Fans of The Goonies will always remember Stef Steinbrenner as the best friend of Andy (Kerri Green). She was the one with the sassy one-liners, who was annoyed at the whole adventure. Stef was played by Martha Plimpton, who is now known for a lot more outside of her role in the 1985 coming-of-age comedy.
At the time that The Goonies came out, Plimpton was only 14 years old, and it was already her third movie role. Now, the actor is 51 and is an accomplished star on both the screen and the stage, who's been a part of many memorable shows and films. She's also an activist for women's rights. Read on to find out more about Plimpton today.
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She's still acting.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty ImagesPlimpton has continued acting consistently ever since her roles as a teen star. Some of her other 1980s movies include The Mosquito Coast, Parenthood, and Running on Empty.
In recent years, Plimpton has had roles on the TV shows The Good Wife, Raising Hope, Younger, and Generation. She also starred in the 2021 movie Mass and voiced Yelena in 2019's Frozen II. She was nominated for Emmys for roles in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Raising Hope, and won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2012 for The Good Wife.
She's also a theater actor.
KMazur/WireImage via Getty ImagesPlimpton has also distinguished herself with her work on stage. She has been nominated for three Tony Awards: In 2007, for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Coast of Utopia; in 2008, for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Top Girls; and in 2009, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Pal Joey.
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She's an activist.
Leon Bennett/WireImage via Getty ImagesPlimpton has long been a pro-choice activist. Abortion rights are something that she's spoken out about in speeches, in interviews, and on social media, including about her own personal experience with abortion. She also co-founded the organization A Is For.
"I care about the fact that my rights as a woman aren’t respected,” she told The Independent in January. “And that women all over the world, but particularly poor women and women of color, are even less respected. It makes me angry. I don’t want to live in a world where women aren’t welcome.”
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She was surprised by The Goonies' cult status.
In a 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Plimpton explained that she and the other Goonies stars were excited to make the movie and knew that they were part of something great but that they were initially disappointed by the film's reception.
"It wasn’t necessarily in the theaters as big a hit as we anticipated," Plimpton said. "In fact, I think, because it came out right at the beginning of the whole video rental thing and the whole cable TV thing, it was sort of this perfect storm of elements that meant that people could bring it home with them every night. That’s when it really blew up. That’s when it really took on this kind of cult status as a hit movie. But, in the theaters initially, it didn’t really blow up that much. I wasn’t sure that it would be this massive sort of video rental and cable hit."
She added, "And, of course now, people who were growing up then are showing it to their kids and and in some cases their grandkids. So it's pretty amazing. It's pretty incredible."
