Famous Celebrity Kids: How Many of These Famous Families Did You Know Are Related?
It’s always a fun Hollywood story when children of celebrities follow in their famous parents’ footsteps. This weekend, award-winning actor (and quite the headline-maker himself) Johnny Depp gets to sit back and enjoy as his only daughter, Lily-Rose Depp, takes center stage in HBO’s buzzy new series The Idol.
In The Idol, the famous model-turned-actress Lily-Rose plays a pop star who has a nervous breakdown on tour but is determined to make a comeback after beginning a complex relationship with a self-help guru played by The Weeknd. The edgy series premieres on HBO Sunday, June 4 at 9pm ET/PT. Lily-Rose (pictured below) said in an interview with Elle: “I feel like for a lot of my career, people have really wanted to define me by the men in my life, whether that’s my family members or my boyfriends, whatever. And I’m really ready to be defined for the things that I put out there.” And she’s doing just that.
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Here we look at other famous celebrity children who are making headlines these days (there’s quite a few!) Did you know they were related?
Andie MacDowell & Margaret Qualley
This is probably one of the lesser known Hollywood families, but did you know The Leftovers‘ star Margaret Qualley is Andie MacDowell‘s daughter? Playing mother and daughter on the incredible hit Netflix series Maid, the two recently got to enjoy the process of working together, too.
Leslie Mann & Maude Apatow
The daughter of Leslie Mann and 40-Year-Old Virgin writer/director Judd Apatow, Maude Apatow has been working as an actress since a very young age, often playing her real-life mother’s daughter, in comedy hits (written and directed by her father) like Knocked Up and This Is 40. She has since left the nest a bit and starred in shows like Girls and Euphoria .
Denzel Washington/John David Washington
Before Denzel Washington became a household name, he was Dr. Philip Chandler on the medical drama St. Elsewhere. He won his first Oscar for the 1989 Civil War drama Glory, after which he became one of the most prominent leading men in Hollywood — starring in films like Malcolm X (1992), The Pelican Brief (1993), Philadelphia (1993) and the crime thriller Training Day (2001), for which he won another Oscar. In 1983, he married actress Pauletta Pearson, with whom he has four children, the oldest of which is John David Washington, a former football player and now an actor like his father. John David is probably most well-known for playing Ricky Jerret on the HBO series Ballers, but he has also appeared in films such as BlacKkKlansman (2018), Tenet (2020) and Amsterdam (2022). “I didn’t see it coming,” Denzel said of his son’s rise to Hollywood fame. “I was the last one to know.”
Denzel’s second child, Katia, born in 1987, works behind the scenes as a producer, and twins Malcolm and Olivia also work in Hollywood. Malcolm is an assistant director, and Olivia is an up-and-coming actress who played a small role in Lee Daniels’ The Butler. They really put the family in family business!
Ethan Hawke/Uma Thurman & Maya Hawke
It’s pretty easy to tell that Maya Hawke is Uma Thurman‘s daughter just from one look at her! She has her mother’s memorable voice, too, and has been starring as Robin in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things since 2019. (She recently starred in a fun teen comedy called Do Revenge on Netflix as well.)
Lenny Kravitz/Lisa Bonet & Zoë Kravitz
Beloved Emmy-nominated actress Lisa Bonet rose to stardom as a teenager after landing the role of Dr. Huxtable’s daughter Denise on The Cosby Show, going on to act in hit movies like Enemy of the State (1998) and High Fidelity (2000). In 1987, she married musician Lenny Kravitz, who has his own family lineage of superstardom. Kravitz’s father was an NBC television news producer, and his mother was Roxie Roker (a second cousin once removed to weatherman Al Roker), who portrayed Helen Willis on The Jeffersons (1975-85). In 1988, Bonet and Kravitz had their daughter, Zoë Kravitz, who would also eventually become an actress (most famously, perhaps, from the hit show Big Little Lies and High Fidelity, the series). Bonet and Kravitz divorced a few years later, after which Lisa met Aquaman star Jason Momoa, with whom she has two children.
Donald Sutherland & Kiefer Sutherland & Sarah Sutherland
Donald Sutherland, a Canadian actor who has been nominated for nine Golden Globes during his long career, got his start on the stage. After landing some minor roles in British films and TV series, he got his breakthrough with the war film The Dirty Dozen (1967), after which he left London for Hollywood. He was cast as the leading man in many popular films of the 1970s and ’80s, such as The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Fellini’s Casanova (1976) and the spy thriller Eye of the Needle (1981). He was married three times, the second of which was to Shirley Douglas, a Canadian actress, with whom he has two children: twins Rachel and Kiefer Sutherland, star of the acclaimed long-running thriller series 24. Kiefer’s daughter, Sarah Sutherland, is also an actress, most well-known for her role as Vice President Selina Meyer’s daughter on Veep.
