Former Child Actors Who Forgot The Movies And Shows They Were In
How old were you when you got your first job? You probably remember it, at least vaguely, right? And you probably didn't have millions of people watching you do that job, correct? And you definitely weren't doing that job side-by-side with famous professionals of the industry, yeah?
Child actors have to grow up fast. Balancing full-time schooling with a real job at such a young age, on top of growing up in the public eye, is a lot for young stars to take on. Some of them begin acting when they've only just begun to talk, sometimes even before that. That's a lot of pressure! They all take their own path forward, whether continuing acting or choosing to stay out of the spotlight as they grow older.
Some celebrities who were formerly child actors (and former child actors who have since left showbiz behind) got their start so young that they don't remember some of their most famous onscreen roles. Here's a look at some child stars who grew up and forgot the movies and shows they were in.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Full House
While twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen certainly remember their shared role as Michelle Tanner on "Full House" (memories they reaffirmed when they paid tribute to their late co-star Bob Saget), in 2010 they told Ellen DeGeneres that when it comes to some of the show's earliest years, it's hard for them to decipher the difference between "memories and old footage."
Anyone whose parents chronicled their childhood on home movies can probably relate. Are some of your earliest memories actually memories, or do you only think you remember them because the moments were captured on video?
Perhaps we'll never know, but seeing as the Olsen twins were less than a year old when they started their eight-season run on "Full House," it's safe to say they probably don't remember most of the earlier seasons and that some of their first memories are centered around their life on the show.
Elizabeth Olsen, The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley: The Case of Thorn Mansion
Speaking of the Olsen twins, their sister Elizabeth has had an incredible career of her own. Marvel fans know her as Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch, in projects like "WandaVision" and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness."
Long before becoming a superhero, though, Elizabeth Olsen appeared in videos with her sisters. The twins released a line of VHS tapes under the banner of "The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley," which involved solving mysteries and singing songs. The song "B-U-T-T Out" on one of the videos, "The Case Of Thorn Mansion," is all about how they want their sister "Lizzie" to stop bothering them. Mary-Kate and Ashley sing, "We'd rather be picked up by a twister than tagged along after by a sister" while a frowning Elizabeth is left in the dust. Ouch! When Jimmy Fallon played a clip from the song on "The Tonight Show" in 2018, Olsen shared that she's seen the video before, but she has no memory of filming it. "I know it, I've seen it," she told Fallon. "But the actual experience of doing it I don't remember so much."
Zac Efron, High School Musical
Zac Efron rose to superstardom playing Troy Bolton, East High's top basketball star/theater prodigy in "High School Musical." Efron technically remembers filming the classic Disney Channel Original Movie when he was a teenager in 2006, but he didn't remember one of its most famous songs in 2015.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan UK while promoting the film "We Are Your Friends," Efron played a game in which he had to guess songs by only hearing their opening notes. One of the songs was "Breaking Free," the duet sung by Efron's Troy and Vanessa Hudgens's Gabriella when they audition for the school musical. Efron quickly identified the movie, saying, "That's 'High School Musical'" almost immediately. The song name? Not so much. As the tune continued, his first guess was "Soaring Flying," an admirable swing considering those words are central to the song's chorus. His second guess, "Take a Chance," was somewhat connected, those words being part of the lyrics to the film's other Troy/Gabriella duet, "The Start of Something New." It wasn't until the words "Breaking Free" were sung aloud that Efron finally guessed the correct answer, lightheartedly quipping in his defense, "There's a lot! There's three movies of songs!"
Raven-Symoné, The Cosby Show
No one ruled 2000s-era Disney like Raven-Symoné. She's known to many for starring in the first two "Cheetah Girls" movies on Disney Channel and playing Raven Baxter, the hilarious psychic in the network's sitcom "That's So Raven." A little show called "Kim Possible"? She had a regular voice role on the series. "The Princess Diaries 2"? She sang in it with Dame Julie Andrews herself. The "Zenon" movies? She was in those, too. The computer-animated "Tinker Bell" DVDs? Seven of them. Few compare to Symoné, and in more recent years, she returned to Disney Channel to reprise her role as Raven Baxter in a sequel series to "That's So Raven" called "Raven's Home."
