Child Stars Who Vanished – And Then Came Back

The ups and downs of child stardom have been well documented over the decades. There have been those who've seamlessly transitioned from kid roles to adult fare, ranging from Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor to the transformation of Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe. Far more frequently, however, the journey of a child star is often viewed as a cautionary tale, as the inevitable passage of time transforms cutie-pie kids into awkward adolescents who watch their fame evaporate. Unprepared for so-called "normal" life, these former child stars can find themselves lost and rudderless, often spiraling out of control.

While examples of former kid actors whose lives took a tragic turn are ample, there are also those who walked away from Hollywood, only to return as adults to successfully restart their careers and going on to even greater fame than they'd experienced as kids. To find out more about his particular class of actors, keep on reading for a rundown of child stars who vanished — and then came back.

It's safe to say that Gaby Hoffmann didn't have a typical childhood, raised by her mother, Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann – known as Viva when she appeared in artist Andy Warhol's avant-garde movies — in Manhattan's famed Chelsea Hotel. "I grew up with artists and drag queens," Hoffmann recounted on NPR's "Fresh Air." "These were just my neighbors and friends and the people who are raising me."

Her mother brought her to auditions for TV commercials when she was just 4, and it wasn't long before she made her movie debut, playing the daughter of Kevin Costner's character in 1989's "Field of Dreams." Throughout the 1990s, she established a successful acting career, appearing in such films as "Sleepless in Seattle," "Uncle Buck," and others. "I had a lot of fun making movies when I was [a] kid, because making movies is fun, and being on a movie set is fun," she said.

Hoffmann quit acting to attend Bard College and didn't expect to ever do it again. "I always was planning on giving it up. I never set out to be an actor," she explained. She decided to retire, but fate intervened when she was unexpectedly presented with a movie role she found fascinating. Suddenly, the door to Hollywood she'd slammed shut was wide open, resulting in juicy roles in HBO's "Girls," the critically acclaimed TV series, "Transparent," and a whole new career she never envisioned. "I've been given all these fantastic opportunities," she marveled.

Miranda Cosgrove's career as a child actor exploded when she was cast in "School of Rock," which led to becoming a series regular on Nickelodeon's "Drake & Josh" before starring in her own hit show, "iCarly." When "iCarly" ended its six-season run in 2012, Cosgrove decided to step back from acting to attend college. She majored in film at the University of Southern California, the first time she'd set foot in a classroom since the fifth grade, receiving her education since then from on-set tutors.

"I'm getting in the groove and getting used to it and trying to figure college out," she told USA Today in 2012 when she was in her freshman year. "I definitely want to act," she said of her post-graduation plans. "That's why I want to major in film."

When she returned to acting after her years at USC, she felt as though her experience as a child actor had left her prepared for the pressures and vagaries of showbiz. "Now that I'm an adult, I feel like I learned a lot from growing up in this business," she observed to Today. After taking on grown-up roles in the 2015 thriller "The Intruders," and the TV sitcom "Crowded," she came full circle by starring in a revival of "iCarly" that premiered in 2021.

Freddie Highmore made a name for himself as a child actor in such films as "Finding Neverland," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and "Arthur and the Invisibles." His services were in high demand when he decided to push the pause button and go to college. "I think it was a necessary break," he told Australia's TV Week. "I didn't want to continue acting without it being an active decision to do so."

After separating himself from Hollywood, he had a whole new perspective when he returned to the business by playing a young version of "Psycho" maniac Norman Bates in the hit 2013 TV series, "Bates Motel." "I think the distance from it as well with school and university allows you to see the illusions or see through them more so than if that's your reality," Highmore explained in an interview with The Standard. Getting away from acting, he revealed, actually helped him to become a better actor when he resumed. "If your only experiences are growing up on sets then it gets to a point where you don't have anything to draw on in terms of real life experience to portray these characters," he said.

Highmore's success only grew greater with his next project, playing autistic physician Dr. Shaun Murphy on "The Good Doctor," which ran on ABC from 2017 until 2024. It didn't take him long to find his next big role, cast in Prime Video series "The Assassin."

Mayim Bialik experienced '90s sitcom stardom with the NBC comedy, "Blossom." As she explained in an episode of the PBS science series, "Nova," it was her biology tutor on "Blossom" who sparked her fascination with science, which ultimately led her to earn a PhD in neuroscience. "My plan when I was in graduate school was to be a research professor, but I was drawn to teaching," Bialik said. "But I also love acting, making people laugh." While she continued to take the occasional acting gig, it was clear where her focus lay. "I made a conscious decision to leave acting because I wanted to pursue a degree in neuroscience," she told Edge Magazine. "I took 12 years off, and I also had two children, so that became my main job in life."

