Where Are Hallmark’s Biggest Child Stars Now?

Kicking off your acting career as a young up-and-coming star on Hallmark can be a boon, considering the millions-strong viewership the beloved channel has commanded for years. In the 2000s, it worked as a solid launching pad for newbie child actors to become household names and showcase their talents. In fact, many present-day household names, like Logan Lerman and Victoria Justice, can credit Hallmark with some of their earliest acting gigs that paved the way to bigger successes. 

Some child stars were already established actors before they started working with Hallmark, including Bailee Madison. In a 2017 interview with PC Principle, she spoke about how the channel’s core values of strengthening family and community resonated with her at a young age. “It’s very important to me and my family which goes directly to why I’ve been so fortunate to get to be a part of the Hallmark Channel family throughout these years,” she said.

While a number of actors who appeared on the channel when they were kids have gone on to accrue a long list of acting credits, a number of former Hallmark stars have vanished from the spotlight. Here’s a look at some of the actors who appeared on the network as youngsters and where they are now.

Kiernan Shipka was already rocking the television world as Sally Draper on “Mad Men” when she joined the Hallmark family in 2011. She appeared in “Smooch” — a characteristically feel-good film featuring all the channel’s trademark elements of love, family, and happy endings — as a young girl named Zoe Cole, who plays matchmaker between her mother and a prince-turned-nanny. “She’s the most amazing little actress I have ever seen. She blows me away,” actor Kellie Martin, who played Shipka’s mom in the film, gushed to Hallmark Channel. 

A retelling of the frog prince fairytale hopped up on Hallmark wholesomeness, the film received generally positive reviews, especially regarding Shipka’s performance. In fact, the only accolade “Smooch” received was a nomination that Shipka pulled at the Young Artist Awards in the leading actress category. 

Shipka, who started her showbiz career before she could even speak, has since branched out across film and television. Her long list of small screen credits features hits like “Riverdale,” “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” and “The Legend of Korra” on her resume, and her most recent movies include “Idiots,” “Longlegs,” “Totally Killer,” and “The Last Showgirl.” While she’s built a strong acting career for herself, she is open to exploring different lanes should the opportunity present itself. As she told C Magazine in 2024, “I never want to cut myself off creatively. That idea of putting myself in a box is not appealing to me.” 

It’s difficult to estimate the full extent of Logan Lerman’s fame in the years since he was a doe-eyed, cherubic child actor in a Hallmark Hall of Fame flick. In what marked one of his earliest screen milestones — long before the “Percy Jackson” franchise and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” established him as a major film star — Lerman starred in “A Painted House,” a made-for-TV movie based on John Grisham’s 2001 novel of the same name. 

He was in the lead as Luke Chandler, who, at the age of 10, is burdened with secrets he is compelled to keep from his family. Set in the early 1950s and centered around a community of clashing migrants and locals in Arkansas, the tale was hardly your typical warm and fuzzy Hallmark watch, as it featured profound themes of class and poverty. “A Painted House” also brought Lerman his first Young Artist Award win.

The 2010s kickstarted Lerman’s golden period as he transitioned from a child star to a youth icon, with his book-adapted film successes and eventual turn toward production. He also kept in touch with his television roots, appearing in acclaimed shows like “We Were the Lucky Ones” and “Only Murders in the Building.” As he told Esquire in 2023, “I always just am grateful to be working, to have the opportunity to continue doing what I love and be a part of production and be on set.” 

Jodelle Ferland was already a major celebrity when she found her way to the Hallmark family. Having started in the industry as a toddler, and a talented one at that, she had picked up tons of recognition before she even touched her teens — so much so, that for her role in the 2000 movie “Mermaid,” she earned a historic distinction as one of the youngest Daytime Emmy nominees in the history of the awards. With those impressive credentials, she joined the cast of “Pictures of Hollis Woods,” a 2007 Hallmark Hall of Fame film based on Patricia Reilly Giff’s award-winning novel of the same name. 

Ferland led the film as Hollis Woods, an artistic girl navigating life through foster care, and delivered the performance with such conviction that it added to her tally of Young Artist Award nominations. Instead of the generic feel-goodness Hallmark films are typically beloved for, “Pictures of Hollis Woods” actually managed to win critical appreciation for its poignant storytelling and performances, with particular praise for Ferland whom The Hollywood Reporter singled out as “terrifically appealing.” 

