How Diesel La Torraca Addressed Concerns About Austin’s Recasting in Ginny and Georgia

Ginny and Georgia‘s Sara Waisglass shared her thoughts on the unexpected recast concerns surrounding Diesel La Torraca‘s beloved character Austin.

“He’s doing an amazing job with it. He’s handling everything so well,” Waisglass, 27, told Us Weekly exclusively while talking about her new film How to Lose a Popularity Contest. “And how fortunate are we all to have a job that allows us to grow?”

As Waisglass, who portrays Max in the Netflix series, commented on La Torraca’s growth spurt, she said, “He’s taller than I am and has always been my peer since I was a child actor. I recall being too young to hang out with adults but too old for my peers, so I really connect with that.”

She added: “It’s surreal meeting him when he was just 8 years old, and now here he is, a young man discussing his creative process. It’s astonishing. The funniest moment was during our first read-through. We always introduce ourselves, saying, ‘Hi, I’m playing Max.’ Then it got to Diesel, and his deep voice made us laugh so hard.”

Following the airing of season 3 in 2025, fans began to wonder if La Torraca, now 14, was too mature to continue as Ginny’s half-brother, noticing how the show tried to hide the young actor’s growth spurt in the third season.

Creator Sarah Lampert addressed this concern, explaining why the show wasn’t focused on Austin’s age accuracy.

“Anyone working on the show will tell you I’m meticulous about the details. I’m particular about many things. Yet, when Diesel suddenly grows five years older, I think, ‘That’s okay.’ You can’t control these things,” she told Us in June 2025. “We can’t recast. Diesel is Austin.”

Lampert emphasized that there were zero plans to find a younger actor to take on Austin’s role.

“We have a few jokes in mind. We recognize that he’s growing up, and that supports us,” she mentioned, while also pointing out that viewers will need to “suspend their disbelief” since La Torraca “grew up, and this is a TV show.”

“You don’t want to jump through time excessively because it can undermine emotional storytelling. Due to that, the flashbacks often don’t align well with the timeline,” she explained. “Time is just a concept in Wellsbury.”

Meanwhile, La Torraca responded to the concerns by discussing the creative methods the show employed to mask his apparent growth spurt.

“Honestly, we kind of ignore it a bit!” he told Teen Vogue that same month. “It’s kind of like … there’s a 14-year-old with Harry Potter glasses at the table pretending to be 9. And that’s fine! In some scenes, I had to bend my knees a bit to appear shorter than [Antonia], or they even got her an apple box a few times, but for the most part, we’ve just kept the show going.”

La Torraca continued: “Playing a 9-year-old for six years while growing … I’ve evolved with him, but I’ve also somewhat diverged from him because I was 8 when we started, and now I’m 14. There are significant differences in how he would move, act, and speak. I have to raise my voice register and slouch a bit to embody that shy, insecure 9-year-old.”

Before Ginny & Georgia returns for its fourth season, Waisglass landed a role in Tubi’s How to Lose a Popularity Contest, which allowed her to explore a character distinct from Max Baker.

“One of my biggest fears is being typecast as Maxine Baker because my energy often seeps into my performances,” Waisglass shared with Us. “I was genuinely concerned about whether this movie would just translate into a different version of Max.”

Waisglass explained that she worked “really hard” to identify aspects of her character that felt different.

“I was very intentional about subtle details like posture and tone of voice,” she elaborated. “It was the same energy, just a different way of expressing it, I hope.”

How to Lose a Popularity Contest is currently streaming on Tubi.