What These MCU Child Actors Look Like Today

It seems like only yesterday that Tony Stark threw together the first Iron Man suit in a cave after his convoy was ambushed in Afghanistan, but the first MCU film is well over a decade old at this point. Kids who were getting ready to leave elementary school when Iron Man landed in cineplexes are now in their 20s. For them, two or three Marvel Cinematic Universe entries per year has always been the norm. The franchise has been around for so long now that millions of kids have grown up with it — and a few lucky ones have actually grown up inside it.

There are plenty of superpowered kids in the pages of Marvel comics, though the movies haven't really gotten around to exploring their stories properly just yet. They have, however, delved into many of the adult heroes' backstories, meaning we've been able to catch glimpses of them as youngsters. There have also been a couple of helpful kids along the way — kids that we may well see reappearing in the MCU as adults in the not too distant future. If you can't wait that long and you're curious about how they turned out, you've come to the right place. Here's what these MCU child actors look like today. Marvel spoilers ahead.

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.

"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," the Jurassic World star revealed. 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. "That's two years to keep that a secret," Simpkins said. "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. "I would love that," he told IGN. However that pans out, Simpkins has kept busy since making his Endgame appearance — his more recent credits include an appearance on Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. and a role in Insidious 5.

Fans got to see young versions of Thor and his adoptive brother in 2011's Thor, the fourth MCU installment. We'll get to the grown-up God of Thunder shortly, but first, let's take a look at the guy who played the young Loki. Ted Allpress made his acting debut in Thor, and for a while it looked as though he'd found the right profession. He went on to play Prince Richard in BBC miniseries The White Queen (2013) and then appeared as the young Leonardo Da Vinci in Da Vinci's Demons, which aired on Starz in the U.S. between 2013 and 2015. Allpress fell off the radar after that — until 2020, when he reinvented himself as a rapper under the name Ted Bear.

Allpress wasn't afraid to lean on his past as an MCU actor to get the word out — in May 2020, he took to Instagram to promote his latest track with a bunch of Marvel hashtags, even adding "Asgard" as the location. The title of one song, "Frost Giant Bars," is an obvious nod to Loki (who was, of course, a Frost Giant), and the first verse alone is jam-packed with MCU references. "Brought to you by the God of Mischief / That's me, by the way," Ted Bear raps. "I feel the ice in my veins / Deranged in the brain, insane son of Odin." (Ted Bear hasn't posted anything since June 2020, and his YouTube channel appears to have been rebranded for Pilates instruction.)

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 aged just 5, and would land his first major film role the following year, turning in a buzzed-about 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 work with Susan Sarandon, Christopher Plummer (2007's Emotional Arithmetic), Woody Harrelson (2009's Defendor), and Hugh Jackman (2011's Real Steel), but one of his most memorable experiences was acting alongside Anthony Hopkins.

"He is such a great guy and a legendary movie star," Goyo said of Hopkins (via Lights Camera Jackson), who portrayed Thor's father, Odin, in the MCU. "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." 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 — he had lead roles in sci-fi Dark Skies and The Journey Home, and he played the young version of Russell Crowe's Noah in the biblical epic of the same name. Although he hasn't been seen onscreen in some time, Goyo maintains a sporadic presence on Instagram, where he let his fans know he took part in a Real Steel oral history for the film's ten-year anniversary in late 2021.

Long before Wyatt Oleff played Losers Club member Stanley Uris in the It movies and pot-loving high schooler Stanley Barber (he really looks like a Stanley, apparently) 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. "Have you ever seen the audition tape of Henry Thomas for Elliott in E.T.? It was like that, but way better," crew member Simon Hatt told The Hollywood Reporter. "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. "I used that to [...] help me cry," Oleff said. "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. "Wyatt gave a stellar performance with each take," Hatt recalled. "He's an absolute pro and a great collaborator." He reprised the role in 2017's Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2., and has since gone on to appear in films such as Stay Awake and The Traveling Men as well as the television series City on Fire.

Many of the actors who played Peter Parker's classmates in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming got to reprise their roles in globetrotting 2019 sequel Spider-Man: Far from Home, but Josie Totah (who portrayed Midtown student Seymour O'Reilly, later killed by Venom in the comics) 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 — as she put it, "I let myself be shoved into a box: 'J.J. Totah, gay boy.'" 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. "I identify as female, specifically as a transgender female," she explained. "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 Netflix dramedy No Good Nick and starred alongside Lisa Kudrow in the TV movie Good People. She's already completed her work on Amy Poehler's third feature film Moxie (an adaptation of Jennifer Mathieu's YA novel of the same name), and Peacock snapped her up to play the lead in its Saved by the Bell sequel series.

