A talented actor's portrayal of a parent-child relationship can seem as natural as the real thing even though they might be strangers before the filming. However, sometimes truth mixes up with fiction. These 19 Hollywood actors actually starred with their real kids. Check out whether you can recognize these familiar faces.
If you need someone to play your son, why not invite your own boy? That's probably what Will Smith thought too. Will and his son Jaden co-starred in 2006's The Pursuit of Happyness, which won Jaden the MTV Movie Award. Though Jaden stole the show from his father, Will was still proud of the budding actor.
Angelina Jolie also starred with her daughter in 2014's Maleficent. Jolie portrayed the "Mistress of Evil," who has mixed feelings towards the young princess Aurora, portrayed by her daughter Vivienne. Jolie told Vanity Fair that only her own child was not scared of her horns and claws. However, Jolie's co-starring with her father was not as pleasant as this one.
Though Angelina Jolie has always been a loving mother, her father didn't treat her the same way. The fact that Jon Voight left the family when she was a child had ruined their relationship. Even after they played father and daughter in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, their rift hasn't been healed.
Unlike his persona in the films, Clint Eastwood loves his family and has paved the way for his kids in Hollywood. He cast his son Scott in Gran Torino and Invictus as a director. They also teamed up in Trouble with the Curve.
Judy Garland and her daughter Liza Minnelli's acting careers took off after their engaging performances in The Wizard of Oz and Cabaret, respectively. Their cooperation in The Judy Garland Show also garnered widespread acclaim. However, only a few people know that they first co-starred in The Good Old Summertime when Minnelli was just three years old.
Robin Williams has starred in a bunch of top-rated films like Good Will Hunting and Dead Poets Society. However, his film with his daughter Zelda was even less famous than their Nintendo promo. The film called House of D had a gloomy box office of under $400,000. Sylvester Stallone also suffered from the same fate.
Rocky Balboa made Sylvester Stallone a household name. While the franchise's fifth film was still casting, Stallone proposed starring with his 14-year-old son Sage. Unexpectedly, the movie proved to be the worst one of the series, and Sage's dreams of stardom have long since faded.
While some parents don't allow their children to watch explicit movies like Striptease, Demi Moore had no qualms about bringing her seven-year-old daughter Rumer Willis to play her child in the film. The mother-and-daughter duo went on to co-star on Now and Then and the TV show Empire.
Most actors may find it challenging to play up against an actress with 21 Academy Award nominations—I mean, it's Meryl Streep. But that was not how her daughter Mamie Gummer felt. In 2015's Ricki and the Flash, Gummer played a neglected child while Streep was her runaway mom. Gummer revealed to The Daily Telegraph that it would have been hard to unleash such strong emotions on a stranger, but her mother made it easier.
Having just been awarded an Oscar nomination, Ryan O'Neal was the hottest new actor at that time. He soon leveraged his popularity to feature his ten-year-old daughter with him in Paper Moon. The last thing that he would expect was that his kid Tatum would become much more acclaimed than him and would even get an Oscar, which worsened their relationship in the end.
Compared to other actresses, Blythe Danner was a stern mother to her daughter Gwyneth Paltrow. Danner spoke on the Oscar winner's podcast in 2018, "I thought you had to sweat blood and tears to give a great performance, and you never did." The film Sylvia starred the pair as the mother and daughter in a complex relationship, but this cooperation was unexpectedly successful.
Melanie Griffith nearly lost an eye in her mother Tippi Hedren's film Roar, which didn't make her quit the family business. Instead, she also lent her daughter Dakota Johnson a hand in leading her into showbiz. The Fifty Shades of Grey star played Griffith's child in Crazy in Alabama.
Though Princess Leia's son betrayed her in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the actress Carrie Fisher had her real daughter Billie Lourd supporting her all the way. Lourd appeared as Kaydel Ko Connix, a subordinate of Leia. Sadly, Lourd appeared alone in the sequel, the Rise of Skywalker, because her mother passed away in 2016.
Any Harry Potter fan must vividly remember "Mad-Eye" Moody, who was played by Brendan Gleeson. But were you aware that his son also appeared in The Deathly Hallows? That was Domhnall Gleeson, who portrayed Ron Weasley's brother Bill.
The film On Golden Pond nearly depicts Henry Fonda and Jane Fonda's real-life—full of beef between father and daughter. Maybe that's why Jane bought the rights to the original play and cast Henry as the touchy patriarchal father. Henry's last film won him an Oscar, but he was too sick to accept the trophy. In the end, Jane did it for him.
In 2011, Stellan Skarsgård got a chance to co-star with his equally renowned son Alexander in Melancholia. Stellan was the best man while the True Blood star played the groom in a wedding. Though his father's role was not so adorable, Alexander enjoyed the first experience immensely and regarded it as "awesome."
With an Oscar winner as her mother, it would seem easy for Eva Amurri to choose her professional path. When she was 17 years old, she had her first try at acting with her mother, Susan Sarandon, in The Banger Sisters. Amurri portrayed Sarandon's ex-fan's daughter. Moreover, she also appeared in Friends with her mother in the episode "The One with Joey's New Brain."
As a comedy legend, Jerry Stiller nearly ruled the television channels with his wife, Anne Meara in the '60s. His son Ben definitely inherited their acting genes. But their rare co-starring in Zoolander was not delightful as they had expected. Jerry spoke out to The New Yorker, "He wanted perfection, and I was getting a little huffy." He said of his son's directorial style, "I didn't even want to be in the movie."
Both Janet Leigh's part in Psycho and her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis's role in Halloween made history in the horror film genre. It's natural then that the two scream queens worked together in Halloween's sequel and paid homage to Psycho.