Whatever Happened To The Lavagirl Actress, Taylor Dooley?
In 2005, several years before the launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, young audiences already had an iconic pair of superheroes to look up to: Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner) and Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley). Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D" followed this duo and bullied student Max (Cayden Boyd), who must help save his friends' home on Planet Drool from Mr. Electric (George Lopez).
For Dooley, portraying Lavagirl — and donning the character's vibrant pink hair and ensemble — was her first major Hollywood film experience. And thanks to the supportive atmosphere created by Rodriguez on set, it was an extremely positive one. However, Dooley quickly learned that this isn't always the case, and that some industry experiences can result in nearly a lifetime of trauma.
Though Dooley has appeared in projects as an adult, including a 2020 legacy sequel to "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl," she stepped away from the spotlight for some time. In fact, she's now extremely vocal about the dark side of Hollywood and how it can negatively impact individuals trying to maintain their faith. Read on to learn about everything that happened to Dooley following her 2005 film debut.
Her time filming Monster Night was traumatic
After "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl," it didn't take long for Taylor Dooley to snag her next role as Dana Ackerman in the 2006 National Lampoon flick "Monster Night." She was about 12 at the time, fresh off the set of "Sharkboy and Lavagirl" and under the assumption that every acting job would boast a similar, positive atmosphere. It didn't take long for Dooley to become less naive.
"We had to call [the Screen Actors Guild] a few times. It was a very abusive set," she revealed on the "Vulnerable" podcast. Dooley recalled being forced to climb two stories on a flimsy, handmade ladder without any sort of harness. If she didn't, she'd lose her job. "I ended up being so terrified, and every time I went up more, my mom was just down there like, 'She needs to get down.' They were arguing. One of the producers had someone holding my mom back," said Dooley.
According to Dooley, her "Monster Night" co-star Matthew Lawrence was usually the one to call SAG, but not much was done to rectify anything. "The director/producer who was kind of the maniac of the whole situation just kind of got a smack on the wrist and that was it, and we were back doing the next thing the next day," Dooley said, adding, "It was a lot of weird trauma that I didn't understand at the time because you're a kid."
Her mom insisted she step away from the spotlight
Despite her toxic experience on the set of "Monster Night," Taylor Dooley was willing to keep advancing her career as an actress. Still, this was easier said than done. Dooley kept hearing the word "no" for a plethora of reasons that had nothing to do with her talents. She was too pretty or not pretty enough, too young-looking, too skinny, etc. Ultimately, Dooley ended up internalizing these critiques so heavily that she became a completely different person from the bubbly, confident girl who auditioned for "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl."
"My mom eventually saw the trauma that it was taking on me as a teenager and said, 'I'm done, and when you're an adult, you can figure it out. But I'm not gonna watch my daughter go through it.' I had an eating disorder. I was a shell of a person," Dooley said on "Vulnerable."
At the insistence of her mother, Dooley attended high school and tried to live as a normal teenager, but this proved difficult. Mental health was not a widely-discussed topic at the time, and Dooley continued to suffer, just in a different setting. She said, "You start to pick your own self apart, and it's such a negative way to grow up, that it does end up affecting a lot of your life if you don't recognize the trauma that's there and try to heal from that."
She endured a mentally abusive marriage
After feeling like she was never good enough due to constant rejection as an actress, Taylor Dooley met Justin Cassotta who, seemingly at first, fell head over heels for her exactly as she was. Despite a 11-year age gap between the two (Dooley was 19, Cassotta 30), they tied the knot in 2016 and welcomed two children. However, the relationship was mentally and emotionally abusive for Dooley, who shared on "Vulnerable" that she was often gaslighted by Cassotta.
Whenever Dooley tried to tell Cassotta that he couldn't yell at her, he made her question her mental sanity. "I'd go, 'Well, I'm not crazy, this actually happened.' He'd go, 'No, I didn't say that. You took it that way because you have issues,' and I'd go, 'Oh, okay,'" Dooley said, adding that all of this felt normal because of what she went through in the business as a kid.
