What Mike Teavee From Charlie And The Chocolate Factory Looks Like Now

Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first turned into a classic children's movie starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in 1971. In 2005, director and auteur Tim Burton re-imagined the book in a new film version. This time Burton's long-time collaborator Johnny Depp played the reclusive Wonka who welcomed five children into his candy factory after they each received a golden ticket.

Not everyone was on board with Burton remaking the '71 film, including the original Wonka. As covered by Consequence Film, Wilder called the remake "an insult" during an interview with 92nd Street Y. Depp admittedly pulled from a wide-range of influences to find his style for playing the fictional candy magnate. To come up with his version of Wonka, Depp envisioned how a certain former president would act under the influence. "I imagined what George Bush would be like incredibly stoned," he said on The Ellen Degeneres Show (via The Hollywood Reporter) in 2012. "And, thus was born my version of Willy Wonka."

Working on the set of the updated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was much different than the child actors expected. For Freddie Highmore, who played Charlie Bucket, he was surprised to see Burton use practical sets for a chocolate waterfall and river. "I thought we'd be walking around on these green screens all the time," he told the New York Post in 2005.

Keep reading to see what the kid who played Mike Teavee had to say about working on the film.

One of the children invited into Willy Wonka's candy kingdom in 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was Mike Teavee, a snarky TV-obsessed youngster. Teavee was played by actor Jordan Fry.

Following the release of the film in 2005, the New York Post asked Fry how he was able to contort his face to make the hilarious facial gestures for his character. "Basically it's just human nature to give nasty looks, it wasn't that hard," a young Fry told the outlet. "The eyebrow one I've been practicing for a while — not to my parents though." In the film, Teavee is different from the other kids visiting the factory because he is disinterested in sweets. "I played the kid that didn't care about candy ... I was just destroying things," Fry said. The actor told the publication that he enjoyed the destruction he was allowed to cause on set.

According to his IMDb profile, Fry is originally from Spokane, Washington. Besides his role as Teavee, the actor appeared in 2006's Raising Flagg which starred Alan Arkin. Fry also did the voice of Lewis for Disney's Meet the Robinsons. He had a small part in the Amanda Seyfried thriller Gone, and had a role in the drama Big Life which completed production in February 2021.

The actor keeps fans updated on his day-to-day life through his Instagram account where he even occasionally posts Charlie and the Chocolate Factory throwbacks.