Over the years the MCU has grown… and so have some of its stars. Do you remember young Thor? How
about Thanos’ little green daughter? Keep watching to see what these young stars look like today.
Tony Stark's funeral was a who's who of MCU characters, but among the throng of
superheroes was a random teenage boy that few people seemed to recognize.
When the Avengers: Endgame credits rolled and the name Ty Simpkins appeared, however, fans quickly
figured out that this was the same boy who helped Stark out of a tight spot back in Iron Man 3.
Simpkins' Harley Keener gave the battered billionaire a place to hide while on the run,
offering him shelter and everything he needed to repair his armor. Nobody imagined that he
would show up in Avengers: Endgame years later, but there he was, grieving for Stark alongside
the franchise's stars. Speaking to Inverse, the actor revealed that he called Robert
Downey Jr. as soon as he heard Marvel wanted him back. The Jurassic World star revealed,
"I was talking to him a little bit about how excited I am to be in the film
and how much the character of Iron Man meant to me through my entire life."
It was a huge moment for Simpkins, but the trouble was, he was informed of
Stark's impending death back in 2017 when such information was highly classified. He shared,
"That's two years to keep that a secret. It was the hardest thing!"
So why did Marvel bring him back? Rumor has it that Simpkins will take on the mantle of
Iron Lad in a future Young Avengers movie. He told IGN that if it were to happen, he would love it!
The kid who portrayed the young Thor had quite the resume prior to his MCU appearance.
Dakota Goyo's parents put him forward for commercials when he was still an infant,
and he was right at home in front of the camera. He made his TV debut at the age of
5 and would land his first major film role the following year, delivering a noteworthy
performance in 2007's Resurrecting the Champ. The 6-year-old was nominated for a Young Artist
Award for his turn in the Samuel L. Jackson sports drama. Over the next few years he would
star in 2007's Emotional Arithmetic, 2009's Defendor, and 2011's Real Steel. But one of
his most memorable experiences was acting alongside Anthony Hopkins. Goyo told Lights
Camera Jackson about working with Hopkins, who portrayed Thor's father, Odin. He said,
"He is such a great guy and a legendary movie star.
Getting the chance to work with someone like Anthony Hopkins doesn't come every day.
It's certainly something I never thought I'd get to do."
“So be it.”
Goyo followed up his role in Thor with an Emmy-nominated performance in R.L. Stine's
The Haunting Hour and would go on to appear in several more feature films before he vanished from
Hollywood in 2014. Those roles included lead parts in Dark Skies and The Journey Home, along with a
portrayal of the young version of Russell Crowe's Noah in the biblical epic of the same name.
Long before Wyatt Oleff played Stanley Uris in the It movies and pot-loving high schooler
Stanley Barber in Netflix's I Am Not Okay With This, he portrayed the young Peter Quill in
2014's Guardians of the Galaxy. He's since become one of the brightest young stars in Hollywood,
but that will come as little surprise to the people who worked with him on James Gunn's film.
Crew member Simon Hatt told The Hollywood Reporter,
"Have you ever seen the audition tape of Henry Thomas for Elliott in E.T.?
It was like that, but way better. Wyatt's performance was so real, so raw and so moving.
I remember being on set and the whole crew were blown away by him."
How did such a young actor turn in such a convincing performance?
He recalled how he felt when his pet Shih Tzus died. Oleff said,
"I used that to [...] help me cry. And actually feeling myself in that situation,
if that was my mom on that bed, I can feel how powerful that would be
and how awful it would be to lose someone."
It wasn't just a one-off, either — Gunn wanted several takes of the pivotal scene,
and Oleff nailed them all. Hatt recalled,
"Wyatt gave a stellar performance with each take. He's an absolute pro and a great collaborator."
“Nice going, bud.”
Abby Ryder Fortson already had a couple of credits to her name
when she debuted as Scott Lang's daughter Cassie in 2015's Ant-Man.
She had her first TV role in an episode of The Mindy Project in 2013, then recurred as Ella Novak
on Transparent during 2014. But she was still just a shy little girl when joined the MCU family.
Speaking to Champagne Living ahead of Ant-Man's release, she discussed her relationship with
Paul Rudd and revealed that Ant-Man and Black Widow were her favorite Avengers. One of the
highlights of the shoot was getting to try on part of the Ant-Man suit in wardrobe.
It sounds like Fortson had an absolute blast on set, and audiences definitely enjoyed her
performance. She put in another scene-stealing turn in the 2018 sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp.
