The shocking real-life age differences between 34 fictional parents and their children

• Meryl Streep, who turns 73 on June 22, is only three years younger than Cher, her mother in "Mamma Mia."

• This isn't the only example of on-screen kids and parents being comically close in age.

• Amy Poehler is only seven years older than her "Mean Girls" daughter Rachel McAdams.

Mandy Moore is younger than all three of the adult versions of her kids — Chrissy Metz, Sterling K. Brown, and Justin Hartley — on "This Is Us."

On "This Is Us," a show which jumps around multiple different time periods, Moore plays Rebecca Pearson, the matriarch of the Pearson clan and mother to Randall (Brown), Kate (Metz), and Kevin (Hartley).

And though Moore rocked impeccable old age makeup when she was seen in the current time, it's still funny to realize that she, at 38, is younger than 46-year-old Brown, 45-year-old Hartey, and 41-year-old Metz.

Her on-screen husband, Milo Ventimiglia, falls in the middle of his kids at 44.

Bonus: She's also younger than on-screen daughter-in-law Beth, played by a 40-year-old Susan Kelechi Watson and her son-in-law Toby, played by 41-year-old Chris Sullivan.

"This Is Us" wrapped up in 2022 after six seasons and pounds of old age makeup for all.

"Succession's" Brian Cox only has 10 years on his oldest TV son, played by Alan Ruck.

In "Succession," Cox plays Logan Roy, the aging patriarch of the Roy family and controversial owner of the global media empire, WayStar Royco. Ruck plays his oldest son, Connor, who doesn't seem to have an interest in the company at all.

However, Cox is 76, while his character is supposed to be least 80. Ruck, on the other hand, is 65, when his character is probably in his mid-to-late 50s.

TV mother and daughter Ginnifer Goodwin and Jennifer Morrison are only one year apart.

Time travel and magical curses played a part here, so the characters are actually supposed to be around the same age — but it didn't make it any less comical whenever Morrison's character, Emma, would call Ginnifer's character, Snow (or Mary Margaret), "mom."

Emma's dad, played by Josh Dallas, is also only one year older than her.

Cher, a legend, plays the mother of fellow legend Meryl Streep in "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again," but they're only three years apart.

While both look great for their ages — Cher is 76 and Streep is 73 — you can see from their recent red carpet photos how laughable it is that Cher would play Streep's mom. It's even more confusing when you remember the two played best friends and roommates in the 1983 film "Silkwood."

In the 2019 film "Glass," Charlayne Woodard plays the mother of Samuel L. Jackson's character, Elijah (aka Mr. Glass). The only problem is that, at 68, she's five years younger than 73-year-old Jackson.

Jackson looks great for his age, but that still doesn't make casting a woman a whole five years younger than him make any more sense.

This isn't totally the fault of "Glass" — the actors originally appeared in the 2000 film "Unbreakable," in which Wood had to portray the mother of a young version of Elijah as well. She donned old age makeup in that film.

The mother-daughter duo of Amy Poehler and Rachel McAdams is only seven years apart. McAdams was 26 when she starred as high school junior Regina George in "Mean Girls."

When "Mean Girls" was released in 2004, Poehler was 33 and McAdams was 26.

Widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women on Earth, a 29-year-old Angelina Jolie played 28-year-old Colin Farrell's mother in notorious flop "Alexander."

You'd be forgiven for forgetting about this movie — it was a critical and financial failure. Perhaps it had something to do with its ridiculous casting of Jolie and Farrell as mother and son, even though they're 11 months apart. They were also rumored to be dating.

Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham are intentionally close in age — just 15 years apart. In "Gilmore Girls," Lorelai was a teen when she gave birth to Rory.

Lorelai and Rory Gilmore have one of the most iconic mother-daughter relationships on TV — they're more like best friends than family. According to the storyline, Lorelai got pregnant as a teenager, and ran away from home to raise Rory on her own.

So it was true-to-life that the people at The WB cast Bledel and Graham, who are only 15 years apart. But a more glaring age gap was between Lorelai and Lane, Rory's best friend, who was supposed to be the same age as Rory. However, the actress playing Lane, Keiko Agena, is only six years younger than Graham.

Stefan Salvatore and his mother, Lily, both play vampires who don't age on "The Vampire Diaries," so it's somewhat realistic that the two actors who played them (Paul Wesley and Annie Wersching) are only six years apart.

Stefan was turned into an immortal vampire when he was 17, so casting anyone for that role would be difficult: Real people age. Wesley was already 27 when he was cast as Stefan in "The Vampire Diaries."

Stefan's mother, also a vampire, is played by Annie Wersching, who is only six years older than Wesley.

Fans were confused when it was announced that Winona Ryder would be playing Zachary Quinto's mother in the 2009 reboot of "Star Trek" — she's only six years older than him.

In real life, Ryder and Quinto look approximately the same age — which makes sense, because Ryder is only six years older than Quinto. However, during her brief appearance as Spock's mother in "Star Trek" she looked much older thanks to age makeup.

In reality, Ryder was 38 playing mother to a 32-year-old Quinto.

Lesley Fera is only 14 years older than her TV daughter Troian Bellisario on "Pretty Little Liars." Bellisario was 24 in the show's first season, when her character was supposed to be a junior in high school.

Bellisario was 24 when she was cast to play 16-year-old Spencer Hastings. Her mother, played by Fera, was 38 at the time.

Blake Lively and Kelly Rutherford (aka Serena and Lily van der Woodsen) are only 19 years apart on "Gossip Girl."

Rutherford will turn 54 in 2022, and Lively is 19 years her junior at 34. In the show's canon, we know for a fact that Lily wasn't a teen mom — there was supposed to be an entire prequel show about her life in California as a teenager, with no mention of a pregnancy.

Drew Barrymore is two years younger than Adam Garcia, who played her son in "Riding in Cars with Boys."

In "Riding in Cars with Boys," Barrymore plays Beverly Donofrio, who is 15 at the beginning of the movie (Barrymore was actually 26). The movie tracks Donofrio's life from her teens into adulthood.

However, her college-age son is played by Garcia, who is two years older than Barrymore — he was 28 playing an 18-year-old at the time.

In "Footloose," the stodgy town reverend, played by John Lithgow, is only 12 years older than his fictional daughter, played by Lori Singer.

Not many people realize that the film's protagonist, Ariel (played by Singer), is only 12 years younger than her movie dad, Reverend Moore (played by Lithgow).

Johnny Depp is five years older than movie mom Rachel Griffiths in "Blow."

"Blow," the 2001 film about real-life drug dealer George Jung, follows the Jung family for decades. Griffiths plays Depp's mother, despite him being five years her senior. During Jung's later years in the film, she even needs to wear age makeup to look the part.

Michael J. Fox and Lea Thompson are the same age — even though Fox's character in "Back to the Future" is Thompson's son. Her older look was achieved with facial prosthetics.

The fact that the two are the same age works since Marty eventually travels back in time and meets his mother as a teen (also played by Thompson).

In order to achieve the older look, Thompson "sat through three-to-four hours of prosthetic applications a day."