What The Cast Of Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure Look Like Today

It's hard to imagine a universe in which Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure doesn't exist. The quotable, feel-good romp through history manages to have some of the more solid time-travel logic seen on screen, and it made Keanu Reeves a star. Still, the story of Bill and Ted nearly came to an end most heinous when the production company behind the 1989 comedy classic filed for bankruptcy, and the film was shelved. It was rescued by a few totally triumphant film executives who bought it for peanuts from their former employer and the rest is, well, history.

Though Reeves is obviously its most famous alumnus, he's not the only memorable cast member from the film that put the suburb of San Dimas, California on the pop-culture map. We've traveled far and wide to scope out what the most historic cast of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is up to these days.

Before he hopped into a time-traveling phone booth with his best friend to rescue himself from military school and save a future utopia, Keanu Reeves was a relative unknown. At 19 he drove a 1969 Volvo from his native Toronto to Hollywood and never looked back. He landed some supporting roles in a few films before Bill and Ted came along, and fame and fortune followed.

It's tough to think of popular films in the 1990s without stumbling across Reeves. Over the ten years following Bill and Ted, he starred in successful family films like 1989's Parenthood, as well as cult favorites like Point Break and My Own Private Idaho, both in 1991. He vamped it up in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992, and rode a bomb-strapped bus with newcomer Sandra Bullock to action hero status in 1994's Speed. He rounded out the decade with the genre-defining sci-fi action movie The Matrix, which began a blockbuster franchise that raked in over half a billion dollars.  He's worked steadily since then, and has headed up another successful action franchise as the titular John Wick, which pulled in nearly $150 million dollars at the box office.

When he's not busy being an action star, Reeves has made music with his band Dogstar, who opened for everyone from David Bowie to Bon Jovi. He's also taken up designing custom motorcycles, publishing art books, and funding children's hospitals.

Bill may not have become as famous as his bandmate Ted, but Alex Winter has certainly carved out an interesting career for himself. Before he met Napoleon and made friends with Abe Lincoln, Winter was possibly a better-known actor than Reeves, having performed on Broadway as a child and starred in the hit 1987 dark vampire comedy The Lost Boys. Following his Excellent Adventure, Winter shifted his film aspirations from in front of the camera to behind it. He wrote and directed comedies like The Idiot Box (a short-lived sketch series for MTV), as well as the 1993 cult film Freaked and the 1999 psychological thriller Fever before turning his attention to documentaries.

He's found plenty of success there, with 2012's Downloaded, chronicling the history of file-sharing program Napster. He dipped his toe back into acting with a small role in the 2013 film Grand Piano, starring Elijah Wood and John Cusak. 2015 saw him direct Deep Web, a documentary exploring the internet drug trade, bitcoin, and digital rights, narrated by none other than Keanu Reeves. The internet is a personal topic to Winter, who has said that he found support online in dealing with sexual abuse he suffered while working on Broadway in the late 1970s. He's been working on a documentary on the life of Frank Zappa for several years, and still finds time for charity work, riding his bike to raise funds for mental health programs.

Fun fact: James Bond might have played Rufus, a man from 2688 who has traveled to San Dimas in 1988 to help Bill and Ted pass their history class. If he doesn't succeed, the pair won't form their band Wyld Stallyns, whose music somehow becomes the basis for the future Earth utopia Rufus calls home. Sean Connery was considered for the role, but it ended up going to comedy legend George Carlin thanks to the film's producers, who had worked with him on 1987's Outrageous Fortune. 

Carlin is known for his stand-up bit "Seven Dirty Words," which was the subject of a supreme court case when it was broadcast by a radio station in New York. He worked steadily through the '80s, producing new stand-up specials and albums. He eventually branched out into meatier film and television roles, which led him to Bill and Ted. Next, Carlin took over the role of Mr. Conductor from Ringo Starr on Shining Time Station, the show that gave us Thomas the Tank Engine. He left after five years to write and star in his own series, The George Carlin Show.