By this point she'd already established herself as a child star, with recurring
roles on the spooky Spielberg-produced drama The Whispers and the HBO comedy Togetherness.
Entertainment Weekly dubbed her "TV's most valuable kid," though Fortson continues to pop
up on the big screen, too. Her last feature film was 2019's A Dog's Journey. The post-Blip Cassie
Lang was played by older actor Emma Fuhrmann, but Fortson clearly has a bright future ahead of her.
Avengers: Infinity War's Ariana Greenblatt was already a child
star when she stepped into the green skin of Gamora, daughter of Thanos.
“I’m sorry, little one.”
The gifted youngster made her debut in a 2015 episode of Disney's Liv and Maddie, making a
lifelong friend out of star Dove Cameron in the process. Greenblatt told Entertainment Tonight,
"Liv and Maddie was my first gig I ever booked.
Dove has been the sweetest ever since. She's so kind to me and she's like a big sister, you know?"
The future Marvel actor wound up starring in another Disney show,
taking on the role of mischievous little sister Daphne Diaz in Stuck in the Middle.
She appeared in over 50 episodes between 2016 and 2018, working on her film resume all the while.
She made her movie debut in 2017's A Bad Moms Christmas playing the daughter of Mila Kunis'
beau. We may never see her as Gamora again, but we'll definitely be seeing
plenty of Greenblatt in the next couple of years. She's in the Disney movie The One and
Only Ivan and the Netflix thriller Awake. She also has two more films set for 2022.
Up and coming young actor Kylen Davis actually worked on two Marvel movies in 2015, one of which
was a complete disaster. He played a school bully in Josh Trank's much-maligned Fantastic Four. That
same year, he also appeared in Ant-Man as a member of the family that gets an unexpected visit from
Darren Cross, a.k.a Yellowjacket. His scene pops up in the middle of the big action sequence at the
end of the movie. He and his sister get quite the shock when the film's villain erupts from their
swimming pool, ruining their game of table tennis and sending their backyard barbecue into chaos.
The Mississippi-born actor went on to land a role in Matthew McConaughey's
historical Western Free State of Jones in 2016. Since then,
he has managed to carve out a career in television. He played Shawn Campbell in Fox's
Shots Fired in 2017 and followed that up with a role in the hit Netflix show Raising Dion in 2019.
More recently, he's been seen as Jordan Atwater — the brother of Kevin Atwater on NBC's Chicago P.D.
Ben Sakamoto has changed dramatically since he made his debut as Hawkeye's eldest son
in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron. Cooper Barton is a floppy-haired kid who clings
to his dad when he unexpectedly turns up at the family safe house with his fellow
Avengers in tow. The arrow-shooting hero is clearly filled with a deep
love for his wife Laura and his kids. He goes to great lengths to keep them safe,
which makes it all the more tragic when they're all turned to dust by Thanos.
We get to see the fate of Hawkeye's family in 2019's Avengers: Endgame.
Sakamoto returned as Cooper for the heartbreaking scene, playing catch with his little brother
moments before they slip out of existence. He had grown up since his turn in Avengers:
Age of Ultron, and he was bigger still when he reprised his role on Hawkeye in 2021.
In fact, he actually looks taller than Jeremy Renner in some scenes.
The young actor appears in four episodes of Hawkeye, making the Disney+ show his
biggest acting gig to date. In fact, Cooper Barton is the only character he's played.
Many of the actors who played Peter Parker's classmates in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming got
to reprise their roles in the globetrotting 2019 sequel Spider-Man: Far from Home.
However, Josie Totah wasn't among them. As Tom Holland and crew filmed the highly anticipated
follow-up in locations around Europe, Totah was on a journey of her own — a far more personal one.
The actor was grateful to be starring in the Mindy Kaling-produced comedy Champions,
but she was struggling with her identity at the time.
She decided to come out as transgender in 2018, revealing that her pronouns are she,
her, and hers in a guest article for Time magazine. She explained,
"I identify as female, specifically as a transgender female. And my name is Josie Totah."
Her Marvel days may be over, but Totah's career has been flourishing. Since her transition,
she's recurred as Lisa Haddad on the Netflix dramedy No Good Nick and starred alongside
Lisa Kudrow in the TV movie Good People. She also appeared in Amy Poehler's third feature
film Moxie, which is an adaptation of Jennifer Mathieu's young adult novel of the same name.
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