She is also remembered for her role in “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” which came about not long after her turn as a Hallmark actor. After years of growing up before the camera, Ferland took a brief hiatus from acting — “I really enjoyed the experience and much needed break from my career,” she told Authority Magazine in 2022 — before returning to the industry. 

Matthew Knight was a Hallmark mainstay through the late 2000s, most notably in the channel’s flagship franchise “The Good Witch.” He appeared in a string of films as Brandon Russell, the young wide-eyed son of police chief Jake Russell and later, also the stepson of lead Cassie Nightingale. Knight was enduringly charming in his role, which earned him a slew of Young Artist Award nominations that bulked up a glittering collection for him. 

Knight had already started building his prize tally a few years before he broke out with “The Good Witch” — kicking things off, interestingly, with a largely overlooked film at Hallmark itself. In 2006, he appeared in the Hallmark Hall of Fame film “Candles on Bay Street” led by Alicia Silverstone, in the award-winning role of her son. He was also gaining recognition in the Hollywood circuit around this time for his character of Jake Kimble in “The Grudge” franchise and would also come to add the popular television series “My Babysitter’s a Vampire” to his resume.

“I love the fact that I can be different people and step out of myself. It gives me a different perspective on life, to experience something I wouldn’t in my own life,” Knight once gushed to York Region. It seems, however, that his acting passion didn’t stick because by the mid-2010s, Knight bowed out of acting and away from the spotlight. He reportedly leads a private life with his wife and children. 

Bailee Madison is without question a fixture of the Hallmark universe, having been on the channel’s roster since she was a child and has stuck around well into adulthood. She had already achieved stardom with her big screen credits in “Bridge to Terabithia,” “Brothers,” and “Just Go with It,” when she hit the ground running at Hallmark with back-to-back releases in 2012. 

“A Taste of Romance,” which set the ball rolling, put her in the lead as Hannah Callahan, who tries to play cupid between her dad and his rival in the restaurant business. “It’s such a feel good movie, which is nice because you don’t see that a lot,” Madison told EnterTeenment News of her experience working on the TV movie. “It brings so much of your real life into a film which is what I love about Hallmark.” She then appeared in “Smart Cookies” as a standout member of a Girl Scout troop that transforms under the guidance of a real estate agent. 

Years of work with Hallmark finally led Madison to the “Good Witch” series, in which she bagged a key role as Grace Russell, the daughter of the titular witch Cassie Nightingale. Outside of Hallmark, Madison’s credits include the “Pretty Little Liars” reboot, “The Fosters,” “Good Trouble,” “Once Upon a Time,” “Roommates,” and “Grown Ups 3.”

The actor who plays Samantha LaRusso on “Cobra Kai” might look familiar to longtime Hallmark Channel fans. In 2007, Mary Mouser — the actor who came to global prominence for leading the popular martial arts series – starred in “A Stranger’s Heart,” a Hallmark TV movie about how a heart transplant leads a woman to find a family. Mouser was in the role of Cricket, a young orphan girl smack in the middle of the plot. 

Prior to “A Stranger’s Heart,” Mouser had already done quite a bit of voice acting in films and appeared in major television shows like “Scrubs” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” It was “A Stranger’s Heart,” however, that gave Mouser one of her first tastes of award season recognition, as she earned a Young Artist Award nomination for her work in the movie. After the Hallmark movie, her filmography only continued to grow before she nabbed the career-defining role of Samantha, whom she played across the whole six seasons of “Cobra Kai.” 

The show, which is an offshoot of the legendary “Karate Kid” franchise centered around Samantha’s father Daniel LaRusso (played by Ralph Macchio), amassed a dedicated following and greater renown for Mouser. As she said in a 2024 chat with Glamour, “I learned recently that I am actually really into the idea of being behind the camera and in different positions in different aspects [of production], so that’s something I’m kind of exploring right now in a new way.” 

In the 2000s, Zack Shada’s career was booming. The child star popped up in films like “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” to hit shows like “Wizards of Waverly Place” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” And then, of course, there’s the Hallmark Channel. Throughout the “Jane Doe” movies, Zack played Nick Davis, the son of lead character Cathy Davis (Lea Thompson) who lives a secret double life. We nabbed a Young Actor Award win for his supporting role. 

