Ashlyn Messier
Starring in a Disney Channel show or original movie was just the beginning of an extraordinary career for many young actors.
Celebrities who started their careers on Disney Channel have gone on to become actors in blockbuster movies, singers selling out stadiums around the world and have created business empires.
Below are several A-list celebs and the Disney programs they worked on.
Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez are just two stars whose careers took off after their Disney Channel shows. (Disney Channel/Joel Warren I Eric McCandless/Disney Channel via Getty Images)
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1. Selena Gomez
The early days of Selena Gomez’s career were spent on Disney sets.
Gomez’s very first role wasn’t on Disney Channel. She was one of the kids in “Barney.”
In 2007, Gomez stepped into the role of Alex Russo for the Disney Channel show “Wizards of Waverly Place.” The show centers around a family that’s far from ordinary with three children who possess magical powers.
Along with regular episodes of the show airing until 2012, there were also a number of Disney Channel crossover episodes, such as one with “The Suite Life on Deck” and “Hannah Montana” casts, called “Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana.” The “Wizards of Waverly Place” cast was also at the center of a TV movie featuring the Russo family.
Selena Gomez played a teenage wizard in the Disney show “Wizards of Waverly Place.” (Eric McCandless/Disney Channel via Getty Images)
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While on “Wizards of Waverly Place,” Gomez also acted in other Disney shows and movies, including “Hannah Montana,” “Princess Protection Program” and “The Suite Life on Deck.”
Gomez also began releasing her own music.
After “Wizards of Waverly Place” wrapped, Gomez continued to act in TV shows and movies, like “Spring Breakers,” “Hotel Transylvania” and “Only Murders in the Building,” but she also put a big focus on her music and her business.
Gomez has released many hit songs through the years, including “Lose You To Love Me” and “Wolves.”
She is also the founder of the makeup brand Rare Beauty, which launched in 2020.
Selena Gomez and David Henrie are heading back to their wizarding days for a reboot of their popular Disney show. (Eric McCandless/Disney Channel via Getty Images)
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Through her success, Gomez has not completely left her Disney Channel days behind her. She will be part of a “Wizards of Waverly Place” reboot.
2. Ryan Gosling
Ryan Gosling is known for his role in popular films like “The Notebook” and “La La Land,” but did you know he also worked for Disney early in his career?
When Gosling was young, he was on “The Mickey Mouse Club.”
Before the show aired on Disney Channel, it started in 1955 and aired for four seasons on ABC.
Gosling was part of “The All-New Mickey Mouse Club,” which aired on Disney Channel from 1989 until 1996.
Before “The Notebook,” Ryan Gosling was a child actor on a Disney Channel series. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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Gosling was just one of many stars who appeared on the Disney show. Others in the cast included Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
3. Zac Efron
Zac Efron’s career took off after he appeared in the Disney Channel original movie “High School Musical.”
Efron played Troy Bolton, a high school basketball star who also found a passion for theater in the 2006 original film, “High School Musical 2” in 2007 and “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” in 2008.
Many other stars in these films, like Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale, found success after the release of the popular movies featuring catchy songs.
After his “High School Musical” days, Efron acted in films like “17 Again,” “Charlie St. Cloud,” “The Lucky One” and “Baywatch.”
Ashley Tisdale, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens were three of many young stars who came from the “High School Musical” movies. (Kenny Crookston/Getty Images)
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Efron pulled out his singing and dancing skills once again for the 2017 movie “The Greatest Showman,” in which he starred alongside Hugh Jackman and fellow Disney alum Zendaya.
4. Demi Lovato
Demi Lovato, like Gomez, first appeared on “Barney” when she was 6, before her Disney Channel days.
One Disney Channel role Lovato is widely remembered for is playing Mitchie Torres in “Camp Rock” and “Camp Rock 2.”
The movies are filled with memorable songs, like “This Is Me,” “We Rock” and “Gotta Find You.”
The movies are both set in a summer camp, filled with musically inclined campers. In both movies, a famous fictional band, Connect 3, also attends the summer camp. In real life, the band is known as the Jonas Brothers.
In between the release of the two “Camp Rock” movies, Lovato also starred in “Princess Protection Program” with Gomez and was the lead in the series “Sonny with a Chance,” from 2009 until 2011.
Demi Lovato starred in the two “Camp Rock” TV movies made by Disney. (Ferdaus Shamim/WireImage)
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Lovato has had few acting roles since her Disney Channel days, but her music career took off with hits like “Confident,” “Heart Attack” and “I Love Me.”
Lovato has spoken about her time acting at a young age on various occasions.
“When I got into the industry at a young age, I guess, there was a conscious decision of, ‘Are you OK sacrificing a normal childhood for your hopes and dreams,'” she told The Hollywood Reporter.
“At Disney, you became this instant role model, whether you liked it or not,” Lovato explained. “And because Disney Channel was so big at the time, there was also this unspoken pressure that if you did make a mistake, you knew that there were millions of people just waiting to take your spot.”
5. Zendaya
Zendaya has acted in many popular movies over the years, including several “Spider-Man” films, alongside her real-life love, Tom Holland. She was also in “Malcolm & Marie,” “The Greatest Showman” and “Dune.”
Before this, Zendaya appeared on many different Disney Channel shows as well as starring in her own.
In 2010, Zendaya appeared as Rocky Blue on the Disney show “Shake It Up” with Bella Thorne. The two starred on the show until 2013.
During this time, Zendaya had guest appearances on “Good Luck Charlie” and “Ant Farm” and was in the TV movie “Frenemies,” also with Thorne.
She also led the Disney show “K.C. Undercover,” from 2015 to 2018.
Zendaya starred in two Disney Channel shows, “Shake It Up” and “K.C. Undercover.” (Rick Rowell/Disney Channel via Getty Images)
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Even though Zendaya spent many years on Disney Channel, “Spider-Man” was one of the first big movie roles she received.
When she first auditioned for “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” Amy Pascal, the producer of the film, and Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, were unfamiliar with Zendaya.
“Neither [Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige] nor I knew who she was,” Pascal admitted to Vogue.
“She was wearing no makeup, and she was just dressed like a regular girl, and we were like, ‘Oh my God, she’s amazing. She has to be in the movie,'” said Pascal.
“Then we found out she was a totally famous person and felt really stupid.”
6. Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus is a star now and grew in popularity when she was young, acting and performing on stage as Hannah Montana.
Cyrus played the leading role in the Disney Channel TV show “Hannah Montana” from 2006 until 2011. In the show, she played a normal teenage girl, Miley Stewart, who was secretly the identity behind the famous superstar, Hannah Montana.
Cyrus released many of her early hit songs as Montana and even performed as the star at sold-out shows.
After spending many years as Montana, she started releasing music under her own name and continued to act, most famously in the film,”The Last Song” with Liam Hemsworth.
Miley Cyrus played a secret pop star on the Disney show “Hannah Montana.” (Joel Warren/Disney Channel via Getty Images)
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Cyrus adopted a much more edgy look and underwent a rebrand as an adult.
Though she spent many years seemingly distancing herself from her Disney days, she did appear at the 2024 D3 expo, where she was named the youngest Disney Legend.
The ceremony included Lainey Wilson singing “The Best of Both Worlds,” the theme song for “Hannah Montana.”
In Cyrus’ speech, she talked about auditioning for “Hannah Montana” in Disney’s Burbank office, “where it’s rumored that they create all of us Disney Kids,” she joked.
“I definitely wasn’t created in a lab, but if I was, there must’ve been a bug in the system which caused me to malfunction somewhere between the years of 2013 and ’16.”
The audience laughed, and she added, “Sorry, Mickey!”
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