What The Cast Of The Mighty Ducks Looks Like Today

When NHL star Wayne Gretzky moved to the L.A. Kings in 1988, he brought ice hockey fever to Los Angeles and inadvertently gave birth to The Mighty Ducks in the process. Steven Brill's script about a down-and-out lawyer taking over a useless pee-wee team had been around since 1987, but it wasn't until Gretzky's grand arrival that execs started to show a genuine interest in it. All of a sudden Brill was speaking with Disney, whose then-chairman Michael Eisner was a huge hockey fan. "There was a big hockey culture at Disney," co-producer Jordan Kerner told NHL.com. "So everybody loved it from the get-go."

The Mouse House quickly set about preparing sequels after the box office success of 1992's The Mighty Ducks, which featured an ensemble cast of largely unknown kids led by Hollywood veteran Emilio Estevez as Coach Gordon Bombay. This rag-tag team of misfits triple-deked their way into pop culture history, but you can't play pee-wee forever. Bombay's ducklings are now all grown up, and not all of them made it in Hollywood after leaving the nest. In fact, some have gone off the rails altogether. Here's what became of the Mighty Ducks cast.

The Mighty Ducks allowed Emilio Estevez to shake off the Brat Pack tag he carried throughout the '80s. He'd already attempted to move away from coming-of-age dramedies with his turn as Billy the Kid in the Young Guns movies, though Gordon Bombay (a brash attorney who gets a DUI and is forced to coach hockey as his community service) was his first real grown-up character, and one that he kept close to his heart. The actor proved that he still loved Bombay in 2015 when he live-tweeted support for the Anaheim Ducks during their playoff showdown with the Chicago Blackhawks in full character.

After Anaheim pulled the game back in true Ducks fashion, Estevez risked the ire of Blackhawk fans by calling them "windy city windbags" and telling them to "suck it." According to reports, this Twitter rant won't be the last time we hear from Coach Bombay. Estevez rarely works nowadays (he was only in two feature films this past decade, 2010's The Way and 2018's The Public, both of which he directed), but according to The Illuminerdi, the veteran actor is set to reprise his role from The Mighty Ducks in an upcoming Disney+ series. Sources claim that Bombay will be a central character in the reboot. Steven Brill, writer of the original trilogy, is also involved.

The role of championship-winning penalty scorer Charlie Conway was originally supposed to be played by future A-lister Jake Gyllenhaal. The young actor was offered the part on the back of his performance as Billy Crystal's son 1991's City Slickers, but he had to turn it down because his parents didn't want him missing out on months of school. Joshua Jackson stepped in for what was his first major role, and (despite his best efforts) it's still the one he's best-known for today. The Vancouver native has appeared in a variety of films since hanging up his Ducks jersey, but they haven't always gone down well.

Jackson played the lead in 2008's Shutter, an American remake of a Thai horror film that scored an embarrassing 7 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Luckily for him, critics have been kinder to his TV work. Jackson held down roles in the ever popular Dawson's Creek and Fringe for years, but it's his more recent appearances that are finally getting him noticed as a serious actor. He played Cole in four seasons of the acclaimed Showtime series The Affair (2014-2019), and went on to work on Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere.

If you're a Netflix subscriber then you'll probably recognize Elden Henson from his role in the streaming giant's now-canceled Marvel shows, but did you know that Matt Murdock's lovable sidekick Foggy Nelson is the same guy that played hulking enforcer Fulton Reed in The Mighty Ducks? Henson shows up when members of the titular team are cornered by players from their rivals, the Hawks, dispatching the bullies with ease. Henson went on to be a key member of the team and the cast over the course of the three movies, though when the Ducks disbanded he struggled to make an impact in the industry, resorting to supporting parts in such films as Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd and Evil Alien Conquerors.

Henson's fortunes finally took a turn for the better in 2014 when he was cast as a character called Pollux in the two-part Hunger Games finale. It wasn't the biggest of roles (Pollux is a mute, so Henson had zero lines), but it was the start of bigger and better things for him. He won the part of Foggy Nelson soon after and went on to appear in Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and The Defenders before Netflix pulled the plug on the lot of them. Henson has been out of work since.

Sean Weiss worked on a number of TV shows before making his feature film bow in The Mighty Ducks, including a short stint on Pee-wee's Playhouse in the mid-'80s. By 1992, he'd grown into a big-boned 14-year-old and was considered a perfect fit for the role of goalie Greg Goldberg, though acting on the ice proved a challenge for the teen. "We had three months of hockey camp," Weiss told Oy! Chicago in 2010. "Skating didn't come easy for me — I spent the first month on my ass."

Luckily, his position involved a minimal amount of actual skating, and Weiss learned enough to stay off his backside and on his feet. He went on to portray the flatulent goalie in the sequels, taking time off between the two to star in early Ben Stiller comedy Heavyweights. He appeared in Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks towards the end of the '90s, but things have been going downhill for Weiss since the turn of the millennium, both professionally and personally.

