Ryan Phillippe says his young ‘Motorheads’ co-stars make him feel like Yoda: ‘Very aware of my age!’

From teenage dream to wise sage.

Ryan Phillippe is taking the same journey that actors such as Luke Perry took earlier: he rose to fame in “teen idol” type roles, and now he’s playing a parent figure.

“I think having three kids of varied ages and having been a father for a long time, that’s a natural space for me,” Phillippe, 50, told The Post about his new teen drama, “Motorheads.” 

But, he added, for his iconic role in 1999’s “Cruel Intentions,” he finds it “crazy” that “that film still has new fans today, and that it holds up the way that it has.”

“It’s also crazy that they’re now remaking so much of the stuff that I’ve been in – that makes me very aware of my age!” 

He shares son Deacon, 21, with his ex-wife, Reese Witherspoon, 49, whom he was married to from 1999 to 2008. They also share daughter Ava, 25. (He has a third child, daughter Kai, 13, with his ex, “Pitch Perfect” actress Alexis Knapp.) 

“Motorheads” (premiering May 20 on Prime Video) follows high schoolers Zac (Michael Cimino) and Caitlyn (Melissa Collazo), who move with their mom (Nathalie Kelley) back to her Rust Belt hometown, where there’s a thriving street race scene. They’re close with their uncle, Logan (Phillippe), a former NASCAR mechanic who now struggles to keep an auto body shop afloat.

Deacon plays Logan’s brother, Christian, in flashbacks, as he vanished under mysterious circumstances 17 years ago.

“It’s like, at one point, I was like these early 20-somethings on this set. And it’s funny how watching them interact and hearing them talk about the industry and their careers really does take me back to that time,” Ryan recalled to The Post. 

The “I Know What You Did Last Summer” star added, “But I also think that I’m at a place in my life where [I’m] able to share some of my experience, and be very open about what that has been like – the good and the bad – to kind of steer them in the right direction, or be a source of advice or a mentor.”

He quipped, “But yeah, I felt a little bit like Yoda sometimes on set.”

Ryan’s co-stars would often ask him “about the old days of movie making, and what it used to be like.”

“Some of them are afraid of being replaced by AI,” he explained. “And I’m telling them that that’s probably not an issue for me – because I will already be face down by the time that happens.”

In his Instagram post about “Motorheads,” Ryan joked that he does not “die in this one.” 

His characters in previous high-profile roles, such as “Cruel Intentions,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Big Sky,” have all been killed off. 

“[For ‘Big Sky’] they put me all over the key art and the billboards, and then I died in the first episode. So I had a lot of people that were very angry with me about that,” he recalled. “A lot of friends or fans were like, ‘oh, we’re going to watch this show and you die in the first episode!’”

“Now, I have to assure anyone when I’m in a project that I’m going to be in more than one episode.”

Since his “I Know What You Did Last Summer” character died, he won’t be part of the 2025 sequel. He also wasn’t in Prime Video’s now cancelled revival of “Cruel Intentions.” 

“It does and doesn’t seem that long ago. It’s interesting – there’s parts of me that remember it like yesterday, and then there’s another part of me that feels like it was someone else’s life altogether,” he said. “You’re just happy that those things endure, and that people still care about the work that you did, in any capacity.”

While filming “Cruel Intentions,” he said he had no inkling that it would become a cult classic. 

“I did have this hope of being in some sort of seminal team movie, because of the ones that I grew up watching, like the John Hughes movies, ‘Pretty in Pink’ and ‘The Breakfast Club.’ And so I think there was a hope of mine that I would be in something like that,” he went on. “But when you’re making it, you have no concept of it.”