20 actors from your favorite childhood movies you didn’t know were superstars

If you grew up watching Home Alone every Christmas, it’s quite possible you came to know Joe Pesci through that film rather than Raging Bull or Goodfellas. To ‘90s kids, Pesci is just one of the Wet Bandits. 

Apparently, Debbie Reynolds agreed to star in Halloweentown because she wanted to try television, but it’s still confounding that a star such as herself would do a series of made-for-TV Disney movies late in her career. Little did ‘90s and ‘00s kids know that the grandma from Halloweentown is a literal icon. 

If you watched Elf before watching Misery or The Godfather, you probably watched the Oscar winners and thought, “Hey, it’s the dad from Elf.” Cinephiles would lambaste you for such a thought, but there’s nothing to be ashamed of. 

The cast of Hook is stacked with talent. If you happened to know that Dustin Hoffman was a mega star while watching it as a kid, you might not have known about Robin Williams, Maggie Smith, Phil Collins, or Julia Roberts. 

Unless you snuck into the living room while your parents were watching Fatal Attraction or Dangerous Liaisons, you probably had no idea who Glenn Close was when watching 101 Dalmatians. As it turns out, Cruella de Vil was played by one of the greatest actresses of all time. 

Almost all of the adults in Spy Kids are superstars. It’s crazy that Antonio Banderas, Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub, Teri Hatcher, and Danny Trejo all signed on to be in the same children’s movie. 

Once James Earl Jones’ career got going, he didn’t have trouble finding work. He didn’t need to play a supporting role in a movie for kids. But he chose to be part of The Sandlot, and for that reason, an entire generation of kids was introduced to an icon. 

If you’ve rewatched Angels in the Outfield recently, there’s a high chance you were caught off guard by all the famous faces in the cast. Danny Glover, Brenda Fricker, Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Adrien Brody, Matthew McConaughey, and Dermot Mulroney are all in the film. Granted not all were superstars at the time it was made, but it’s still a crazy assemblage of talent. 

The adults in A Series of Unfortunate Events  are another crazy assemblage of talent. Once you get past Jim Carrey playing the lead, you find that Meryl Streep, Catherine O’Hara, Jennifer Coolidge, and Jude Law are all in this children’s movie. 

Adults will star in a children’s movie if it’s an adaptation of a respected book, as evidenced by Holes . The award-winning children’s book got Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Henry Winkler, Patricia Arquette, and freaking Eartha Kitt to co-star in the same film. 

If you watched Stuart Little as a kid, you probably had no idea that the mother in the film was played by Oscar winner Geena Davis of A League of Their Own and Thelma & Louise fame. It also featured a pre-House Hugh Laurie and a post- Back to the Future Michael J. Fox as the voice of the titular mouse. 

Any reasonable person would wonder why two-time Oscar winner Michael Caine would want to star in The Muppet Christmas Carol. Was he short on work? Did he think it would be his only chance to play such an iconic character? Apparently, Caine is a fan of the muppets and wanted to do something his daughter would like. 

Remember what was said about adult actors and screen adaptations of famous children’s books? Matilda being such an iconic book made Danny DeVito want to star in and direct the beloved film adaptation. 

If you watched Freaky Friday as a kid, you were probably far more familiar with Lindsay Lohan and Chad Michael Murray than you were with Jamie Lee Curtis. But no shame. Murray and Lohan are icons of the early ‘00s. 

The Haunted Mansion was probably many kids’ first introduction to Eddie Murphy, all of whom were likely just interested in watching a Halloween movie. Murphy has done plenty of children’s movies since then, but this was one of his first big ones.  

Frances McDormand literally has four Oscars. There’s no way anyone who watched Madeline as a child was aware of the greatness on their screen at the time. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger is known for his roles in dazzling action films. But as it turns out, his favorite role of all time was in Kindergarten Cop. The Terminator said he loved working with the children in the cast. 

There are loads of films that ‘90s and ‘00s kids grew up on that starred Robin Williams. He was in Jumanji, Mrs. Doubtfire, Hook, and Aladdin — and none of the kids knew that they were bearing witness to a master at work. 

When watching Hocus Pocus  as an adult, it’s plain to see that icons Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker are two of the three Sanderson sisters, but if you watched it as a kid, you had no idea that one of the stars of Beaches and (depending on when you first saw it) Carrie Bradshaw were on your TV screen. 

For kids, Julie Andrews was just the queen from The Princess Diaries. But for their parents, that was Maria from The Sound of Music. It was Mary Poppins. It was living legend Julie Andrews.