At some time or another in every kid's life, there is a period where they dream of growing up and becoming a superhero. However, when it comes to child stars, that dream actually has a chance to become a reality. Whether looking at kids who started out on television, in Disney productions, or as child actors in movies, there are many who ended up making their childhood dreams come true by becoming an actual superhero in a blockbuster movie. Many of these child stars watched other actors playing the same roles they later took on, while dreaming of the opportunities as little kids.
It almost seems easier to look at the world of movies now and figure out who has never appeared in a superhero flick. With Marvel and DC Comics putting out multiple movies a year and other companies trying their hands as well, the cast of actors and actresses appearing on the big screen as a superhero grows by the day. Add in the many Marvel and DC television shows, and it seems like -- one day -- everyone will have appeared in a comic book property at some point. Here is a look at 15 child stars who grew up to be superheroes.
15 BEN AFFLECK (BATMAN)
Ben Affleck developed his fanbase early on, but he was already an adult by that time, appearing in cult favorites like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mallrats. However, for those unaware, Affleck was also a child star and there are still YouTube videos out there of the future Batman starring in a PBS kids series called The Voyage of Mimi at the age of 12.
Affleck skyrocketed to the top of Hollywood in the late '90s before crashing hard, thanks mostly to off-screen romances taking the spotlight over his career. However, this former child star grew up to be a superhero, although it took a couple of tries. First up was Daredevil, which lasted one movie, and now he is Batman, although that might come to an end soon as well.
14 NICHOLAS HOULT (THE BEAST)
When it comes to X-Men actor Nicholas Hoult, he became a superhero almost directly after leaving the ranks of child stars. The man who would become The Beast got his start as an actor at the age of seven in the movie Intimate Relations. However, his huge breakthrough came in the 2002 movie About a Boy, where he starred as the boy along with Hugh Grant.
Unlike many child stars of that era, Hoult was able to navigate the minefields of Hollywood just fine, and went on to appear in some blockbusters when he became a young adult, including Clash of the Titans, Jack the Giant Slayer, Mad Max: Fury Road, and of course, the new-era of X-Men movies.
13 JAMIE BELL (THE THING)
Jamie Bell has had an interesting career as an adult actor, appearing in a few comic book adaptations along the way. However, the biggest moment of his career came as a child actor when he played the lead role in the 2000 hit movie Billy Elliot. In that film, Bell played a boy who became a professional ballet dancer in England. The role won Bell a BAFTA Award for Best Actor at the age of 14.
Since that time, Bell has appeared in the original superhero movie Jumper, the comic book adaptation of Snowpiercer, and most notably starred as Ben Grimm in the 2015 reboot of Fantastic Four. While he ended up mostly appearing as a giant mound of rocks, he did get a lot of chances to play a human Ben through the first half of the critically-panned movie.
12 KATE MARA (INVISIBLE WOMAN)
Jamie Bell wasn't the only former child star to grow up to be a superhero in Fantastic Four. As a matter of fact, all four members of the First Family of Marvel Comics were child actors. Miles Teller was the only one who didn't have a big career as a kid, only appearing in short films as a child.
As for Kate Mara, the actress who played The Invisible Woman was the oldest member of the cast, in her 30s when shooting the movie but playing a much younger character. Mara was just 14 when she got her first major TV role, on an episode of Law & Order, and only 16 when she appeared in her first movie, Random Hearts with Harrison Ford in 1999.
11 JESSICA ALBA (INVISIBLE WOMAN)
The first person to play The Invisible Woman in a big-budget Fantastic Four movie was Jessica Alba -- 10 years before Kate Mara took on the role in 2015. However, much like Mara, Alba was also a former child star who grew up to be a superhero. Alba was 24 when she took on the role of Sue Storm, eight years younger than Ioan Gruffudd, the actor who played Reed Richards.
Alba started acting at the age of 11 when she won free acting classes in a Beverly Hills competition and picked up representation mere months later. She got her start in movies with Camp Nowhere at the age of 13 and then quickly gained a recurring role in The Secret World of Alex Mack on Nickelodeon. By the time she was 19, she was a major star with her own TV show called Dark Angel.
10 JOSH BROLIN (CABLE)
When it comes to Josh Brolin, it seems he is in a race with the inimitable and dynamic Chris Evans to see how many comic book roles he can notch onto his belt. At the age of 50, he has starred as Cable, Jonah Hex, Thanos, Agent K in the Men in Black franchise, Joe Doucett in Oldboy and Dwight in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
His first major movie role came when he was 17, as the older brother to Sean Astin's character in Goonies. That was around the same time that he picked up roles in TV's Highway to Heaven, Private Eye and 21 Jump Street. Brolin then grew up and became a staple of superhero movies and comic book adaptations.
9 ELLEN PAGE (KITTY PRYDE)
Ellen Page had her breakout role in the teenage pregnancy movie Juno in 2007, but appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand the year before as Kitty Pryde. While she portrayed a teenager in both movies, she was actually 19 and 20 when those movies were respectively released. Her true breakout role for cinema lovers came before that -- in 2005 with the movie Hard Candy.
In that film, an 18-year-old Page played a young girl who took a predator hostage and tortured him in a very disturbing, critically-praised performance. Before that, Page started acting at the age of 10 on the Canadian series Pit Pony and later in season two of Trailer Park Boys. She is now slated to appear as The White Violin, the villainous character in the adaptation of The Umbrella Academy.
