Hannah Montana star lied about age to land teen role, kept act up for 8 episodes

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Jason Earles admitted he wasn’t truthful about his age when he first got the part on Hannah Montana. He pretended to be a different age for a few episodes, but the show’s producers eventually found out.

Lucas Earles is most famous for his role as Jackson Stewart on the Disney Channel show that first aired in 2006. Although he played a 16-year-old high school student, Earles was actually in his late twenties and already married when he took the part.

The actor shared his story on the Best of Both Our Worlds podcast, revealing he almost didn’t try out for the show, believing he was past his prime.

Hannah Montana star says lying about age “worked out for the best”

“When I auditioned for the show, uh, I lied to them and told them I was 18 years old,” Earles said.

Originally, the filmmakers wanted actors who were around the same age as their characters, and this made him unsure about auditioning. But the casting director, Lisa London, convinced him to present a slightly different age at the audition.

I went to the audition, and everyone assumed I was 18 years old. It wasn’t until about the eighth episode of the first season that anyone realized I wasn’t.

Earles says Disney didn’t discover his actual age until filming had already begun. He remembers an executive directly questioning him, saying, “You’re 28, right?” Earles confirmed this, and the executive then asked if there was anything else Disney should be aware of.

Even though he wasn’t truthful about his age at first, Earles believes it actually helped him in the end. According to showrunner Steve Peterman, if they’d known his true age sooner, he probably would have been replaced.

Jason Earles recently admitted he wasn’t truthful with the producers of “Hannah Montana” about his age. They discovered, after filming eight episodes, that he was actually 28 years old and married, not a teenager as he’d led them to believe.

— Miley Edition (@MileyEdition) March 18, 2026

Apparently, after he found out about something, he actually thanked us for keeping it a secret! He said if we hadn’t, everyone would have panicked and they would have had to find someone else to play the part. It was a total relief to hear him say that, honestly.

I remember when Hannah Montana first came out – it’s crazy to think Jason Earles was only 28 when they started filming! He turned 29 right around the premiere in March 2006, and he played Jackson for the entire show, all the way until 2011. That means he was in his mid-30s by the time it ended. It’s amazing how long he stayed with the series!

The actor also mentioned that looking young allowed him to play a teenager very convincingly, and most people on set and watching the show didn’t realize how much older he actually was.

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2026-03-18 20:19