Brie started acting in 1998, when she was just 9 years old. Her first role was in a sketch for The Tonight Show With Jay Leno<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n \n \n<\/svg><\/p>\n \n \n <\/symbol><\/p>\n \n \n <\/symbol> \n <\/svg><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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2000s girls will also remember her playing mean girls in 13 Going On 30<\/i> and sleepover<\/i> when she was about 15.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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As an adult, she’s gone on to win an Oscar and a Golden Globe for room<\/i> and an Emmy for The Messy Truth VR Experience.<\/i> And there’s no sign of her stopping.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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3.<\/span><\/p>\n Retired early: Shirley Temple.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Shirley is probably the most famous child actor of all time. She started working as an actor at just 4 years old and built an incredible catalog throughout her childhood.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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At 22, she decided to retire from acting, and she ended up working in politics for most of her life, even serving as an ambassador to Ghana and then Czechoslovakia before her death in 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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4.<\/span><\/p>\n Stuck with acting: Jodie Foster.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Other than commercials, Jodie’s first acting role was when she was just 5 years old on the TV show Mayberry RFD<\/i> She continued doing mostly TV work as a kid.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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When she was just 14, she earned her first Oscar nomination for playing a child sex worker in the movie Taxi Driver<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Now she has two Oscars (for The Accused<\/i> and The Silence of the Lambs<\/i>), and her most recent movie, The Mauritanian<\/i>earned her a third Golden Globe.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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5.<\/span><\/p>\n Retired early: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n \n \n<\/svg><\/p>\n \n \n <\/symbol><\/p>\n \n \n <\/symbol> \n <\/svg><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Okay, this is actually two child actors, but they worked together for most of their careers before pivoting away to focus on other career ventures, like their fashion lines the Row and Elizabeth & James.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Ashley quit first, with her last major role being New York Minute<\/i> in 2004, and Mary-Kate followed after her last role in beastly<\/i> in 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Mary-Kate said in 2012, “If I ever get back in[to Hollywood]it’s not going to be as an actress.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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6.<\/span><\/p>\n Stuck with acting: Scarlett Johansson.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Scarlett made her feature film debut at just 9 years old in the movie north<\/i>but even before then, she’d already made her stage debut off-Broadway alongside Ethan Hawke at age 8.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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She’s worked consistently ever since, winning a Tony Award for the play A View From the Bridge<\/i> in 2010 and getting two Academy Award nominations for Marriage Story<\/i> and Jojo Rabbit<\/i>. She was also named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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7.<\/span><\/p>\n Retired early: Peter Ostrum.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Peter has exactly one acting role under his belt, and it’s the starring role of Charlie in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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After filming wrapped, he considered an acting career but quickly fell in love with veterinary medicine instead and decided to pursue that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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He said in 2000, “Acting was fine, but I wanted something more steady, and the key is to find something that you love doing, and that’s what my profession has given to me.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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8.<\/span><\/p>\n Stuck with acting: Joseph Gordon-Levitt.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Joseph was scouted by a manager while performing in a preschool play, and he made his TV film debut by age 6. But perhaps his best-known childhood role was in the TV show 3rd Rock From the Sun<\/i>which premiered when he was 14.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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He now also directs, produces, and runs an online media platform called HitRecord on top of acting. He even won two nonacting Emmys for his work on HitRecord.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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9.<\/span><\/p>\n Retired early: Mara Wilson.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Mara started to lose interest in film acting around the same time that she started to age out of the child roles she’d famously played.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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She said in 2013, “Hollywood didn’t really want me at that point, and I was kind of over it too. So, after a while, it feels like a mutual breakup.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n