8 TOBEY MAGUIRE (SPIDER-MAN)
There have been three live-action Spider-Man actors. Andrew Garfield acted on the stage as a child but didn't start his movie and TV career until later in life. Tom Holland still isn't drinking age yet as he plays a teenage Spider-Man. However, Tobey Maguire was older than both of them when he played the Wall-Crawler, taking the role at the age of 27.
His acting career also started earlier than both of the other Spidey actors. Maguire's first role in a movie was in 1989, at the age of 14, in the movie The Wizard. His biggest early role came at the age of 18 in the film This Boy's Life. Interestingly, Maguire kept his youthful look and still played child characters as he reached his 20s.
7 ELIZABETH OLSON (SCARLET OLSEN)
When it comes to child stars, the poster children have to be the Olsen Twins. However, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have a younger sister who chose not to follow her sister's footsteps into the world of superstardom at such a young age. Elizabeth Olsen did get her start in show business at a young age, thanks to her sisters, but her first roles were at the age of four in Olsen Twins films.
Unlike her older sisters, Elizabeth Olsen then left acting and went back to school. Elizabeth said that she didn't like how fame treated her sisters and wanted no part of it. However, she returned to acting at the age of 23 and picked up great critical acclaim for the movie Martha Marcy May Marlene before becoming a superhero for Marvel as the Scarlet Witch.
6 ANNA PAQUIN (ROGUE)
While Wolverine was the biggest superhero in the X-Men movies, the first trilogy was centered just as much around Anna Paquin and her character of Rogue as it was around Hugh Jackman and Logan. Paquin was only 18 when she took on the role of Rogue in those movies and became a star thanks to her role in the Fox-produced Marvel movies.
Paquin had already picked up a few big roles before she played Rogue as a teenager. As a child actress, she picked up a large number of critics awards for roles in movies such as Fly Away Home at the age of 14 and A Member of the Wedding at the age of 15. However, her biggest claim to fame was picking up an Oscar at the age of 11, the second-youngest winner in Academy Award history, for The Piano.
5 SCARLETT JOHANSSON (BLACK WIDOW)
When it comes to female superheroes in today's movie world, Scarlet Johansson stands at the forefront for her role as The Black Widow in the Iron Man, Captain America and Avengers movies. While she has not had her own solo movie (yet), there isn't a woman that stands as heroically in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Johansson in the world of comic book movies.
Johansson was 26 when she took on the leather-clad role as Natasha Romanoff in Iron Man II, but by that time she had been acting in movies for 16 years. The first role for Johansson was in the 1994 Rob Reiner film North at the age of 10 and she picked up her first leading role four years later in The Horse Whisperer.
4 MICHAEL B. JORDAN (HUMAN TORCH)
Michael B. Jordan may have been a child star who grew up to become a superhero, but he ended up staying just long enough to also become one of the greatest villains in comic book movie history. Jordan started out his career as a child model and at the age of 12 appeared in two of the biggest TV shows of their era -- The Sopranos and Cosby. At the age of 16, he then started a three-year stint on the soap All My Children.
In 2012, Jordan then became an original superhero in the Josh Trank film Chronicle, which is what led to his casting as Johnny Storm -- The Human Torch -- in Fantastic Four in 2015. While he got to play the superhero there, he ended up with the fantastic role of Killmonger in this year's Black Panther film, arguably the best villain in Marvel movie history.
3 RYAN REYNOLDS (DEADPOOL)
There might not be a child actor who wanted to grow up to be a superhero more than Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds got a few chances -- failing more often than not -- and he kept fighting until he finally got a successful superhero movie under his belt. It started with Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity, the movie that ended the Blade franchise.
Up next was Green Lantern, which was supposed to be part of the new DCEU but was so bad that DC chose to ignore its existence. Nick Walker in R.I.P.D. fared no better. However, after almost losing the chance to play Deadpool, Reynolds fought for the movie and finally found box office success in a superhero movie. Reynolds was 15 when he starred in the TV teen soap Fifteen.
2 ROBERT DOWNEY JR. (IRON MAN)
Robert Downey Jr. is the poster boy for a child star doing all the wrong things and ending up ruining his career as a result. He is also the poster child for a failed child star who ended up rebounding and becoming one of the most successful actors of his generation later in life. Downey was the son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. and Downey often said that he was surrounded by drugs as a child, something that resulted in his numerous arrests in the '90s.
In 1992, Downey picked up an Oscar nomination for Chaplin but from 1996 until 2001, Downey was in jail more than he was in movies. However, after his last arrest in 2001, Downey turned his life around. In 2008, Jon Favreau fought for his casting and won, helping Downey go from a failed child star to a superhero in the 2008 film Iron Man.
1 CHRISTIAN BALE (BATMAN)
Possibly the greatest example of a child star who grew up to be a superhero was Christian Bale. The man who became Batman started out as an actor at the age of 13, and it was a huge role. Steven Spielberg chose Bale to be the lead actor in his 1987 film Empire of the Sun, a role that picked the youngster up an award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
Bale then picked up a role in the journalism musical Newsies and appeared at the age of 20 in the Winona Rider movie Little Women. It might be his role as the sociopath Patrick Bateman in American Psycho that convinced Christopher Nolan that Bale was the perfect Bruce Wayne and the two men redefined what superhero movies could look like as Bale grew up to personify Batman.