Everything changed when she was cast in a guest spot on the mega-hit sitcom, "The Big Bang Theory," during its third season. That episode turned into multiple episodes, then becoming a series regular, and one of the highest-paid actors on television. "I wasn't planning on being a regular on a TV show again," she admitted. "But I'm very grateful that I'm employed now as an actor."

After the end of "The Big Bang Theory" in 2019, Bialik starred in her own sitcom, "Call Me Kat," from 2021 until 2023, and was then hired to rotate with "Jeopardy!" champ Ken Jennings as hosts of the iconic game show after the tragic death of longtime host Alex Trebek. In late 2023, she parted ways with "Jeopardy!"

Not every former child actor can boast of quitting the business, making a comeback 20 years later, and then winning an Oscar for it. Well, meet Ke Huy Quan, who hadn't acted in decades when he was cast in "Everything Everywhere All At Once" and took home an Academy Award for best supporting actor.

It was a stunning return for a guy whose biggest successes had come before hitting puberty, as pint-sized sidekick Short Round in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and Data from "The Goonies." "When you work with Steven Spielberg, and Harrison Ford, and George Lucas, you can't go anywhere but downhill from there — and that's exactly what happened," Quan joked during an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." Unable to find acting work, he began working behind the camera as a crew member on film and TV sets.

When he landed "Everything Everywhere All At Once," returning to a film set as an actor proved to be a heady experience. "I felt whatever that was missing all those years ... All of a sudden I felt like I was back where I needed to be," he told NPR's "Fresh Air". Quan's Oscar-fueled career resurgence continued with the TV series, "American Born Chinese," the Marvel Studios series, "Loki," and a starring role in the 2025 action-comedy "Love Hurts."

As a youngster, Danica McKellar's big break came when she was cast as Winnie Cooper in TV's "The Wonder Years," crush of series protagonist Kevin Arnold (played by Fred Savage, whose alleged behavior on the set of the show was troubling). After the series' end, McKellar stepped back from acting to attend UCLA, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in mathematics. She's written several books about math, aimed at children of various ages.

As McKellar explained in an interview with "ET," while at UCLA she found herself contending with her "Wonder Years" fame, which pushed her to see what she could achieve beyond acting. "I needed to find out how I was valuable outside of Winnie Cooper, and math was challenging and I did well at it," she explained. "And I love this feeling that my value, the important stuff had nothing to do with how I looked or television."

More recently, McKellar has juggled her dual roles as mathematician and actor, with McKellar becoming one of the most familiar faces on Hallmark Channel. After starring in numerous movies for the channel, she jumped ship to their upstart competitor network, Great American Family, in 2021.

As a child actor, Jodie Foster was among the most successful of her era, appearing on numerous TV series in the late 1960s and early '70s. She soon segued to the movies, playing an underage sex worker in "Taxi Driver," starring in the gangster musical, "Bugsy Malone," and headlining the Disney comedy, "Freaky Friday."

After starring in the 1980 films "Carny" and "Foxes," Foster shut down her acting career in order to attend Yale. She did do some non-professional acting, though, appearing in a Yale theatrical production, but would only grant interviews for features about the play, not just her. Bizarrely, while seeking privacy as a college student, she was thrust into the headlines when would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. attempted to murder then-President Ronald Reagan, claiming he did it in order to impress Foster (Hinckley had previously stalked Foster at Yale).

She resumed to her acting career after college, going on to huge success with her Oscar-winning role in the 1988 drama "The Accused." Further box-office success came with "Silence of the Lambs," "Nell," "Panic Room," and more, with Foster shifting into the director's chair for several TV series ("House of Cards," "Orange is the New Black") and the feature films, "Little Man Tate," "Home for the Holidays," and "Money Monster." In 2024, she won an Emmy for her role as an Alaska cop in HBO's "True Detective: Night Country."

British child actor Alfred Enoch made his screen debut at the age of 10 in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and continued to play Hogwarts student Dean Thomas in all the ensuing sequels. The son of British actor William Russell, the acting bug bit Enoch early on. "I always wanted to be an actor," he told Grazia. In another interview with The Guardian, he recalled feeling that because his father had experienced success as an actor, he could as well. "I felt I had the permission to have that goal," he explained.

