Harry Potter Cast a 37-Year-Old as a Teen—and You Never Noticed
At 37, Shirley Henderson walked into a Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets audition and walked out as a 14-year-old Hogwarts ghost — after the casting team urged her to lean even harder into the teen act.
File this under movie magic that actually fooled everyone: Shirley Henderson walked into a Harry Potter audition at 37 and walked out as a 14-year-old bathroom ghost. And yes, it worked. Better than it had any right to.
The 37-year-old who nailed a 14-year-old ghost
When Henderson went in to read for Moaning Myrtle in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,' her age was not a problem for the casting team. If anything, they told her to lean into it. She showed up dressed like a schoolgirl to match Myrtle's whole eternally-sulking vibe, and the casting director gave her the green light to commit fully.
"Go for it - and don't mention your age."
The result turned into one of the franchise's all-time stealth wins. Fans didn’t clock the age difference for years, and it only bubbled back up because Henderson, now busy with Department Q, mentioned it again in recent interviews.
Why nobody questioned Myrtle's age
Myrtle reads as pure teenage chaos from the second she floats in: jittery, hypersensitive, dramatic, and weirdly funny in that way only a deeply miserable teen can be. Henderson's fragile, high-pitched voice and awkward, fidgety physicality lined up perfectly with the books' version of a bullied girl frozen at the age she died.
The movies quietly helped sell it too. Myrtle mostly shows up alone in that echoey, tiled bathroom, framed a little low, surrounded by actual school-age actors, wrapped in oversized robes that make her look smaller. The floating, the acoustics, the hair-trigger mood swings — all of it says "stuck at 14" without needing the actor to literally be 14. That performance landed so hard it even sparked fans asking for a Myrtle spin-off.
It wasn’t just Myrtle: the age math all over Hogwarts
Henderson's gap is the wildest, but the films did this a lot. The energy fit mattered more than the birth date, and between costuming, framing, and a little movie magic, it all clicked. Here’s how some of the on-screen ages stacked against the actors:
- Moaning Myrtle: character 14; Shirley Henderson 37
- Severus Snape: character 31; Alan Rickman 54
- Sirius Black: character 34; Gary Oldman 44
- Remus Lupin: character 38; David Thewlis 50
- Peter Pettigrew: character 37-38; Timothy Spall 54
- Minerva McGonagall: character 56; Maggie Smith 65
- Albus Dumbledore: character 110; Richard Harris 69
- Albus Dumbledore: character 112; Michael Gambon 64
Why the age gaps worked anyway
None of those roles demand you look a precise age; they demand you feel like the character. Rickman brought coiled resentment and tragic control to Snape. Oldman gave Sirius the wounded, reckless godfather energy. Thewlis nailed Lupin's gentle, threadbare decency. And Henderson distilled the eternal-teen agony of Myrtle into something strangely iconic.
Between smart casting, wardrobe, how scenes were shot, and some light VFX, the films built a version of Hogwarts where the performance did the heavy lifting — not the number on a driver's license.
Which Harry Potter casting twist shocked you the most? Drop your pick in the comments.
If this sent you back to Hogwarts, the films are currently streaming on Peacock.