He returned to stand-up tours due to tax issues, a decision he would later say he was glad to have made, though it got off to a rough start. In 2004, a stint at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas led to Carlin berating his audience members so harshly all future shows there were canceled, and Carlin entered rehab. The following year, he said in his HBO special Life is Worth Losing that he had "341 days sober." Following years of heart issues, Carlin died of cardiac arrest at the age of 71. He had been writing an autobiography at the time that was released posthumously, and a street near where Carlin went to school in New York was named for him.

Who could forget Terry Camilleri's comedic turn as Napoleon in Bill and Ted? The first of the historical figures Bill and Ted meet in their travels, it's his hitchhiking on their phone booth that gives our heroes the idea to collect more folks from the past to deliver their all-important history report. Napoleon is left behind with Ted's younger brother, who takes him to a water park and an ice cream parlor in some of the film's most memorable scenes.

Camilleri had bit parts in both film and television before his stint in San Dimas, showing up briefly in Superman III and Hill Street Blues. Following his work in Bill and Ted he continued that trend, with parts in NYPD Blue, The Truman Show, and JAG. His comedic chops came in handy when he played another "historical" figure — namely, history itself — in a series of Nike adverts tied into the 2006 FIFA World Cup featuring Australian player Joga Bonito. More recently, he's guest starred on the western crime drama Longmire, which was cancelled by A&E following the end of its third season, but found a second life on Netflix. He also had a role in Oddball and the Penguins, a film based on a real dog who saved a penguin colony. Camilleri is very active on Facebook, and posted a picture of him hanging out with former co-star Alex Winter in 2017.

Joan of Arc says next to nothing in Bill and Ted, which is ironic because Jane Wiedlin has plenty to say. A founding member of new wave band the Go-Go's with Belinda Carlisle, Wiedlin's bouncy energy served her well in her role as Joan, specifically in the scene where she takes over an aerobics class by force. Though the film was a huge hit, it was mostly the end of Wiedlin's movie career, and she later said of her acting, "I don't think I'm very good at it." What she was good at turned out to be voice work. Wiedlin has voiced characters in many well-known animated series. Her credits include The New Batman Adventures, The Wild Thornberrys, Mission Hill, and Scooby-Doo.

Wiedlin split from the Go-Go's for a solo career in the mid-1980s. By the time she was filming Bill and Ted, she'd already released two of four solo albums and several dance singles, some of which charted in the top 20 US and UK markets. In 2004 she joined the cast of VH1's The Surreal Life, where she wasn't shy about her bisexuality. She's long supported animal rights causes, posing with the Go-Go's for PETA and walking in runway shows to raise money for shelter dogs. She's also a licensed minister, and can be booked to perform wedding ceremonies. A musical based on the music of the the Go-Go's, Head Over Heels, jammed on Broadway in 2017. Recently she formed synth-pop band Elettrodomestico, which released an album and toured the West Coast in 2018.

"Four score and seven minutes ago, we, your forefathers, were brought forth on a most excellent adventure." So begins a most outstanding speech by Abraham Lincoln, which brings Bill and Ted's all-important history report to its climactic end. He's not just any Lincoln, but a man good enough to have played Honest Abe four times on screen. Actor Robert V. Barron embodied the President both before and after his adventures with Bill and Ted — he also donned the stovepipe hat in Love American Style in 1972, Out of This World in 1989, and Get a Life in 1991.

Before Barron crammed his over-six-foot-tall frame into a phone booth with the future Wyld Stallyns, he acted in films and theater, once portraying Sherlock Holmes. He also worked as a script writer, voice actor, and director for the 1985 anime series Robotech and Code Name: Robotech, as well as several other anime shows through the 1980s. He later lent his resonant voice to many episodes of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers shortly before he retired from acting. His final film role was in the 1995 straight-to-video release A Dangerous Place starring Corey Feldman, where he gets sprayed with mace while asking for some change. It's no wonder he decided to hang up the stovepipe hat for good after that. Barron passed away in December of 2000, in Salinas, California at the age of 67.