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 made her TV bow in an episode of The Mindy Project in 2013, then recurred as Ella Novak on Transparent (which she isn't allowed to watch) 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 ("He's kind of cuckoo," she said of her onscreen dad) 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 (whose parents took her to her first audition at the tender age of four) had an absolute blast on set, and audiences definitely enjoyed her performance. She put in another scene-stealing turn in 2018 sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp, by which point she'd already established herself as a child star with recurring roles on spooky Spielberg-produced drama The Whispers and HBO comedy Togetherness. Entertainment Weekly dubbed her "TV's most valuable kid," though Fortson continues to pop up on the big screen, too. The post-Blip Cassie Lang is being played by older actor Emma Fuhrmann, but Fortson clearly has a bright future ahead of her: Among other projects, she landed the title role in the film adaptation of Judy Blume's classic book Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Avengers: Infinity War's Ariana Greenblatt was already a child star when she stepped into the green skin of Gamora, daughter of Thanos. 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. "Liv and Maddie was my first gig I ever booked," Greenblatt told Entertainment Tonight. "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 56 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. The young actor was very much at home on the red carpet, telling a reporter from Bionic Buzz that "working with everybody" on the ensemble cast and getting to film "on trampolines" for one fun scene were her personal highlights. We may never see her play Gamora again, but we've definitely seen plenty of Greenblatt in the ensuing years — her subsequent projects include the Disney movie The One and Only Ivan, the Netflix thriller Awake, and the acclaimed musical drama In the Heights, as well as Greta Gerwig's Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

Even the biggest Marvel fan would be forgiven for not recognizing former MCU child actor Harley Graham today. She played a blink-and-you'll-miss-it role in the first Thor movie (she was the little Viking girl that clung to her mother as Odin explained the origin of the fearsome Frost Giants), even though she was already an experienced professional at that stage. Graham's older brother had found some success in modeling and acting, so her parents decided to let their 4-year-old daughter try out, too. She landed two TV gigs in 2005, and by the end of 2010, she was well into double figures.

Graham's most notable pre-MCU credits include The Mentalist, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (she played Conan's daughter), Days of Our Lives, The Bold and the Beautiful, Medium, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, iCarly, and Parks and Recreation. She appeared in a couple of TV movies during that time, but Kenneth Branagh's Thor was her first real feature film (there's been a cute behind-the-scenes picture of Graham and Branagh floating around Twitter for years). She's plied her trade on numerous films since then, including supernatural thriller The Culling — "I had a lot of fun working on this film," she told Relate — and Reese Witherspoon action comedy Hot Pursuit, but she's probably best known for her role in the Hulu horror series Light as a Feather. She plays the sister of Alex Lange's character, who sacrifices himself to save his girlfriend from a curse.

Up and coming young actor Kylen Davis actually worked on two Marvel movies in 2015, one of which was a complete disaster. Davis played a school bully in Josh Trank's much-maligned Fantastic Four, and 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 movie's villain erupts from their swimming pool, ruining their game of table tennis and sending their backyard BBQ into chaos.

Davis already had three acting credits to his name prior to his Marvel double feature. He appeared in the James Brown biopic Get On Up; James Franco's adaptation of William Faulkner novel The Sound of the Fury; and action drama flick Mentee, in which he played his first lead role. The film went largely unnoticed, but Davis has been getting some deserved attention in the years since Yellowjacket crashed his family's meal. The Mississippi-born actor went on to land a role in Matthew McConaughey's historical Western The Free State of Jones (2016), and since then has managed to carve out a career in television. He played Shawn Campbell in Fox's Shots Fired (2017), and followed that up with a role in hit Netflix show Raising Dion (2018). More recently, he's been seen as Jordan Atwater (brother of LaRoyce Hawkins' Kevin Atwater) in NBC's Chicago P.D. and in the ABC miniseries Women of the Movement.

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. His teammates had no idea that Clint Barton even had a family (all except Natasha "Aunty Nat" Romanoff, who gets a big hug from his daughter, Lila Barton), and are somewhat surprised. The arrow-shooting hero clearly loves his wife Laura (who is pregnant with their third child, Nathaniel Barton, at the time of the visit) and his kids very much, going to great lengths to keep them safe. This 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 — they're at the park when people start vanishing. 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. He actually looks taller than Jeremy Renner in behind-the-scenes shots shared by Just Jared (according to IMDb, Sakamoto is now 6' 1"). The young actor appears in four episodes of Hawkeye, making the Disney+ show his biggest acting gig to date — Cooper Barton is the only character he's played.