Enoch took a break from his chosen career to attend Oxford. After graduating, he appeared on stage in London's West End and began auditioning for adult roles for the first time. He landed some guest spots on British TV series before being cast as a series regular in "How to Get Away with Murder," the ABC legal thriller from "Grey's Anatomy" creator Shonda Rhimes. He exited the show in 2016. Further acting projects have included the Apple TV+ series, "Foundation."

Tyler James Williams went from child actor to child star when he was cast in 2005's "Everybody Hates Chris," playing the kid version of comedian Chris Rock in the autobiographical sitcom about the comedian's childhood. The learning curve was steep. While he continued acting after the show ended in 2009, offers grew fewer and farther between. He feared he might become one of those child actors who are chewed up and spit out by Hollywood, never making it as an adult. He recalled the time a producer on "Everybody Hates Chris" told him (perhaps jokingly) that he couldn't envision him an another role, and he'd likely never land another acting job. "I was like, 'Holy s***, you really just looked at me and said that,'" Williams told GQ.

"I realized at 17 that I didn't like the road I was on," he added. "So I decided to stop and pivot." He hired an acting coach and hunkered down, turning down everything he was offered. When he felt ready and began auditioning again, he was a far stronger actor that he'd been before, evidenced by his performances in such TV series as "Dear White People," "The Walking Dead," and "Criminal Minds." In 2021, he joined the cast of critically acclaimed sitcom "Abbott Elementary," playing a schoolteacher in the TV comedy from series creator and star Quinta Brunson.

Anna Chlumsky landed her first starring role at age 10, playing Vada Sultenfuss opposite Macaulay Culkin in the sweet 1991 coming-of-age film, "My Girl," and then reprising the role in "My Girl 2." She continued being a sought-after child actor throughout the 1990s until making the conscious decision to slam on the brakes while attending college. "As a kid, you're just along for the ride, but it can be extremely damaging," she told People. "[In college] I had this out-of-body moment where I realized, 'I don't have to do this anymore.'"

So she quit acting, graduating from the University of Chicago, and remained away from showbiz for a solid decade. No longer acting, she entered the world of publishing, working as an editorial assistant at Harper Collins and serving as a fact-checker for Zagat's guidebooks. Living in New York City, she found herself being gradually lured back to the world she left behind.

"I was seeing a lot of Broadway, and I was inspired again ... I told myself I'd give it a year," she recalled of returning to acting, but quickly backed off of that timeline. "I realized, 'I'm not giving this a year. I freaking love it. I'm giving this the rest of my life.'" She began putting herself out there, getting cast in TV series such as "White Collar" and "Army Wives," before landing the "life-changing" role of Amy Brookheimer, chief of staff to Vice President Selena Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in HBO's critically acclaimed comedy "Veep."

Cole Sprouse and brother Dylan had been acting professionally since they were toddlers, going on to Disney Channel stardom as teens in "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody." The brothers then pulled away and went to college. "Dylan and I made the conscious decision to distance ourselves from the industry quite a bit," he told Teen Vogue, revealing that his major was archeology.

After graduation, Sprouse decided to resume the acting career he'd paused; however, he didn't want to belabor it, giving himself a tight deadline and vowing to quit altogether if it didn't work out. "I went over to California from New York for a single week and I told my manager, 'If I don't book anything this pilot season, I'm never coming back to this!'" he told Wonderland.

It was during this make-or-break week that he was cast as Jughead Jones in "Riverdale," the dark drama inspired by the "Archie" comics. "I just pulled the trigger on it and said, 'Alright, f*** it, let's see how it goes.'" It went great; Sprouse became a fan favorite on the hit show, which restarted his acting career and led to starring roles in such films as "Moonshot," "Five Feet Apart," and "Lisa Frankenstein."

Mara Wilson had an amazing run as a child actor during the 1990s, including the films "Mrs. Doubtfire" (her first screen credit), "Miracle on 34th Street," and "Matilda." During that period, however, she lost her mother to breast cancer, an experience that infused her fame with tragedy. "I don't think you can be a child star without there being some kind of lasting damage," she admitted in an interview with The Guardian.

Meanwhile, as puberty approached, she found the opportunities that had once been so plentiful began dwindling by the time she turned 12. Hollywood, she said, "was kind of done with me." The trauma of that early rejection has continued to haunt her. "It affected me for a very long time because I had this Hollywood idea that if you're not cute any more, if you're not beautiful, then you are worthless," she said.

Rather than return to an industry she felt was no longer interested in her, Wilson instead leaned into some others, becoming a writer and voice actor on audiobooks and podcasts, ventures she can embrace on her own terms. "I defined myself for so long by the media's terms, by Hollywood's terms," she said, "instead of defining myself by my own goals, my own relationships, my own life."