Even if you didn't know her name, you probably recognize Madison Pettis' face. The child actor got her start at the age of 7 working on Barney, but then began a busy career on various Disney Channel shows and, perhaps most famously, she made her movie debut opposite Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the 2007 Disney movie The Game Plan. But it's probably been at least 10 years since you saw last Pettis—or so you realize. Pettis never stopped acting and she's currently starring in Netflix's new movie He's All That. She's also recently been modeling for Rihanna's lingerie line. Read on to see what Pettis is up to now at 23.
Madison Pettis was a Disney fixture in the mid- to late-2000s.
Mark Sullivan/WireImageAfter appearing on Barney & Friends from 2005 to 2006, Pettis got an even bigger break: starring as the long-lost daughter of The Rock's quarterback character in The Game Plan. Around the same time, in 2007, she also became a Disney Channel fixture, starring on Cory in the House (a spinoff of That's So Raven) and popping up on Hannah Montana and other programs on the network.
“I really did not think all of your wildest dreams as an eight-year-old could come true, that you could be on your favorite spin-off of your favorite Disney Channel show, doing a movie that’s going to be a giant deal. None of that seemed possible," Pettis told Teen Vogue in an August interview looking back on the roles that made her famous.
But as she grew up, she shifted to voice work in the 2010s, earning roles on the Disney Channel hit Phineas and Ferb and in the Beverly Hills Chihuahua movies. Though she's never stopped acting—nabbing small roles on shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Parenthood—she hasn't had a project match the success of her earliest work until recently with her more adults roles. And fans have been shocked to see her all grown up.
In He's All That, Pettis plays a popular girl with an appetite for drama.
Netflix via YouTubeHe's All That, a gender-swapped version of the 1999 hit teen movie She's All That, sees Pettis play Alden, the wealthy and popular BFF of the main character Padgett (TikTok star Addison Rae in her movie debut).
For those familiar with the original, Alden is a take on Dean Sampson, Jr. from She's All That, played by the late Paul Walker—and (spoiler alert) she turns out to be quite the mean girl, which Pettis said she had a hard time relating to.
“I haven't done a ton of roles that are unlike me, like I think every role I do, I can kind of see myself in the character. But this one there was really no comparison,” Pettis told Teen Vogue of Alden. “I would never do this to a friend. I would never say these things."
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And she's also a model and brand ambassador for Rihanna's lingerie line.
© Madison Pettis / InstagramIn Sept. 2020, Pettis revealed on her Instagram, where she has more than 4 million followers, that she was named the new ambassador for Savage x Fenty, the hugely popular lingerie line from Rihanna. "Welcome to the Savage Squad," the official Fenty account tweeted in response to the news.
Pettis has since posed in multiple looks for the brand, including some where she wears a blonde wig. But some of her fans from her early days have a hard time seeing her in her 20s in revealing looks. "Wow you’ve change a lot since The Game Plan," one Instagram commenter wrote. "I grew up watching her," another added. "Now seeing her like this, I can't."
Pettis knows people have a hard time accepting her as a young woman now.
Rodin Eckenroth/Getty ImagesWhile Pettis has been on TV shows and in movies ever since she was a child, she says people have a hard time seeing her all grown up at times. “I've worked consistently since I was a child, but if you haven't seen anything since then, it's like, ‘Oh, my God,'” Madison told Teen Vogue. “ I try to pick projects that I'm just passionate about that bring something different, something I've never played before.”
Pettis said she "never wanted to just hit people over the head with it and be like, ‘I'm not a little girl anymore,’” but people still can't believe she's grown up with them. “People always made jokes. It was like, ‘You're my entire childhood,’" she told Teen Vogue. "And then, slowly as I've gotten older and done more mature roles, been a little sexier, people are like, ‘Oh my god, you're ruining my childhood.’ I'm like, you have to get with the progression. I'm the same age as you now. Right? Like, we were both eight and now we're 23."
