21 Celebrities Who Are Shorter Than You Thought

They only seem larger than life onscreen.

Just from watching someone on TV or in a movie, it can be hard to judge how tall they actually are—especially since there are easy tricks to alter your perception of their height. Also, everyone seems bigger than life onscreen, especially stars who ooze confidence and personality. If you ran into some of your favorite actors and musicians on the street, you might be surprised by their stature in real life. Read on for 21 celebrities who are shorter than you thought and how they feel about it.

RELATED: 24 Celebrities Who Are Way Taller Than You Thought.

1
Billy Joel

Billy Joel performing at Madison Square Garden in 2019
Taylor Hill/Wireimage

At 5'5", Billy Joel is a full four inches shorter than one of his most famous exes, supermodel Christie Brinkley. However, it was being seen with another supermodel he dated that made the artist feel insecure about his short stature.

"I remember somebody got a shot of us walking down a beach at Coney Island," Joel said about going out with 6'0" Elle Macpherson, per The Washington Post. "Elle was so tall that I looked like Bubbles the Chimp next to her, and I realized this was just not going to work."

2
Danny Trejo

Danny Trejo at the GuadaLAjara Film Festival in 2021
Phillip Faraone/Getty Images

Desperado star Danny Trejo intimidates on screen, but it's not on account of his height. The actor stands at 5'6", which fans of movies including Con Air and Machete may be surprised to hear.

3
Kourtney Kardashian

Kourtney Kardashian at the premiere of "The Promise" in 2017
Tinseltown/Shutterstock

Though sisters Kendall Jenner and Khloé Kardashian are tall women, both at 5'10", not every member of the famous family is statuesque. Kourtney Kardashian's height is the source of some ribbing from her relatives, as seen on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but filling out her wardrobe is the bigger struggle.

"I'm five feet tall–I'm very petite–so for me, if I'm wearing a skirt or dress, it needs to be short, or else it makes me look frumpy," she told Elle. "I need to wear either something really short or a maxi dress; anything in between just looks weird."

4
Rob Schneider

Rob Schneider 2019
Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

Rob Schneider has appeared in more than 15 Adam Sandler movies, standing at 5'3" next to his 5'10" frequent co-star. And he's got a sense of humor about it, dropping short jokes on Twitter to former SNL colleague David Spade—who's four inches taller than him.

5
Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart at the premiere of "Jumanji: The Next Leve" in 2019
Featureflash Photo Agency/Shutterstock

Comedy superstar Kevin Hart is below-average in the height department, standing at 5'2". Fortunately, this is something he embraces.

"I don't believe in doing things to manufacture my body to appeal to what I think people might like," he told Oprah Winfrey on Oprah Prime. "This is it. This is what I was given. This is my playing cards. If we were playing poker, I've got to make this hand work. This is it for me. And this is what I'm going to ride out. So how do you not embrace it? You get one life. One. You get one life. I'm going to embrace mine."

6
Shania Twain

Shania Twain
Leonard Zhukovsky/Shutterstock

Country legend Shania Twain frequently wears heels on stage, so it's easy to miss the fact that she's only 5'4". The singer has admitted that she felt uncomfortable with her appearance as a child, and told InStyle that she didn't feel at home in her own skin until she became a performer.

"I didn't accept who I was until I was out of high school and starting to wear stage clothes," she said. "I started recognizing that, 'Oh, I'm the girl in the band. Maybe I'm supposed to wear makeup and style my hair.'"

7
Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek at LACMA Art+Film Gala in 2013
Jaguar PS/Shutterstock

Salma Hayek has delivered some seriously powerful performances, including her turn in the biopic Frida. And as it turns out, she was the perfect person to play legendary artist Frida Kahlo—at 5'2", she's only one inch shorter than the real woman was. But growing up in Mexico, being short wasn't easy for Hayek.

"I had my struggles. I am 5'2" and in Mexico where I am from, it was very important to be tall," she told the Daily Express. "People used to say that the short thing was a deformity. I was really upset about my height."

8
Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman at the premiere of "Lucy In The Sky" in 2019
Tinseltown/Shutterstock

After starring in Black Swan and taking her place in both the Star Wars and Marvel franchises, it's safe to say that Natalie Portman has made her mark on Hollywood. And she's done it all at 5'3".

Her stature doesn't always go unremarked upon, however. She said there were no shortage of "short people jokes" on set when she filmed the rom-com No Strings Attached opposite Ashton Kutcher, who is 6'2".

"He's a lot taller than me," Portman told Access Hollywood. "We definitely got a lot of enjoyment out of that, well, he probably got more because he gets to be the tall one… I get to be the gnome!"

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9
Eva Longoria

Eva Longoria at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Opening Gala in 2015
Tinseltown/Shutterstock

Former Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria is definitely on the shorter side at 5'2", but it's something she's always been willing to joke about. Case in point: When she posed for a photo at the Cannes Film Festival with a group of willowy models in 2017.

"Just us models #Wore5InchHeelsAndStillCouldntKeepUp #SeriouslyShort," she captioned the post.

10
Victoria Beckham

Victoria Beckham at the People's Choice Awards in 2018
Tinseltown/Shutterstock

As a former Spice Girl and now a major player in the fashion world, Victoria Beckham has many talents. Those talents don't include getting things off the top shelf. The fact that she's 5'4" may surprise you, considering all the attitude Posh Spice brought to the group—and those stilettos she's always wearing.

