9 former child stars who found success outside Hollywood

Louis PeitzmanTue, June 30, 2026 at 4:00 PM UTC

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Kay Panabaker on 'Summerland'; Danny Lloyd in 'The Shining'; Charlie Korsmo in 'Dick Tracy'Credit: Everett(3)

Some of Hollywood’s biggest names began their onscreen careers as children. Drew Barrymore debuted in Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) at age 6 before transitioning to adult roles and daytime TV. And while Ron Howard starred on The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days, he’s best known these days for being the Oscar-winning director behind films like Apollo 13 (1995) and A Beautiful Mind (2001).

But child stars don’t always stay in the business. Many get pigeonholed due to their work as kids and struggle to find jobs as they get older. Others simply decide that acting isn’t a passion they want to keep pursuing. Youthful brushes with fame can be exciting, but also overwhelming — and not necessarily sustainable. While Who’s the Boss star Danny Pintauro has continued to act over the years, he recently revealed his side gig as an Amazon delivery driver to pay the bills.

Even Shirley Temple, one of the most famous child stars of all time, pivoted careers. Unsatisfied with the kinds of parts she was being offered as an adult, she retired from acting at 22. Temple went on to become a U.S. ambassador, and maintained her diplomatic career for decades.

She’s just one notable example, however. There are countless former child actors who have embraced offscreen careers. With that in mind, we’ve rounded up nine child stars who pursued careers outside the entertainment industry. Read on to learn about what they’re doing now.

01 of 09

Ross Bagley

Ross Bagley in 'The Little Rascals'Credit: Universal

Ross Bagley is best remembered as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's Nicky Banks, a role he first took on at just 5 years old. He also had a couple of notable film roles, as Buckwheat in The Little Rascals (1994) and Dylan in Independence Day (1996).

But aside from a few scattered TV appearances in the subsequent years, Bagley mostly stopped acting. His only credits after the ‘90s are a 2004 episode of Judging Amy and the low-budget 2015 thrillers Gnome Alone and Dead Ringer.

So, why did Bagley quit? “I wanted to live a more normal type of life,” he said in a 2020 appearance on theHip Hop Uncensored podcast. “At the height of The Fresh Prince, I would be getting chased out of malls — the whole nine. I live a relatively under-the-radar life and generally, that’s kind of how I am; I’m more laid back and reserved.”

Bagley’s under-the-radar life now includes his work as a realtor in Los Angeles, though he’s also a DJ.

02 of 09

Jeff Cohen

Jeff Cohen in 'The Goonies'Credit: Warner Bros.

A child actor-turned-lawyer, Jeff Cohen is known to ‘80s kids everywhere as Chunk in The Goonies (1985). And like many others on the list, his acting career was short-lived.

“When I hit puberty, it was a career ender for me. I was transforming from Chunk to hunk and I couldn’t get roles any more,” Cohen told the Daily Mail in 2015. “It was a forced retirement. I didn't give up acting. Acting gave me up.”

Thankfully, Cohen has managed to remain in the industry, even if he stays offscreen these days. With an interest in pursuing the business side of moviemaking, he attended law school and became an entertainment lawyer. He is a founding partner of the Beverly Hills-based firm Cohen Gardner Law.

As a lawyer, Cohen has stayed connected to at least one of his childhood costars. In 2023, Ke Huy Quan — who played Data in The Goonies — revealed that Cohen had helped him secure his deal for Everything Everywhere All at Once. “When the producer of our movie was trying to make my deal, he said he never imagined that he’d have to talk to Chunk and Data for his movie,” Quan said as part of The Hollywood Reporter’s Actor Roundtable in 2023.

When Quan won Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards, he made sure to thank “my Goonies brother for life, Jeff Cohen.”

03 of 09

Carrie Henn

Carrie Henn with Sigourney Weaver in 'Aliens'Credit: 20th Century Fox

Carrie Henn had no acting experience when she was cast in James Cameron's Aliens (1986) as Newt, the orphaned young girl Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley protects throughout the sequel. She is the heart of the movie, and such a memorable presence that fans are still not over the fact that — spoiler alert — she's revealed to be dead at the beginning of Alien 3 (1992).