Jon Voight & Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie’s troubled history with fellow actor and father Jon Voight is no secret. Raised by her actress mother, Marcheline Bertrand, Jolie and her brother James have maintained a fraught on-again, off-again relationship with Voight through the years. While Voight and Bertrand separated in 1976, a year after their daughter was born, Jolie was not on speaking terms with him for much of her adult life and early career, until her mother passed away from cancer in 2007 and her then-partner Brad Pitt helped them reconcile. Now Voight is a grandpa to Jolie and Pitt’s six children. “She’s really remarkable,” Voight has said about his daughter, post-reconciliation. “She’s got her own thing, man. She’s got her own way of dealing with things, you know? She’s very clear.”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus & Charlie Hall
Another one that may have gone under your radar is Single Drunk Female‘s Charlie Hall, who is the son of Seinfeld and Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall! Charlie was also in The Sex Lives of College Girls and Bel-Air prior to that.
Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith & Dakota Johnson
Tippi Hedren is the matriarch of three generations of Hollywood leading ladies. Before her career-defining role in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), Tippi gave birth to her only child, Melanie Griffith, in 1957. Griffith had a burgeoning showbiz career in the 1980s, with a breakthrough and an Oscar nomination for 1988’s Working Girl. Griffith eventually married Miami Vice’s Don Johnson (twice, actually), and they are parents to Dakota Johnson, the most famous of Griffith’s three children; Dakota starred in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, and most recently, Netflix’s Persuasion. Griffith also has two other children: Alexander Bauer, whom she had with Cuban actor Steven Bauer, and daughter Stella Banderas, from her fourth marriage to screen legend Antonio Banderas.
Ron Howard & Bryce Dallas Howard
Born in 1981, Bryce Dallas Howard arrived around the time her father, Ron Howard, had just left his regular lead role on the hit sitcom Happy Days and was beginning to focus his creative ambitions on directing.
Like her dad, Bryce began appearing onscreen at a young age, as an extra in some of his films, including Parenthood (1989) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). After that, she carved out an acting career of her own, making her feature debut in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village (2004), and appearing in subsequent blockbusters like Spider-Man 3 (2007) and as co-lead of the Jurassic World franchise that began in 2015.
“She hasn’t needed my help very much,” Ron told Us Weekly in 2022. “I throw in my two cents here and there, but I don’t think my comments have ever been pivotal. … She’s always had a clear sense of the way in which she could best contribute.”
Those creative contributions have also included directing, such as episodes of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Bryce can next be seen onscreen alongside Henry Cavill in the upcoming spy film Argylle.
James Caan & Scott Caan
Actor James Caan became a household name thanks to his work in the ’70s and early ’80s. There was, of course, his performance as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (1972), which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, and its equally acclaimed 1974 follow-up The Godfather Part II, but he also made an impact in other memorable titles like Freebie and the Bean (1974), Rollerball (1975), Chapter Two (1979) and Thief (1981).
The ’70s were also important in Caan’s personal life; while his second marriage to Sheila Marie Ryan in 1976 only lasted about a year, it did result in his second child, a son born in ’76: Scott Caan. Scott has become a creative force like his dad, acting in films like Varsity Blues (1999) and Boiler Room (2000) before his breakout role as Turk Malloy in the 2001 Ocean’s 11 remake. He also played the ruthless manager Scott Lavin in HBO’s Entourage, and Danny “Danno” Williams in CBS’ Hawaii Five-O remake.
Speaking with Channel Guide Magazine about his new FOX drama, Alert, Scott took a moment to reflect on the ethos his father, who passed away in 2022, imparted by example.
“He was the kind of dude that if he did something, he wanted to be the best at it. So whether it be acting or Jiu Jitsu or surfing or football or baseball, whatever it was, he was just someone who was good at everything. And that’s sort of what he taught me. If you’re going to play, play to be the best, or don’t play. That’s probably why he was such a good actor.”
Tom Hanks & Colin Hanks
Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks has four children, and three of them are actors; the most well known of them is Colin Hanks, who, you may remember, got his start on the 1999-2001 teen drama Roswell (but really blew up after his role on Season 1 of Fargo). Colin has now been acting for so long his resume may catch up to his father one of these days! They look nothing alike, but they’ve both got some acting chops, that’s for sure.
Kelsey Grammer & Spencer Grammer
Spencer, who has been acting for most of her adult life, is most well known for her role on the late 2000s-era sorority drama series Greek as well as being the voice of Summer, Morty’s sister, on Rick and Morty. She and her dad, Kelsey Grammer, recently worked together for the first time on the Lifetime movie The 12 Days of Christmas Eve. “The idea of being able to play my dad’s daughter in a film has always been a dream of mine,” Spencer said of the experience. “We had a great time. It was so much fun, truly magical.”
Hollywood Dynasties
May 2023
Moviemaking is definitely in the family business for some of Hollywood’s most notable icons
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