Court documents obtained by TMZ reveal that Weiss was accused of assaulting his girlfriend in 2013, and he's been in and out of trouble since. He was arrested for public intoxication in 2018, and he was back in custody again in 2020 after breaking into a stranger's car. Weiss "displayed symptoms of being under the influence of methamphetamine" according to a police report (via USA Today). The actor looked completely unrecognizable in his harrowing mugshot.

Justin "Jussie" Smollett played Terry Hall in 1992's The Mighty Ducks but he didn't reprise the role in either sequel, instead choosing to join Elijah Wood and a nine-year-old Scarlett Johansson in the 1994 Rob Reiner comedy North. Those are Smollett's only two major film credits from the '90s, and it would be nearly two decades before he added a third. 2012 indie dramedy The Skinny was criticized by The New York Times for reinforcing gay stereotypes, but Smollett won widespread praise for his portrayal of a homosexual character (he came out himself during a chat with Ellen DeGeneres in 2015) in hit Fox series Empire. His turn as Jamal Lyon led to roles in Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant and Chadwick Boseman-led legal drama Marshall, but his reputation would take a serious blow in 2019 after a series of bizarre and worrying events.

In January of that year, Smollett claimed that he had been subjected to a racist, homophobic attack by two white men. There was an outpouring of support for the actor, but many fans turned against him when Chicago police accused him of making the whole thing up. "[Smollett] took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career," superintendent Eddie Johnson said (via BBC), adding that the Empire star staged the attack because he was "dissatisfied with his salary." The actor maintained his innocence, but he was quietly written out of Empire anyway and hasn't worked since.

Adam Banks plays for the Ducks' arch-rivals at the beginning of the first movie, though he ends up as their teammate when Coach Bombay discovers that he actually resides within his team's district. Forced to accept his fate, the talented Banks becomes happier and healthier for it, playing a key part of the Ducks' championship triumph. Vincent Larusso portrayed Banks in all three Mighty Ducks movies, despite originally being cast as a background actor. The New Jersey native was promoted after the original Adam Banks proved to be a real troublemaker — according to the film's technical adviser, Jack White, the unnamed child actor was fired after cross-checking castmate Marguerite Moreau in the back and deliberately shooting a puck at US Olympian Eric Strobel during hockey camp.

Larusso's career peaked with The Mighty Ducks trilogy. He made a brief and unexpected return to the big screen when he portrayed a bank robber in 2008 spoof Superhero Movie, though that remains his last credit of any note. He hasn't done any acting for over a decade at this point, and it doesn't appear as though he plans on returning to the game any time soon, but he does still have connections to the craft — Larusso has worked as the Ambassador Theatre Group's Director of Food and Beverage since 2017. According to TMZ, the former child star and his wife, Kathryn Elizabeth Everard, filed for divorce in December 2018.

Practically unrecognizable today, the broad and bearded Aaron Schwartz has come a long way since playing chubby prankster Dave Karp in the first Mighty Ducks movie. He hooked up with fellow Duck Danny Tamberelli for an eight-episode stint on The Adventures of Pete and Pete in 1993, then joined another former castmate, Shaun Weiss, in Judd Apatow's 1995 comedy Heavyweights. When the formerly heavyset Schwartz reappeared after a 15-year absence from the industry in the CW's Gossip Girl, he had grown into a primetime-worthy hunk. Schwartz's three-year stint on Gossip Girl represents the longest period of time he's spent playing one character, with jobs on Law and Order, Suits, The Originals and Young Sheldon proving short-lived.

He technically joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2017, but it wasn't exactly a huge role — Schwartz's face was used for young Ego (Chris Pratt's god-like father, portrayed by Kurt Russell) in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. He's managed to stay in work since, but there's one particular project that he really wants to be involved in. Speaking to TMZ, Schwartz revealed that he would love to be in the upcoming Mighty Ducks TV reboot."They did initially reach out to a lot of the cast members," he said. "Honestly, if I have a one day role or I have a huge role in it, I really don't care. I love that they're bringing it back. That was a classic for me."

Kansas-born actor Brandon Adams was exposed to the world of acting as a toddler when he appeared in a number of commercials, but his big break came when he was cast as Zeke "Baby Bad" Michael in Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, a bizarre 1988 fantasy/action/musical hybrid that pitted the King of Pop against a drug-dealing Joe Pesci. He went on to work with Wes Craven (he referred to the horror legend as Uncle Wes in an interview he gave the year before the director's death) in 1991's The People Under the Stairs before portraying sharpshooting forward Jesse Hall in the first two Mighty Ducks movies.

Years later, Adams admitted that he lied to Disney execs in order to secure his part. "That's what you do as an actor," he told The Philadelphia Connection in 2017. "You always say, 'Yeah, I skate! I surf!" Luckily for Adams, the Mouse House put on a hockey camp for the kids anyway, so by the time shooting started he was just about capable of firing a puck. He appeared in some genuine '90s classics after The Mighty Ducks, including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Boy Meets World, Sister Sister and Moesha, though as the decade fizzled out, so did his career. His last credit of any note was 2005's Kingdom Hearts II — Adams voiced Raijin in the English version of the Disney/Square Enix video game.