So-craytes, as Bill and Ted affectionately refer to him, may have failed at hitting on women at the San Dimas mall, but actor Tony Steedman had no trouble selling himself in his many years on the stage and screen. Before he found himself wearing the sandals of Socrates, Steedman spent three years as a detective Coronation Street, the world's longest-running soap opera, which follows the lives of working-class people in Manchester. His many theater performances included starring roles in productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Following his turn as one of the fathers of western philosophy, Steedman guest starred in episodes of popular television shows like Married with Children and Doogie Howser, M.D. before becoming a regular on Iron Man: The Animated Series. He voiced entrepreneur Justin Hammer, the same character played by Sam Rockwell in 2010's Iron Man 2. His last role was that of a grandfather on several seasons of Animal Ark, based on a popular series of children's books about the daughter of a veterinarian.

He passed away in February of 2001 at the age of 73 from dementia. His widow Judy Parfitt, whom he met in while working in the theater, plays Sister Monica Joan on the BBC period drama Call the Midwife. Her character also has dementia, which she's referred to as "a very insidious disease." She's used the role to raise funds in support of families whose loved ones struggle with the illness.

When actor Rod Loomis diagnosed Ted's family dysfunction in the auditorium of San Dimas High School, he was playing Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It was hardly the first or last time Loomis would take to the stage. The veteran theater actor toured in companies for musicals like 1776 and The Sound of Music, as well as more serious fare like Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. He also appeared on the big screen in Beastmaster and television soap operas like General Hospital.

Following Bill and Ted, Loomis continued to graced the stage as Cecil B. Demille in Sunset Boulevard with Glen Close. He also returned to television, with a recurring role on The Bold and the Beautiful as a homeless man who befriends controversial matriarch Stephanie Forrester. He also appeared in shows like Quantum Leap and 7th Heaven.

Following his last television appearance on Stargate SG-1, Loomis began studying at The Center for Spiritual Living in Chico, California. He's now a licensed practitioner of their New Thought teachings, which are influenced by concepts of transcendentalism first posed by Plato, a philosopher whose teacher was none other than Socrates. Loomis gives talks on this version of religious science, and has studied the practice for over a decade. He was interviewed about his Bill and Ted experiences in a documentary produced for the film's Blu-ray release, during which he lapsed back into the character of Freud.

Billy the Kid, played by Dan Shor, was well suited to the rigors of Bill and Ted's adventures. As Bill himself put it: "Billy, you are dealing with the oddity of time travel with the greatest of ease." Shor had experience portraying likable characters who adapt well to strange situations. His breakout role was that of Ram, a computer program forced into gladiatorial combat in the 1982 cult classic Tron. Shor kicked around television for a few years, where he played Ferengi physician Dr. Arridor on two iterations of Star Trek, both The Next Generation and Voyager.

Shor found himself working with Terry Camilleri both before and after Bill and Ted. They shared the stage in Drums in the Night, a play by Bertolt Brecht, before their time-traveling adventures. After the film, Shor served as director for several companies in Los Angeles, where he ended up directing Camilleri in a play. Shor later traveled to the Philippines intending to teach a course in acting for a few weeks, but instead stayed for four years. There he began directing reality television, which led him to found his own production company. He still acts from time to time on the stage and screen, and appeared as the programmer of his former Tron character in the short film Tron: Next Day, as a part of the promotional campaign for 2010's TRON: Legacy.

When Genghis Khan, armed only with a baseball bat, destroys an unsuspecting mannequin at a sporting goods store in the San Dimas Mall, much of the audience might not realize they're watching a legend do what he does best: fight. Al Leong drew upon years of fight experience to bring Khan to life. He began his studies in martial arts under Grandmaster Ark Yuey Wong, known as the man who brought Kung-Fu to America, while he was still in High school.