At the time, Henn was based in the U.K., where her father was stationed. After Aliens, he was transferred to California, which could have allowed Henn to continue acting. She chose another path instead.

“I ultimately wanted to be a normal child,” she revealed in a 2019 interview on the Alien vs. Predator Galaxy podcast. “I just wanted to assimilate into American life and make friends. It was difficult at first because I was obviously different; not only had I been in a major movie, but I also had an English accent. I just pushed forward with my normal life and eventually got my education to become a teacher.”

Henn stressed in a 2016 Tulsa World interview that she had an “amazing experience” making Aliens, and that she’d consider acting again. “But it wasn’t my passion,” she noted. “Teaching was.”

Nevertheless, the former child star has stayed connected to Aliens over the years, regularly appearing at fan conventions, walking red carpets, and speaking fondly about her time on LV-426.

04 of 09

Charlie Korsmo

Charlie Korsmo in 'Dick Tracy'Credit: Warner Bros.

Despite making a memorable impression in films like Dick Tracy (1990) and Hook (1991), Charlie Korsmo’s acting career only really spanned those two years. During that time, he appeared in Men Don’t Leave (1990), What About Bob? (1991), and The Doctor (1991).

As it turns out, Korsmo wasn’t exactly bitten by the acting bug, which explains his brief filmography. He was inspired to perform after attending a taping of Punky Brewster and thinking it looked easy enough. “I mostly wanted to get out of school and make enough money to buy a Nintendo,” Korsmo said in a 2014 interview with the Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) Newsroom. “I never saw acting as a lifelong career ambition.”

Korsmo did dip back into acting briefly, appearing in the film Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) while attending MIT. “The same reason I got into it in the first place, which was to get out of school, started to seem like a nice thing again after a couple of semesters studying physics,” he told PEOPLE in 2018.

After MIT, Korsmo went to Yale Law School. He now works as a law professor at CWRU. But he still finds time for the occasional onscreen appearance, like his cameo in A Different Man (2024).

05 of 09

Danny Lloyd

Danny Lloyd with Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'Credit: Warner Bros.

Being a young actor in a horror movie can be a stressful experience — particularly when you’re only 6. Danny Lloyd, who starred as Danny Torrance in The Shining (1980), had to play scenes of pure terror in the iconic Stanley Kubrick film. Nevertheless, in the rare interviews he’s granted in the decades since, Lloyd is quick to note that it wasn’t a bad experience.

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“I look back on it fondly,” he told The Guardian in 2017. “What happened to me was I didn’t really do much else after the film. So you kind of have to lay low and live a normal life.”

There’s no real mystery behind Lloyd’s disappearance. The former actor appeared in one TV movie after doing The Shining, Will: G. Gordon Liddy (1982), but it wasn’t for lack of trying. He explained that he continued to audition for a few years before giving up at 13 or 14.

“I always enjoyed [acting]. It was exciting,” he shared with The Guardian. “But as I got a little bit older, it got kind of boring. Then I had to tell my parents that I was ready to quit. Which they were fine with. They were never stage parents. They made sure I had a normal upbringing.”

Since 2004, Lloyd — who goes by Dan now instead of Danny — has been an associate biology professor at a community college in Kentucky. Most of his students don’t recognize him from The Shining, but they might have spotted his cameo in its 2019 sequel, Doctor Sleep.

06 of 09

Ross Malinger

Ross Malinger in 'Sleepless in Seattle'Credit: Tri-Star Pictures

What would Sleepless in Seattle (1993) be without Jonah, the scamp who coordinates a meet-cute between his dad, Sam (Tom Hanks), and Annie (Meg Ryan)? Jonah was played by Ross Malinger, a child actor who also appeared in Kindergarten Cop (1990) and Bye Bye Love (1995), and on shows like Roseanne and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Malinger continued to work throughout the ‘90s, and largely transitioned to voiceover work toward the end of his acting career. His last credit is a 2006 episode of Without a Trace. But decades after he left the business, he’s still getting recognized.