Garette Henson got off to a flying start with his movie career, appearing in ten feature films over a six-year period. He made his bow in Arachnophobia in 1990 and appeared in Albert Pyun's widely mocked adaptation of Captain America later that year, though (with perhaps the exception of 1995's Casper, in which Henson played a young Christina Ricci's crush) he's best remembered as Guy Germaine from The Mighty Ducks movies. Speaking to Grantland in 2014, Henson said that he used to dislike it when people recognized him in the street, but that's changed over the years. "For me now it's switched from this thing that I felt embarrassed about to this thing of pride," he said. "I'm thrilled to have been in these movies that were so huge."

He later appeared in episodes of Melrose Place and NCIS, but Henson largely fell off the radar after 1996's D3: The Mighty Ducks. He made a brief return to acting in 2007 when he played a prisoner in The Mannsfield 12, though despite a few positive reviews, the movie didn't get the attention Henson needed to launch his comeback. He still pops up now and again to discuss the making of The Mighty Ducks, however. When he sat down with The Philadelphia Connection in 2019, he revealed that Emilio Estevez was like a big brother to him during the shoot. "He was a real prankster," Henson recalled. "He brought a fun, carefree feeling to the set."

Matt Doherty made his debut in 1990's Home Alone, though spotting him is like a game of Where's Waldo. He plays the son of Uncle Rob (whose New York home Kevin turns into a house of horrors in the sequel) and is credited as Steffan, though only appears for a matter of seconds in the family's French hotel room. He went on to play bespectacled goofball Lester Averman in the Mighty Ducks movies, and has another '90s classic on his resume in So I Married an Axe Murderer.

As he approached adulthood, roles started to dry up for Doherty, and he walked the tightrope between supporting actor and extra—"Computer Guy", "Masterpiece Video Employee", "Drunk," and "Twitchy Guy" are among the roles on his filmography. He didn't even get a credit for his appearance as a butler in 2012's Argo, and in recent years, he's turned to TV movies, including the 2015 sci-fi production Supernova 45. Doherty plays Jetset, the tech-savy sidekick of spectacularly named AWOL pilot Ganymede Pan.

Italian-American actor and musician Danny Tamberelli played the role of defenseman Tommy Duncan in The Mighty Ducks, though he didn't return for either sequel. Instead, Tamberelli opted to take on the role of Little Pete Wrigley in Nickelodeon's The Adventures of Pete and Pete, the role that he's still best remembered for. The kids' network added him to the cast of their slimy game show Figure It Out and their live sketch comedy All That in the late '90s, though he departed from Nickelodeon at the turn of the millennium and transitioned into voice work.

He'd already acquired experience in voice acting after providing the distinctively squeaky tones of Arnold Perlstein in The Magic School Bus, and a stint on Disney's animated action comedy Fillmore! was then eventually followed by a move into the gaming world, with Tamberelli cast as the voice of protagonist Michael De Santa in 2013's Grand Theft Auto V. Nowadays Tamberelli fronts Brooklyn-based rock band Jounce, a career goal he's had in mind ever since an amp-exploding encounter with Iggy Pop on the set of Adventures of Pete and Pete.

J.D. Daniels was a prolific child actor in the 1990s, with more than 30 film and TV credits to his name by the time the decade drew to a close. While he wasn't invited back to reprise the role of Peter Mark in either of the Mighty Ducks sequels, he went on to win a number of new roles across a variety of genres. He's arguably best remembered for his part in N.W.A spoof CB4 (a film most definitely made with a different target audience in mind) and he dipped his toe into horror with Man's Best Friend.

Like some of his Ducks colleagues, Daniels moved into voiceover work, providing the voice of the football-headed protagonist in the pilot episode of Hey Arnold before being summoned back to the Mouse House to work on animated series versions of Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. Although he hasn't notched up an acting credit in almost a decade, Daniels remains active in the industry, currently working for the Actors' Equity Association.

Marguerite Moreau grew up rather quickly after the Mighty Ducks trilogy ended in 1996. The Californian played camp counselor Katie in teen comedy Wet Hot American Summer just a few years later, a film that flopped at first, but went on to achieve cult status. Moreau continued to make regular movie appearances throughout the '00s, but the parts she was offered became increasingly unfulfilling and she turned her attention to television instead. She went on to ply her trade in several small-screen classics, including (but not limited to) Smallville, The O.C., Lost, Shameless, Grey's Anatomy, Mad Men, and the Emmy Award-winning The People v O.J. Simpson.

Moreau reprised the role of Katie in 2015 when she reunited with her Wet Hot American Summer castmates for the positively received Netflix prequel series First Day of Camp, has been leading calls for a movie sequel. "I mean, it's so funny," she told Under The Radar magazine. "How could you not?" That's yet to materialize, but Moreau doesn't exactly need the work — she was a regular on two TV shows (The Unsettling and The Birch) in 2019, and she also appeared in two movies (Netflix's Paddleton and crime drama Into the Ashes) that year. She's come a long way since The Mighty Ducks, but the movie still means a lot to her. Moreau was one of several cast members who took part in a ceremonial puck drop before an Anaheim Ducks game in 2019.