A chance encounter with a director while working as a grip led to Leong beginning his career as a fight coordinator and stuntman, working on shows like The A-Team, Magnum P.I., Knight Rider, and T.J. Hooker. Bill and Ted was hardly his first bit of character work in front of the camera — he appeared as a henchman in 1986's Big Trouble in Little China, Lethal Weapon in 1987, and Die Hard in 1988. Following his time with Bill and Ted, Leong continued his fight work in front of and behind the camera in a slew of action films. He worked steadily for the next fifteen years, racking up big screen credits in everything from Godzilla in 1998 to television roles like 24 playing (what else?) a henchman. His favorite fight scene was with Brandon Lee in 1992's Rapid Fire. 

Unfortunately, a stroke in 2005 left him unable to perform stunts. He's also survived brain cancer. Leong has written a book about his experiences in the industry, The Eight Lives of Al "Kebong" Leong, and a documentary about his work was released in 2018.

The lights of Broadway shined brightly for the extended cast of Bill and Ted, and Clifford David, the actor who embodied Beethoven, was no exception. David took to the stage in shows like 1776, where he first proved he looked great in lace and a frock coat, and used his powerful singing voice in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. David was protégé of the famous acting teacher Lee Strasberg, and made his stage debut directed by Sidney Lumet in Caligula.

His work in Bill and Ted didn't afford him the opportunity to sing, but he later got to stretch his pipes in Andrew Lloyd Webber's revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He also appeared in guest roles on popular television shows throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, like Murder She Wrote, Murphy Brown, Party of Five, Law and Order, and Will & Grace. He was seen on the big screen playing university professors in both 2002's Signs and Kinsey in 2004. Davis wrote a memoir, which he self-published in 2016, detailing his work with Sir Laurence Olivier and Lucille Ball. He passed away in Los Angeles in 2017, at the age of 89.

Diane Franklin's smile, bouncy curls, and girl-next-door disposition made her a ubiquitous figure in the teen comedies of the 1980s. Her first film role was the lead in 1982s Last American Virgin, followed by a memorable (if uncomfortable) role in Amityville II: The Possession that same year. She starred opposite John Cusack in the off-beat comedy Better Off Dead in 1985, and worked steadily on television before her turn as Princess Joanna, Ted's love interest from the 15th century.

After Bill and Ted, Franklin had a bit part as a teenage stepmother in 1989's How I Got Into College, cast by her former director from Better Off Dead. It would be her last big screen appearance for decades. Franklin worked in television a few times in the 1990s, with guest spots on Murder She Wrote and Providence. She retired from acting in 2006, raising a family and becoming an acting teacher to young Hollywood hopefuls. One such hopeful is her daughter, Olivia, who bears a striking resemblance to her mother. The pair shares a YouTube channel, and Franklin hopes that any future Bill and Ted sequels will consider casting Olivia as a young Princess Joanna.

Quentin Tarantino, a fan of her work in Amityville II, hosted her at a screening of that film. This led to her making her return to the big screen in 2018 as murder victim Louise DeFeo in The Amityville Murders, which was based around the same true-crime case.

Kimberly Kates was lured to Hollywood at the age of 19 after winning a modeling contest — she'd previously been studying pre-med. Playing the part of Princess Elizabeth in Bill and Ted was actually her first film role, and she's said she lacked the confidence she would develop in later years. Like her fellow Princess Joanna, Kates primarily worked in television following Bill and Ted, performing guest roles on some of the most beloved shows of the 1990s: Seinfeld, The Wonder Years, The Larry Sanders Show, and Charmed.

In the early 2000s, she moved into film development, and by 2005 she'd become vice president of Big Screen Entertainment Group. "The company started out as a production company, and then I created a distribution division," Kates said in 2015. These efforts led her to become CEO of the company. One of her early production credits for Big Screen was 2006's Forget About It. The film starred Burt Reynolds as a man living in a retirement village who develops a crush on his neighbor, played Raquel Welch, before discovering a stash of Mob money. Coincidentally, one of the film's stars turned out to have links to organized crime, which Kates wrote about for The Huffington Post, and ended up sentenced to ten years in prison for fraud.

