Bright Young StarsLists about unforgettable child actors who nabbed the spotlight and how they have navigated life after fame at such vulnerable stages in their development.
Updated September 23, 2021 15.0K votes 3.6K voters 499.0K views
Over 3.6K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of Child Actors You Didn’t Realize Are Still Acting As Adults
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Vote up the former child actors you had no idea made a whole career out of it.
We're so used to hearing horror stories about child actors who make a turbulent transition to adulthood that we often don't realize there are many more former kid stars who keep on working in the business. While they may not maintain the star power of their early careers, or land the kind of plum Oscar-nominated roles they did when they were younger, these actors have managed to do something mighty impressive in the world of Hollywood: they continue to make good livings as working actors.
The names on this list are in great company, too. They join the ranks of Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Foster, Christian Bale, Drew Barrymore, and Natalie Portman, among others. They might not have the high profiles of these actors, but they nonetheless accomplished the same feat. They evolved into adult roles more or less smoothly, and many of them have even successfully branched out into other careers as well, including writing, directing, and in one notable case, mathematics.
His turn as Elliott in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was only Henry Thomas's second movie role. It made the 11-year-old a worldwide star. The fame was intense - it "scared the hell out of my parents," he later said - and Thomas took a break from acting, working sporadically over the next several years.
As an adult, Thomas has worked more consistently, recently starring in the movie Gerald's Game and the TV series The Haunting of Hill House.
As the bespectacled, inquisitive Ray Boyd in Jerry Maguire, Jonathan Lipnicki captured the hearts of moviegoers around the world in what was his film debut. He looks radically different today - he's ripped! - and he's continued his acting career, mostly in smaller projects. He's appeared in several TV shows (Interns of F.I.E.L.D., Mr. Student Body President) and short films, and he's popped up in a few reality shows too (Celebs Go Dating, Drop the Mic).
Brett Kelly had only had a few low-profile acting gigs before stealing the show as Thurman Merman in Bad Santa. He went on to appear in movies like The Sandlot 2 and some TV shows, including Dead Like Me, all while living a mostly ordinary, non-show-biz life.
Kelly returned to his most famous character in 2016 with the release of Bad Santa 2. As Kelly told USA Today:
I’ve been living an extremely normal and boring life. I went to a regular high school, graduated from university, and basically that brings us up to this point. I got the call about Bad Santa 2 literally two days after I finished my last exam. The timing could not have been any better.
Before her 10th birthday, Mara Wilson starred in Mrs. Doubtfire and Miracle on the 34th Street and played perhaps her most famous role, that of Matilda Wormwood in Matilda. In the years since Wilson has made a conscious shift away from acting and focused on writing and storytelling. She released a memoir, Where Am I Now? True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame in 2016. She's also written plays, humor pieces, and magazine articles.
Wilson hasn't given up on acting entirely though; she still frequently does voiceover work for television.
Kyla Pratt had not one, not two, but threesignificant roles when she was a child. She played Maya Dolittle in the Doctor Dolittle movies, Breanna Barnes in the sitcom One on One, and she was the voice of Penny Proud in the animated series The Proud Family. And all three roles came before she turned 20.
Pratt is still a working actor, appearing mostly in television shows. She was a series regular on Recovery Road and has at least one pilot in the works as of 2019.
Haley Joel Osment played the young Forrest Gump in 1994. "That was the first official movie [I was in]. I was four when we shot it and five when it came out...I remember I learned to tie my shoe on that film set," he said in 2019. He would go on to earn an Oscar nomination at the age of 11 for his performance in The Sixth Sense. Since then, he's worked consistently in both television and films, mostly in supporting roles.
Osment has guest-starred on shows like Silicon Valley and the new X-Files. His recent film credits include Entourage, Almost Friends, and the Ted Bundy biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.