Though Zack grew up acting alongside his two brothers, he eventually stepped away from the industry. At some point after 2010, he all but quit acting and redirected his creative attentions toward music. Together with his fellow musically-inclined brother Jeremy Shada, he co-founded the band Make Out Monday, and they released their debut single, “Hope Less Romantics,” in 2014. 

“I’ll be driving and hear a jam and that will inspire me. I’ll take what I hear to heart and it inspires me. The lyrics usually come first, a lot of time I come up with lyrics in the shower. I then present lyrics to the guys and see what they think,” the “Jane Doe” star told National Rock Review in 2014. Zack’s most recent acting credit is two episodes of animated “Spider-Man” series in 2018, in which he voiced the character Hippo.

One of the earliest credits in Victoria Justice’s transformation from a child actor to a television sensation were set at Hallmark. Years before she broke through as Tori Vega in the teen sitcom “Victorious” and became Nickelodeon royalty, Justice was making minor appearances on popular shows like “Gilmore Girls” and “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.” During that era, she also bagged an opportunity to become part of Hallmark’s iconic Christmas legacy with a small but notable role in the 2005 Hallmark Hall of Fame flick “Silver Bells.” 

The made-for-TV Christmas movie proved memorable for Justice for reasons that transcended holiday magic. As Marie Claire mentioned, the filming of “Silver Bells” coincided with Justice landing a part on the teen show “Zoey 101,” which got her foot in the door at Nickelodeon. She then went on to launch a music career that overlapped with “Victorious” and beyond.

After finding teen stardom, Justice’s career slowed down — but she was not entirely against the change in pace. “I think I’d been so busy also for so much of my younger life, that it was kind of nice … to take some time to just focus more on what it is I want to do … and just kind of be more selective,” she told People in 2024. She has continued to act across formats and, after a long hiatus, also release music. Her more recent credits include “Suits LA,” “The Real Bros of Simi Valley,” and 50 States of Fright.”

Courtney Jines, who played Demetra in the third “Spy Kids” movie, got her big Hallmark break in “Silver Bells.” Part of the main cast of the holiday film — in a role way more significant than her contemporary Victoria Justice — Jines stunned as Bridget Bryne, a young girl navigating the complicated family dynamics between her runaway brother and widower father around Christmastime. 

Endearing as she was in the 2005 film, which also earned her a Young Artist Award nomination, Jines bowed out of the industry soon after. Her interest, it seemed, evolved more toward filmmaking than acting. “I had a baby acting career … making my own films evolved naturally from there because I was on set a lot, which sort of de-mystified it for me, and I started making home videos with the camcorder,” she told The Light Leaks. “I wanted to tell my own stories.” 

Jines went on to attend the New York Film Academy and eventually became a Sundance Ignite Fellow, through an initiative by the namesake cinema institution that supports budding filmmakers. She also founded her own production label, Moonflower Pictures, and has starred in self-produced shorts films “Go to Sleep, Sadie” and “The Apocalypse Will Blossom.” What’s more, she co-founded an organization called Arts x Action. As she said in the aforementioned interview, “Arts x Action” developed very organically from the need for a shared space for socially engaged/activated artists and community organizers to build relationships with each other and inspire each others’ work in D.C.”

Before he was on “The Glades,” “Girl Meets World,” and “13 Reasons Why,” Uriah Shelton was on the Hallmark Channel. He had a starring role in the TV movie “The Nanny Express” near the very start of his showbiz career, in which he played young mischief-maker Ben Chandler. 

Though the film itself wasn’t necessarily a groundbreaking piece of entertainment, borrowing from the empathetic nanny heals a bereaved family trope that goes all the way back to “The Sound of Music,” Shelton’s performance earned him his first and only Young Artist Award nomination. He had a good run as a child actor, notably bagging lead parts in films like “Lifted” while also making episodic appearances in popular shows like “The Suite Life on Deck.” 

Uriah’s more recent credits include the aforementioned TV shows, as well as the 2020 horror comedy “Freaky.” He also landed a lead role in the 2025 Amazon Prime show “Motorheads.” In the series, which ran for one season, he played a reserved outsider in the fast-paced world of motorcycles. In an interview with High Voltage, Shelton shared that in his self-tape, he made sure to feature his own bike. “I recorded myself on the Harley that I built, um, a little unconventionally,” he said. “It can backfire, but I think ultimately it did work out.”