Things began to change after Dooley became a mother, as she worried how Cassotta would be around the kids. Dooley suggested they attend therapy, but her husband wasn't having it. "He said, 'You're crazy and everything you're saying is a lie and I'm leaving.'" It was a difficult time for Dooley, who still thought that they could make it work. Yet after some time, she realized how abusive her relationship truly was, and that a divorce in 2021 was for the best.
Hell Mountain was her first post-hiatus project
Following her traumatic time on the set of "Monster Night," Taylor Dooley had a minor role in the 2006 film "Whitepaddy" and a Season 5 episode of "House" before embarking on a lengthy hiatus from the industry. Her break ended in 2017, when she starred as Eden in the horror flick "Hell Mountain." Directed and written by Jesse Pomeroy, the movie centers on an abandoned house and its eerie secrets, which a young reporter is on a mission to discover.
Despite its low budget, "Hell Mountain" secured some decent reviews from viewers, including IMDb user kay_rock, who gave it 7 out of 10 stars and said, "I was actually in a bit of a mood when I hit play, expecting to see more garbage. Instead I was sucked into an actual plot. A story. Not even just a simple straightforward story, but a story with some nice complexities."
Unfortunately for Dooley, some shared the opinion that her acting in "Hell Mountain" left something to be desired. For example, IMDb user hcampbell-70473, who enjoyed the movie for the most part and gave it 8 out of 10 stars, said, "It has its issues — time away from a film set has had a definite negative impact on Taylor Dooley..."
She returned as Lavagirl in We Can Be Heroes
During her first marriage, Taylor Dooley's efforts to get back into acting were repressed. She said on the "Vulnerable" podcast, "I wasn't allowed to. It sounds terrible. It was only certain things I was allowed to do, and that was not one of them." However, she put her foot down when Robert Rodriguez called and asked her to reprise the character of Lavagirl in "We Can Be Heroes," a Netflix legacy sequel to her 2005 film debut that introduced the next generation of superheroes.
At the time, Dooley's daughter was 4 months old and still nursing, so she was nervous about being able to once again sport Lavagirl's iconic hot pink jumpsuit. Still, the pros — including a reunion with the majority of the crew from "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl" — outweighed the cons, and Dooley flew to Austin, Texas to film in 2019. "When this came about 15 years later, it was a complete surprise and just a beautiful blessing to be able to say Lavagirl started my career and she's kind of helping me restart my career, which is just the coolest," Dooley told HollywoodLife.
"We Can Be Heroes," released in 2020, received largely positive reviews from critics, who praised it for being an excellent movie for kids. Mike McGranaghan of The Aisle Seat wrote, "Charming and entertaining. I'd have lost my mind over this movie when I was ten."
Taylor Dooley and her daughter inspire each other
The fact that they have a superhero mother isn't lost on Taylor Dooley's two children, Adaline Joan Cassotta and Jack Alexander Cassotta. She revealed on "Vulnerable" that both kids are obsessed with "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl," with Adaline wanting to have her hair dyed hot pink. While Dooley (and her on-screen alter ego) serves as a role model for her daughter, Adaline also has no trouble saying what's on her mind and is inspiring Dooley to remember what she was like before the entertainment industry broke her down.
"I'll go, 'Where does she get that from?' And my mom will look at me and go, 'That was you.' And I'm like, 'No, I'm more timid. I don't speak my mind.' My mom's like, 'The business did that to you. You were never that person,'" said Dooley, who reflected on one instance in the third grade when she called out her teacher for bullying a special needs student. Dooley's goal is to prevent Adaline from having her spark dimmed and voice silenced like hers was so long ago.
She participated in an anti-Disney protest
Taylor Dooley attended a rally outside Disney headquarters in Burbank, California in April 2022 to protest the company's denouncement of Florida governor Ron DeSantis' newly-signed Parental Rights in Education Act. According to DeSantis (via NBC News), this legislation, often referred to as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, "prohibits classroom instruction about sexuality or things like 'transgender' in K through three classrooms."
