12 Child Stars Now: Short Round’s Oscar and Macaulay Culkin’s Walk of Fame Star

Ke Huy Quan was 12 when he was cast as Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and a year later he played Data in The Goonies. Then he quit acting, because there weren’t many substantial film roles for Asian actors, and he didn’t act again until Everything Everywhere All at Once.

In March 2023, that role won him the Oscar for best supporting actor. He got the night’s first standing ovation and called out to his mother, who was watching at home: “Mom, I just won an Oscar!”

Kieran Culkin made his film debut as a small child next to his older brother Macaulay, as cousin Fuller in Home Alone (1990). Decades later he played Roman Roy in Succession and won the 2024 Emmy for best actor in a drama.

In March 2025 he won the Oscar for best supporting actor for A Real Pain. On stage, he reminded his wife, Jazz Charton, of a promise she had made him after the Emmys about having more kids: “She said, ‘I will give you four when you win an Oscar.’”

Christina Ricci was 10 when she made her film debut in Mermaids (1990). A year later she played Wednesday in The Addams Family, and in 1995 she starred in Casper.

On March 6, 2025, she got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 35 years after that first film. “This is profoundly meaningful to me,” she told Variety. “I’m not sentimental and I don’t care about accolades, but to be acknowledged in this way is really profound.” Today she plays Misty on Yellowjackets.

Macaulay Culkin was 10 when Home Alone came out in 1990, and a year later he starred in My Girl. As an adult, he picked his roles carefully and kept his private life private.

On Dec. 1, 2023, he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is raising two children with his partner, actress Brenda Song, has a part in the TV series Fallout, and in January 2026 he presented at the Golden Globes for the first time in 35 years.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were about nine months old when they started sharing the role of Michelle Tanner on Full House, and they played her until the show ended in 1995. Later they left acting altogether.

In 2006, they founded a luxury fashion label in New York. The Council of Fashion Designers of America named them Womenswear Designer of the Year in 2012 and Accessories Designer of the Year in 2014. When Full House came back as Fuller House, they stayed out of it.

Anna Chlumsky starred in My Girl (1991) and stepped away from acting in the late 1990s. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2002 with a degree in international studies, worked as a fact-checker for a restaurant guide and then as an editorial assistant at a publisher’s science fiction line.

Then she went back to acting. As Amy Brookheimer on Veep, from 2012 to 2019, she earned six Emmy nominations. In 2026 she was cast in a new TV drama.

Sean Astin was 13 when he made his film debut as Mikey Walsh, the leader of the kids in The Goonies (1985). He went on to star in Rudy (1993) and played Sam in The Lord of the Rings.

In September 2025, he was elected president of SAG-AFTRA, succeeding Fran Drescher, with 79% of the vote. “Now is a time for optimism and creativity,” he said in a statement.

Drew Barrymore was one of the youngest stars of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), as little Gertie. The photo above shows her at 14, in 1989.

Since 2020, she has hosted her own daytime talk show on CBS. In February 2025, it had its most-watched week ever, and it was the only daytime talk show gaining viewers over the year before.

Neil Patrick Harris was 16 when Doogie Howser, M.D. premiered in 1989. He played a teenage genius who was already a doctor, and the show ran until 1993.

As an adult he became a stage star. He won a Tony Award in 2014 for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and he has hosted the Tony Awards, the Emmys and the Oscars. In 2025, he hosted a new Netflix game show.

Jaleel White joined Family Matters in its first season, in 1989, as the nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel, and Urkel became the show’s best-known character until it ended in 1998.

Today, White hosts the game show The Flip Side, which was renewed for a second season in 2025. In August 2026, he also began hosting Totally 90s House on HGTV.

Alfonso Ribeiro played Carlton Banks, the preppy cousin with the famous dance, on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air from 1990 to 1996.

In 2014 he won season 19 of Dancing with the Stars, and a year later he became the host of America’s Funniest Home Videos. ABC renewed the show for a 35th season in 2024, and these days he co-hosts Dancing with the Stars, too.

Mara Wilson played Natalie in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and the title role in Matilda (1996), then stepped back from film acting as a teenager. She became a writer, with a 2016 memoir, Where Am I Now?, and a voice actor.

In May 2024, she met up with Lisa Jakub and Matthew Lawrence, who played her older sister and brother in Mrs. Doubtfire, and posted a photo of the three of them.

“So funny that the same week I went to San Francisco, I got to reunite with my ’Doubtfire’ siblings! It’s always a joy to see Lisa Jakub and Matthew Lawrence.”