Rise to Fame
At 7, going toe-to-toe with Sean Penn in I Am Sam made her the youngest SAG Award nominee in history. From there it snowballed: Steven Spielberg cast her in Taken, Tom Cruise reportedly requested her for War of the Worlds, and her schedule filled with the biggest productions of the early 2000s. She could hold a scene with adults twice her age without flinching. The industry treated her like a prodigy, which she was, though that came with its own baggage.
In the Spotlight
Ripley on Netflix finally gave her the role that matched what she'd always been capable of. Playing Marge Sherwood in 2024 earned her Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Best Supporting Actress, the kind of awards attention she hadn't seen since childhood. She's expanding into producing, with The Nightingale lined up as both a starring and producing credit. The narrative around her has shifted: she's one of the few former child stars who made the transition without it becoming the whole story.
Side Notes
Her family background is almost absurdly athletic: her maternal grandfather played in the NFL, her aunt was an ESPN reporter, her mother played professional tennis, and her father played minor league baseball. She broke the pattern and picked acting. On set, co-stars reportedly kept leaving gifts: Tom Cruise gave her first cell phone on her 11th birthday during War of the Worlds, and Kurt Russell bought her a palomino horse after Dreamer. She graduated NYU in 2018 and was homecoming queen in high school, which tells you she navigated adolescence better than most.