There is more information about data and methodology at the bottom of this article. For now, it’s enough to know that we’re talking about the age of the top six billed actors in the year the movie was released.
Across all 24,295 cast credits I studied, the average age of the actors was 39.97 (I gave you that to two decimal points to avoid the neatness of just saying 40 – it’s Everest’s height all over again).
However, this single number obscures a multitude of interesting details.
During the 1900s, the annual average age of actors stayed solidly between 38.2 (in 1941) and 40.5 (in 1977). But after around 2005, the average began to rise consistently. It stood at 38.7 in 2005 but has grown to 44.7 by 2023.