Soon after the bill's signing, Disney tweeted its support for the LGBTQ+ community and expressed the belief that the legislation should be repealed. This, in turn, resulted in an online petition by Sean Feucht, a father and founder of Hold the Line, which he described as an activist movement to urge Americans to stand for biblical values.
After the petition garnered 20,000 signatures, Feucht organized the rally, which was attended by a few hundred people. Dooley took to social media (via Newsweek) to spread word of the event: "Come to Burbank. Let's protect our children. Let's protect the next generation. In Jesus' mighty name, it's time to stand up for what is right ... it's time to take back the family."
She receives backlash for being a Christian conservative
Taylor Dooley may have grown up in a Christian family, but it wasn't until adulthood that she made the decision to fully embrace her faith, as well as conservative values, and be vocal about it. In fact, she credits the Hold the Line rally in Burbank as her "coming out" party to inform the world about her stance on certain issues, a move that her liberal fans weren't thrilled about. "Apparently, people were appalled. I ruined their childhood," Dooley told SmithBros. "And the very next day, I got a call from my agent and manager and they dropped me. They were like, 'We love you and we respect you, but we just can't be associated with that.'"
In addition to the rally, Dooley received backlash — and threats against her daughter — for applauding the overturning of Roe v. Wade. "Oh my gosh, did I make people so angry! The craziest thing was, just the amount of hate from people that are supposedly so loving and wonderful and they're the tolerant ones," she said, adding, "This is how I feel. I'm not backing down. You're not gonna bully me into submission, I'm not gonna do that."
Fans also noticed and critiqued Dooley's support of former president Donald Trump based on her social media activity. Dooley liked a few pro-Trump posts, as well as some favoring Back The Blue and QAnon conspiracy theories.
She's vocal about the darkness of Hollywood
In her interview with SmithBros, Taylor Dooley expressed her belief that the devil has a firm grasp on the entertainment industry, especially Hollywood. According to her, young stars are often put in uncomfortable situations by executives and other people in power, who she said target those with parents who aren't paying attention.
She reflected on old friends who, at the age of 13, had to meet with a dozen grown men in a room to discuss a show, or speak with a director one-on-one at his house, while their parent was asked to wait outside. "They groom you to think that it's okay," she said. "They tell you that you gotta do this because don't you wanna be an actor?" She added, "They come back never the same. It's very sad, and you wonder why child stars end up so off the rails because how do you process that?"
Luckily for Dooley, aside from the trauma felt due to rejection and toxic sets, her mother made sure she wasn't put in these difficult situations. But as an adult making her way back into the industry, she remains on high alert because this dangerous power dynamic isn't necessarily limited to kids. Dooley said, "If you think that Harvey [Weinstein] was the only one doing that and now that he's gone, that's not in Hollywood anymore, then you're not paying attention because that's all that Hollywood is, really. It's a pay or play type of thing."
She tied the knot with Nicholas Poppin
In January 2022, Taylor Dooley took to Instagram to introduce a new man in her life: Nicholas Poppin, a music professional with skills in guitar, mixing and mastering. Dooley revealed in her post that Poppin shares her religious values, loves her (and the scars from her first marriage) unconditionally, and welcomed her kids into his life as if they were his own. "Every once in awhile...something sneaks up on you, takes you by surprise. And you, my love, are that thing ... the beautiful rainbow at the end of a storm, my gorgeous second chance," she said.
The couple got engaged in San Clemente, California in June 2023, with Dooley's little ones by her side, and tied the knot during a beach ceremony two months later. When she shared snaps from the momentous day on Instagram, she was flooded with good wishes. @bay_prov08 commented, "Absolutely stunning. I can't get over your wedding dress. It's so beautiful. I'm so happy for you both. Congratulations," while @ghirardimatthew simply said, "Congrats Lava girl." Though Dooley has always posted photos of herself with her kids, her shots now feature an additional member of the happy family.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse or needs help with an eating disorder, contact the relevant resources below:
- Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
- Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).