Kates' nose for drama has led her to option This is Ruff, a script written by none other than Diane Franklin's daughter Olivia, which is set to be shot in 2019. Kates has also employed Olivia to direct and star in the film, which is reportedly a dark comedy.

Who could forget Amy Stoch's comedic turn in Bill and Ted as Missy, the sultry stepmother Bill struggles to remember to call Mom? Stoch had appeared in a few films and boasted some television credits prior to her role as the inappropriately young bride of Mr. Preston, most notably a recurring role on Dallas. After starring in both the Bill and Ted films, she continued her television work as the secret daughter of Matt Dillion in three Gunsmoke made-for-TV movies, and spent the next few years appearing in various television shows before turning her attention to the theater.

Stoch became the director and company manager for the Champaign Urbana Theatre Company, and obtained her Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Illinois in 2012. She joined the faculty of The American Musical and Dramatic Academy and the New York Film Academy, teaching a variety of theater history and film acting courses. Doctor Missy did her dissertation on theater director Herbert Blau, whose work she also teaches. 

But don't think she's called it quits on her time in front of the camera. In 2016, she appeared as a recurring character in Mr. Student Body President, which runs on Verizon's mobile-only Go90 network. In her free time, she still hangs out with the princesses, posting on her Facebook about running into them at a pop culture convention in early 2018. 

Clarence Clemons had no trouble embodying the spirit of one of the Three Most Important People in the World in Bill and Ted. Clemons, known as "The Big Man" to his many fans, played the saxophone with Bruce Springsteen as part of the E-Street Band for over 20 years. Springsteen called Clemons "elemental" in his life, and Clemons said of Bruce that they "fell in love" upon meeting, which was memorialized in the song "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out." Springsteen and Clemons were so close that they often kissed each other on-stage.

Clemons made Bill and Ted during a ten-year break in touring with Springsteen, after the entire E-Street band were let go. Clemons was performing with Ringo Starr, who provided emotional support to the Big Man about life as an artist after your band breaks up. After Bill and Ted, Clemons continued to act in television, taking guest roles on Nash Bridges, The Flash, and The Simpsons. He also appeared on the big screen in 1998's Blues Brothers 2000.

In 1999, Springsteen reunited with his band for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance, and Clemons toured with them on and off over the next decade. He didn't leave acting behind, though, continuing to appear in television, most notably The Wire in 2004. He played sax on Lady Gaga's Born This Way album, and still found time to work with several charities, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Little Kids Rock, which brings music to underprivileged students. In 2011, Clemons suffered a stroke and passed away at the age of 69. His son hosts an annual Big Man Bash in his honor in Asbury Park, NJ.

"Ziggy Piggy, Ziggy Piggy!" The refrain is chanted by two enthusiastic waiters dressed in red and white stripes to Bill and Ted's gluttonous Napoleon. On the left is Chris Matheson, on the right is Ed Solomon. The pair are actually the screenwriters of Bill and Ted. They based the Ziggy Piggy scene on a real place: Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor. Matheson went on to write several movies after Bill and Ted, such as A Goofy Movie in 1995 and the Ellen DeGeneres vehicle Mr. Wrong in 1996. Solomon scripted some pretty big blockbusters over the next decade: 1997's Men in Black, 2000's Charlie's Angels, and the Now You See Me franchise, the first two of which have made nearly $200 million dollars.

The pair are currently working on Bill and Ted Face the Music, which has been rumored for years but is real enough that they recently auctioned off a walk-on part in the film and raised over $15,000 for the Homes For Our Troops charity. There's reason to be optimistic about the Matheson and Solomon's ability to deliver on such a hotly anticipated sequel. Bill and Ted are characters they've physically embodied, created doing improv. 

Reeves has also made some encouraging comments about the film, telling Yahoo "There'd be a lot about [Bill] that would be the same, I'm sure; his kind of optimistic naïveté in the face of the darkness will still be there. He has a child now, so I'm sure he's matured." The production itself is backed by none other than executive producer Steven Soderbergh, who has directed and produced numerous Oscar-nominated films, winning Best Director in 2001 for Traffic.