A majority of both the animated and live-actionDisneyfairy tale movies center on female protagonists (one notable exception isAladdin). Despite that fact,Disneymovies are full of male heroes who hold the position of Disney princes. They most often become a love interest for the main heroine but more often than not, they also have a storyline of their own.
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While their characters and lives vary, what they all have in common is that they’re on the younger side. It’s close to impossible to discover a Disney prince that could be considered old. However, some of them are older than others and their movies don’t forget to reflect this fact.
5The Beast: 21 Years Old
The Beast (with the unofficial name of Adam that, nevertheless, hasn’t been confirmed) is 21 years old, but after he spent a lot of time living cursed in his castle, his behavior fits someone much older. At first, when theBeast meets Belle, he is distant and cold. Eventually, after Belle tends to his wounds and treats him with kindness, he begins to see the girl in a different light and falls in love with her.
He and Belle later get married as her love for him helps break the curse and transform the Beast back into a human prince. The Beast’s seemingly solitary and grumpy nature would suggest he’s older than he appears to be but as his bond with Belle develops, he starts acting more youthful and hopeful.
4Li Shang: 23 Years Old
Li Shang proves the old saying that hate can often lead to love, at least in the world of Disney fairy tales. He initially functions as a slight antagonist toward Mulan, but their strained relationship gradually transforms to love. It doesn’t end there as in the second movie, Li Shang and Mulan are engaged and later get married despite the age difference between them (at the beginning of her story, Mulan is only 16 years old).
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Li Shang might be young, but he has an established fighting prowess and is an experienced warrior who is promoted to Captain in the firstMulanmovie. As such, he seems to be a good match for Mulan who goes on to become arespectable warrioron her own.
3Kristoff: 24 Years Old
Just like Anna and Elsa, Kristoff also ages with the story. In the firstFrozen(2013) movie, he’s 21 years old and in the 2019 sequel, he’s 24. Meanwhile, Anna is 18 and 21, respectively, making her 3 years younger than her (would-be) boyfriend. Despite the fact that Kristoff is an adult, he retains a certain childlike wonder, further proved by the fact that his best friend isthe reindeer Sven.
It might very well be this sense of wonder and optimism that draws the equally happy Anna to him. Even though their relationship faces a slight crisis in the second movie, they’re both willing to work on it which shows that they have grown as people since the first movie where Anna was still pining after the evil prince Hans and Kristoff could be lazy and grumpy at times.
2Flynn: 26 Years Old
One of the curious facts about several Disney princes and princesses alike is that they’re not technically royal. Flynn fromTangledis an excellent example of that. He poses as many things in the movie – a thief, a rogue, a charming adventurer, but he’s most certainly not a prince. The fact doesn’t stop Rapunzel from falling in love with Flynn and later marrying him which transforms the criminal into a king.
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Even though the movie never explicitly states Flynn’s age, the creatives behind it confirmed that in theTangledmovie, Flynn is 26 years old, making him a whopping 9 years older than his future wife Rapunzel. That serves to further cement the contrast between the seemingly naive Rapunzel who discovers the world with joy and her eyes wide open after she escapes fromthe tower where she was held captive, and the much more jaded and worldly Flynn who pretends to have seen it all at first.
1Phillip: 29 Years Old
Prince Phillip from the twoMaleficentlive-action movies starring Angelina Jolie as Maleficent and Elle Fanning as princess Aurora continues the trend of Disney princes being older thantheir princesses. In the first movie, Phillip (played by Brenton Thwaites) is 23 years old, while in the second movie (portrayed by Harris Dickinson) he is said to be 29 years old. His wife Aurora, on the other hand, is 16 in the first movie and 21 in the second, making her 7/8 years younger than her royal husband.
Of course, that doesn’t stop the couple from building a happy relationship and presumably becoming parents soon in the future as the ending of the second movie hints at the fact that Aurora is pregnant. Interestingly enough, Harris Dickinson was about 23 years old when he played the 29-year-old Phillip while Brenton Thwaites was about 25 years old when he portrayed the then 21-year-old prince.