11
Kit Harington

Kit Harrington at the premiere for "Game of Thrones" in 2017
Featureflash Photo Agency/Shutterstock

Game of Thrones star Kit Harington stands at 5'3", but not his famous character Jon Snow. Harington told Esquire that he had to wear heeled shoes to appear taller during filming.

"My costume weighed 33 pounds, and you'd carry all of that on your shoulders all day. So 33 pounds for 10 hours. And then you've got the sword, and that weighs two kilograms, which is another X number of pounds," he said. "Plus, I was in f***ing high heels, because I'm short and they need me to look taller than other people, so I'm carrying 50 pounds in high heels."

12
Megan Fox

Megan Fox at the Revolve Gallery at Hudson Yards in 2021
Gotham/WireImage

Machine Gun Kelly is 6'4"—a full foot taller than 5'4" girlfriend Megan Fox. And while their height difference is noticeable in photos, in the past, she's said that her stature helps her avoid being recognized when she's out in public.

"People don't realize just how short I am," she said, via Boston.com. "People always think I am taller so a lot of the time I go unnoticed because I am way down closer to the floor and everyone is looking for a taller girl."

13
Elliott Page

Elliot Page at Paris Fashion Week in 2021
Richard Bord/Getty Images

The Umbrella Academy star Elliott Page is just 5'1", and being short is something that made appearing in X-Men: The Last Stand all the more special for him.

"Playing Kitty Pryde was awesome because I'm five-foot-one and I got to be a superhero and portray this young, very intelligent woman, and that's kind of cool," he told Uncut back in 2008.

14
Elijah Wood

Elijah Wood at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018
Ron Adar/Shutterstock

At 5'6", Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood is much too tall to be an official hobbit (according to author JRR Tolkien, they're between two and four feet tall), but he's still shorter than many of his peers.

15
Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise at the Lumiere Awards in 2019
Leon Bennett/Getty Images

Though he's been married to some pretty tall ladies—Nicole Kidman is 5'11" while Katie Holmes is 5'9"—Tom Cruise himself is only 5'7". And when there was some controversy about him playing Jack Reacher—a character described as being over six feet tall in the books—he admitted that it was hard for him to hear the criticism.

"I'm very sensitive to it," Cruise told Empire, via E! News. "This is Lee [Childs'] book and Lee's character. Him giving me his blessing is what made me do it. If he hadn't, then I wouldn't have done it."

16
Zac Efron

Zac Efron at the premiere of "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" in 2019
Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Netflix

Zac Efron played a star basketball player in the High School Musical franchise, but Troy Bolton wouldn't have been among the NBA's tallest—Efron is just 5'8".

17
Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson at the British Academy Film Awards in 2020
Cubankite/Shutterstock

Here's more proof you don't have to be tall to be a superhero: The star of Black Widow is only 5'3". And while Scarlett Johansson may be fine with her size, she doesn't love it when fans feel the need to point it out to her.

"'Wow, you're really short.' I get that a lot," she told Cosmopolitan UK. "[They say] 'You're a lot shorter than I thought you were'. I'm like, 'Wow, how is that ever OK to say to someone?' It's so bizarre. Yes. It's, 'You're really short.'"

18
Bruno Mars

Bruno Mars at the Billboard Music Awards in 2018
Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Bruno Mars is the man who brought us songs like "Uptown Funk" and "Marry You," and if he seems taller than his actually 5'5", that's because of more than just his big personality.

"I'm a short guy, and that's always something I have to think about," he told The Daily Star, via Heavy. "I've always done the hat thing. Now I'm doing ones with bigger brims to make myself look taller."

19
Zoë Kravitz

Zoe Kravitz at the season 2 premiere of "Big Little Lies" in 2019
lev radin/Shutterstock

Zoë Kravitz is exactly as tall as mother Lisa Bonet—both actors are 5'2". But especially in high school, the younger woman she struggled with the way she looked.

"I had this remarkably beautiful skinny mother and a father who was dating a supermodel, and I felt short and ungainly," she admitted to Elle.

20
Olivia Munn

Olivia Munn at the premiere of "The Way Back" in 2020
DFree/Shutterstock

There's a lot of talent packed into 5'4" Olivia Munn, who went from being a TV presenter to an in-demand actor. She hasn't spoken much about her height publicly, but she has addressed the way that expecting her first child (with comedian John Mulaney) has caused her to face some of her body image issues.

"Being pregnant has brought up all those feelings because there is so much of like, 'How am I supposed to do it right?'" Munn said on Sirius XM's Pop Culture Spotlight. "And I know there is no right, I understand that but it's really hard, especially to have so many images in your face all the time of what truly looks like perfection."

21
Mark Wahlberg

Mark Wahlberg at the premiere of "McMillion$" in 2020
Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images

Between making music, opening a burger chain with his family, and starring in movies including Daddy's Home and Ted, Mark Wahlberg's career has been jam-packed. And in the midst of it all, fans might not have been able to tell that he's only 5'8"—shorter than many of his costars. His brother, Donnie, is a bit taller than him at 5'10".

RELATED: 28 Celebrities Who Are Older Than You Thought.

Nicole Pomarico
Nicole Pomarico is a pop culture and entertainment writer. Read more
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