 and Paul Chequer in 2007.
    • The memory alterer Adam Smith from "Adam" is mostly played by Bryan Dick. When he forces himself into the memories of Jack's childhood, he's played by Rhys Meyers.
  • The Twilight Zone (1985):
    • In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", there are two examples:
    • In "Her Pilgrim Soul", Nola Granville is played by Anne Twomey as an adult, Betsy Lion as a five-year-old and Danica McKellar as a ten-year-old.
    • In "Grace Note", Dorothy Miletti is played by Gina Marie Vinaccia as a teenager in 1966 and by Catherine Paolone as an adult in 1986.
    • In "Time and Teresa Golowitz", Bluestone is played by Grant Heslov as a 16-year-old in 1948 and by Paul Sand as a 55-year-old in 1987.
  • The Untamed:
    • Xiao Zhan plays Wei Wuxian as an adult and Su Yaxin plays him as a child.
    • Wang Yibo plays Lan Wangji as an adult and Chen Junkai plays him as a child.
    • Liu Haikuan plays Lan Xichen as an adult and Shen Yifeng plays him as a child.
    • Zheng Fanxing plays Sizhui as a teenager and Jiang Yiting plays him as a child.
    • Xuan Lu plays Jiang Yanli as an adult and Ye Xuantong plays her as a child.
    • Wang Zhuocheng plays Jiang Cheng as an adult and Huang Zhenchen plays him as a child.
    • Ji Li plays Nie Huaisang as an adult and Xu Weiluo plays him as a child.
    • Wang Yizhou plays Nie Mingjue as an adult and Xuan Yuewen plays him as a child.
    • Yu Bin plays Wen Ning as an adult and Su Qiuyi plays him as a child.
    • Meng Ziyi plays Wen Qing as an adult and Lin Chenxi plays her as a child.
  • This played with a twist in Westworld. William is played by Jimmi Simpson while his older self is The Man in Black himself played by Ed Harris.
  • In the Russian mini-series Wolf Messing: Seeing through time, the titular character (loosely based on the Real Life self-proclaimed psychic of that name) is played by three actors: Aleksandr Hinkis as a boy, Roman Grechishkin as a young man (voiced by Stanislav Bondarenko), and Yevgeniy Knyazev as an adult (the majority of the series including the Cold Open).
  • Word of Honor:
    • Zhang Zhehan plays Zhou Zishu as an adult and Yang Chengjin plays him as a child.
    • Gong Jun plays Wen Kexing as an adult and Xiaoli Zhenzhen plays him as a child.
    • Sun Xilun plays Chengling as a child, and in the epilogue Zhao Xiaokun plays him as an adult.
  • In the 2017 series of The Worst Witch, the episode "The Best Teacher" sees Rachel Bell portray an older version of main character Mildred Hubble (normally played by Bella Ramsey) after a wisdom spell becomes an aging spell.
  • The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles featured three time-shifted Indianas: George Hall as the elderly Indy in the framing sequences, Sean Patrick Flanery as 16-19 year old Indy for the bulk of the series, and Corey Carrier as 10-year old Indy during the first season. Not to mention Harrison Ford reprising the role as a bearded, middle-aged Indy in one episode.
  • Young Sheldon: In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon's mother is played by Laurie Metcalf. In Young Sheldon, her younger self is played by Laurie Metcalf's daughter, Zoe Perry. This also applies to Sheldon, Missy and Connie (Meemaw), portrayed by Iain Armitage, Reagan Record and Annie Potts respectively instead of Jim Parsons, Courtney Henggeler and June Squibb. Georgie is portrayed by a Time-Sifted in the opposite direction. He's played by Montana Jordan in Young Sheldon, but hadn't appeared in The Big Bang Theory at the time. When Georgie finally did show up in Big Bang episode "The Sibling Realignment", he was played by Jerry O'Connell.

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