She escaped the Disney pipeline by letting Cobra Kai's creators weaponize the very image she needed to shed.
At a glance
- Known for
- Emma Ross on Disney's Jessie, Tory Nichols on Cobra Kai, lead and producer of Paramount+'s School Spirits
- Before fame
- Appeared in over 400 ads as a child model before booking her first film role at nine
- Off-screen
- Has a twin brother, Spencer, who's also an actor and was close friends with her boyfriend first
Rise to Fame
Four seasons as Emma Ross on Disney's Jessie made her a household name for anyone under 15, and popular enough for Disney to build an entire spinoff, Bunk'd, around her character. That's usually where the story ends for Disney kids. The transition to adult roles kills most of them.
The Cobra Kai creators had a specific plan: take the Disney princess and see what happened when she fought dirty. She almost didn't audition, showing up after a friend's premiere and winging the read. They cast her anyway. Tory Nichols started as a recurring role in season 2 and grew into a series lead across five seasons, the kind of arc that doesn't happen unless the performance justifies the screen time. By the finale, she wasn't anyone's idea of a Disney kid.
In the Spotlight
School Spirits is the real tell. She didn't just take the lead in a Paramount+ supernatural mystery, she took a producer credit. Season 2 more than doubled its audience, pulling 1.7 million viewers in its first week and landing a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. Season 3 wrapped in March 2026. Paramount renewed it through season 4.
She's playing Heather Chandler in Heathers off-Broadway, which is exactly the kind of role you take when you want people to stop thinking of you as nice. Between the producing deal, the stage work, and a new agency signing with Gersh, she's building infrastructure, not just collecting credits.
Side Notes
The whole family acts. She and twin brother Spencer were cast together in Spider-Man 2 as kids, but their scene got cut from the final film. Spencer landed The Fosters and Good Trouble. Their younger brother Phoenix acts too. She started dating Cobra Kai co-star Jacob Bertrand in 2022, who was close friends with Spencer first, which Bertrand has described as "kinda awkward."
Her biggest business venture didn't go well. Pley Beauty launched in 2022 through CAA's Creative Beauty incubator, but the incubator dissolved the same year, leaving contractors owed thousands. A legal complaint for over $43,000 in nonpayment followed. The brand quietly transferred to a new LLC, but the damage was done. She doesn't talk about it much.