Before she became a superstar, Symoné had a recurring role as a preschooler on "The Cosby Show" beginning in 1989 and continuing through 1992. While she remembers some of the atmosphere surrounding the production, filming the sitcom itself is something she has no memory of. In talking with TV One in 2021, Symoné went into detail about the dissociation she experienced as a young actor. She remembers some visual details of the set of "The Cosby Show," like the wood on the staircase, but doesn't remember anything about filming. "I just black out," she explained. "I turn into who I'm supposed to be when the camera's on, and then I come back to when normal life resumes." It's something she started going to therapy for when she turned 18.
Eli Fucile, The Incredibles
Child acting is one thing. Child voice acting is something else entirely. How do you get someone who is just learning about everything in the world to understand the concept of making a movie, much less getting in a recording booth and pretending to be someone else? The answer is ... maybe you don't.
Pixar animator Tony Fucile had an infant son, Eli, when "The Incredibles" was in production prior to its 2004 release. Speaking to AP, he shared that he noticed Eli making "wacky" noises that might make the perfect voice for Jack-Jack Parr, the super-powered baby in the movie.
Fucile shared his discovery with director Brad Bird, but rather than bringing Eli in for a visit to Pixar, the magic of moviemaking came right to him. Bird sent Fucile home with audio equipment and gave him a quick crash course in how to best capture sound. When baby Eli woke up from his nap, his dad and mom recorded his antics, which became the voice work used in the film.
Reflecting to AP, Eli said, "I didn't really understand it when I was younger. But as time went by, I realized, 'Wow, I was actually in a pretty good movie.'"
Even crazier? They recorded enough footage that the audio from that same day was used 14 years later for "Incredibles 2" in 2018, so as to preserve Jack-Jack's voice. Tony Fucile, still with Pixar, again got to bring the character to life as an animator.
Lisa Blair and Michelle Blair Ontonovich, Three Men and a Baby
It's common in Hollywood for a young character to be played by real-life twins, as was famously the case with Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. That was also what happened when Lisa Blair and Michelle Blair Ontonovich together starred as baby Mary in "Three Men and a Baby" in 1987 when they were just four months old.
The twin sisters appeared on "TODAY" in 2014, sharing that Lisa now works in customer service and Michelle in insurance. Michelle said, "At first, when we were little, it wasn't a big deal to us at all. I think it was when we became teenagers, people started coming up to us a lot more." They got the part after their mom took them to a casting call while she was on maternity leave, thinking the role was just one scene.
It's a pretty unique circumstance to consider. Imagine living a "normal" life with no memory of an acting career when you were barely out of the womb, and seeing footage of yourself alongside Hollywood stars Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson. That's gotta be bizarre, but what a flex.
Sofia Coppola, The Godfather
Actor and filmmaker Sofia Coppola has had a distinguished career in front of and behind the camera, including directing "Marie Antoinette" in 2006. You may know that she played Mary in "The Godfather: Part III" in 1990, but did you know she began her career as a child actor in the original "Godfather" in 1972? Yep, that's baby Sofia Coppola as Michael, son of Connie and Carlo, in the first entry in the movie series. Two years later, Coppola played yet another child in the follow-up, "The Godfather: Part II," meaning she portrayed three different characters in all three movies spanning a period of 18 years.
There's a simple explanation for what might seem like a wild series of circumstances: Sofia's father, Francis Ford Coppola, directed the trilogy. How many actors can say they were in every chapter of a movie series, each time playing a different character, and the first two they don't remember because they were too young to retain the memory of it?
While she may not remember her first onscreen gig, in 2020 Coppola said of "Part III," "I was at the age of trying anything. I just jumped into it without thinking much about it."