“Everywhere I go, people are always telling me that I look familiar,” Malinger told EW in a 2025 interview. Speaking about his relationship with Hanks, the former actor shared, “We genuinely cared about each other. That natural chemistry allowed me to really bring a lot of intensity and emotion to Jonah’s character.”

In his civilian life, Malinger has turned his passion for cars into a career. He worked as a restorer of classic cars, and now serves as a finance manager for a car dealership.

07 of 09

Bridgit Mendler

Bridgit Mendler on 'Good Luck, Charlie'Credit: ABC/Getty

A list of the most successful child stars would surely include actors like Jodie Foster and Kieran Culkin, but there’s plenty of success to be found outside of the entertainment industry. Just ask Bridgit Mendler, who went from Disney Channel star to tech CEO.

Mendler got her start on Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place before taking a starring role on the network's Good Luck Charlie. She also spent the 2010s recording music and touring. Though she did continue acting as an adult, including on the series Undateable and Nashville, she’s since left acting behind. Her last role was the Dennis Quaid-led Netflix sitcom Merry Happy Whatever.

These days, Mendler seems a little too busy to be acting. She decided to pursue a career in tech because, as she explained in a 2024 Hero interview with her Lemonade Mouth costar Naomi Scott, “I started to feel a bit of that disconnect with what I was doing in my day-to-day, in entertainment and started to put out feelers into more of the research domain.”

In 2024, after graduating from Harvard Law School, Mendler co-founded Northwood Space with her husband, aerospace engineer Griffin Cleverly. The startup is designed to improve communication from satellites. But while it might seem like her past as a child actor has no bearing on her current career, Mendler has drawn a link between the two.

“There were times when, you know, I would be filming a TV show… 12 hours each day during the week, and then going to the studio after, and then doing concerts on the weekends,” she told The Free Press in a March 2026 interview. “So, in terms of, like, work ethic, it was a very formative time for me.”

08 of 09

Peter Ostrum

Peter Ostrum in 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'Credit: Everett

Peter Ostrum only has one credit to his name: playing Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). But the enduring love for the movie — revitalized over the years with more recent adaptations like Wonka (2023) — means that Ostrum has not been forgotten.

At the time of the film’s release, however, he wasn’t exactly catapulted to stardom, as the movie was not an instant success. “There was a little bit of fanfare but not much and the film died a quiet death,” Ostrum told the Daily Mirror in a 2018 interview. “It wasn’t until video 10 years later that it resurfaced and it took on a life of its own.”

Despite the fact that Ostrum was offered a three-film deal, he opted to leave acting behind, in part because he had missed home while filming. “I enjoyed ­doing it but I couldn’t ­really see myself doing it for the rest of my life,” he said.

Now, Ostrum lives a life far outside of Hollywood. He works as a veterinarian in New York state, where he specializes in large animals. He doesn’t shy away from talking about his past, though, appearing at fan conventions and occasionally reuniting with the Willy Wonka cast.

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09 of 09

Kay Panabaker

Kay Panabaker on 'Summerland'Credit: The WB

You couldn’t watch the Disney Channel in the 2000s without seeing Kay Panabaker, who had a recurring role on Phil of the Future and starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Read It and Weep (2006). Panabaker had a fairly prolific child acting career across the decade, also appearing on shows like Angel, Medium, and CSI.

Her last starring TV role was on the superhero series No Ordinary Family, which concluded in 2011. Shortly after that, she provided a voice for Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva la Fiesta! (2012), and then never acted again.

“I no longer had that love, that passion,” Panabaker explained in a 2016 interview with Naperville magazine. Without naming the series, she shared that she had a negative experience on the last show she worked on, including a producer telling her she needed to lose weight, despite the fact that she wasn’t even 100 pounds at the time.

The show ended when Panabaker was 21, and she ended up going back to school and entering an 18-month animal program, which led her back to the Disney family. She took a job working as an associate animal keeper at Disney World.

“Looking back, finding my true passion was worth all of the extra time,” Panabaker told Naperville magazine. “I get recognized from time to time at work, and the one thing I always impart on people is: life is short. You have to love your job because you spend so much time there.”

on Entertainment Weekly

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