Rise to Fame
Enrolling at NYU as 'Bryce Dallas' was her opening move. Ron Howard had a rule: no child acting for the kids, and being banned from set was apparently the worst punishment in the house. She came up through the New York theater circuit before M. Night Shyamalan caught her on stage and cast her in The Village (2004) without an audition. The Help (2011) gave her the villain role of Hilly Holbrook. Jurassic World (2015) grossed over $1.6 billion globally and made the nepotism question mostly irrelevant.
In the Spotlight
The acting career is fine, but the directing career is where the ambition lives. She's directed five-plus Star Wars episodes across The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka, and Lucasfilm keeps inviting her back. She's publicly lobbying to direct a Mace Windu project with Samuel L. Jackson, which may be wishful thinking or may be exactly how things get made in this franchise. Argylle (2024) and Deep Cover (2025) prove she's not walking away from acting either.
Side Notes
Her middle name is 'Dallas' because the Howard family names their kids after conception cities. Tom Cruise babysat her; Tom Hanks was reportedly a family fixture. She trained at Stagedoor Manor alongside a teenage Natalie Portman and has never had a drink in her life. The Jessica Chastain confusion is pervasive enough that Ron Howard briefly mistook Chastain for his daughter at an Apple Store, which tells you something about how distinct her public identity actually is.