Trivia / The Hardy Boys (2020)

• Acting for Two: Rohan Campbell plays two different characters in the finale of Season 2 and early Season 3: Frank Hardy as always, and George Estabrook, who hijacked Frank's body. The Season 3 premiere is a particular example, where he changes between the two onscreen when Joe deduces that he's an impostor: going from largely acting like Frank while George still tries to impersonate him, to his facial expression completely shifting and voice cadence changing once George drops the act.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Rohan Campbell was 22 years old during filming of the first season (23 by the time it aired), while playing 16-year-old Frank Hardy.
  • Similarly, Keana Lyn Bastidas (21-22) playing Callie Shaw, who's the same age as Frank.
  • In a milder example, Alexander Elliot was 14 while playing 12-year-old Joe Hardy in the first season. It becomes more noticeable in the second two seasons, though, where Elliot is between 16-18 while filming, but Joe is still only 13. He has an audibly deeper voice in Seasons 2 and 3 thanks to Elliot hitting puberty, and in Season 3—the start of which takes place less than a week in-universe after the end of the previous one—Elliot has had a huge growth spurt between seasons and gotten a lot taller.
  • In Season 3, 23-year-old Bailee Madison plays Drew Darrow, who's around 16 or 17 like Callie and Frank.
• The Mountains of Illinois: A climate example rather than geographical. Even though the first season is supposed to take place across the summer and early fall and the characters are accordingly shown wearing short-sleeved clothes indoors, at least a large portion of the season was quite clearly filmed during the winter for the outdoor scenes, which have everybody wearing long sleeves and jackets and the trees are all bare and leafless. One particular standout example is in "The Key", where a few characters' breaths can easily be seen fogging up outside.
• The Other Darrin: There are a couple of recasts of major supporting characters between the first season and the second two:
  • The Hardy Boys' father, Fenton Hardy, is played by James Tupper in Season 1, before he's recast by Anthony Lemke for Seasons 2 and 3.
  • Jennifer Hsiung plays Jessie Hooper, Biff's mom, for the first season, until she's replaced by Alli Chung for the second and third seasons.
  • The actress who portrays a younger Gloria Estabrook in flashback scenes changes from Aidan Morris in Season 1 to Stephanie Moran in later seasons.
• Playing Their Own Twin: Jake Epstein plays both Adrian and Aaron Munder (though the later is only seen in a vegetative state in the present day). This also goes for their younger selves, as Aaron and Adrian are both portrayed in flashbacks (and in the former's case, inside the Crystal) by Anton Gillis-Adelman.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Anton Gillis-Adelman, who plays the younger version of Adrian and Aaron Munder in a flashback, really does look very much like how you'd expect Jake Epstein to appear as a teenager.
• Time-Shifted Actor: All of the Hardy Boys' Estabrook ancestors are shown in younger forms in flashbacks, played by different actors:
  • Laura is acted by Elyssa Donovan when she's still a teenager, around 16 or 17, in the flashbacks, as opposed to having been in her late thirties or early forties when she passed away in the present day, where Janet Porter plays her.
  • Meanwhile, Gloria's flashback self is most likely in her mid-forties (portrayed by Aidan Morris in the first season and Stephanie Moran in the second two), while in the present day, as an old woman in her 60's, she's played by Linda Thorson.
  • George is only seen as an old man in the flashbacks and inside the Crystal realm, acted by Philip Craig; however, the Eye's projection of him when speaking to Frank instead shows him in his younger days, also somewhere in his forties, where he's portrayed by Gray Powell.
  • In a non-Estabrook example: Adrian Munder, the Bridgeport teacher who turns out to be the Shadow Man, is played by Jake Epstein, as is his twin brother Aaron. Anton Gillis-Adelman portrays the teenage versions of Adrian and Aaron in a flashback set 10 years earlier.
• Underage Casting: Likely with Gloria, who's probably in her late sixties at the absolute youngest, more likely her early seventies. (Her actress, Linda Thorson, was around 73 at the time of filming the first season.) In the flashbacks to the day George left, which is 20-25 years ago, she would have been in her early-mid forties at the absolute youngest, probably older than that. While Aidan Morris looks the right age when playing Younger Gloria in Season 1, her new actress in Seasons 2-3, Stephanie Moran, appears about 10 years younger than Gloria should be in the flashbacks.