Child stars who had the biggest Hollywood comebacks

Ke Huy Quan burst onto the scene as Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom opposite Harrison Ford, and stole hearts in The Goonies, before seemingly disappearing from Hollywood altogether.

"It was downhill from there," he told Screen Daily. "You would think after I did those two big movies, I would have an amazing career. After that, the opportunities got fewer, and the wait time longer."

"I was still working, but once a year, or once every two years," he continued. "And the roles got smaller. It was alright when I was in high school, but once I graduated and wanted to do it full-time, it became difficult."  

Eventually, Ke gave up on acting and pivoted to working behind the camera, even serving as a fight choreographer on X-Men in 2000. 

When the smash-hit film Crazy Rich Asians hit theatres in 2018, Ke began to feel a tug back towards acting, as he told the publication.

"I was sitting in the theatre, fantasising, wishing I was up there with them," he recalled. "I was afraid I would turn 60 or 70 and have huge regrets of never giving this dream a chance; that fear overwhelmed any fear I had coming back." 

The star then called a friend, who secured him an audition for Everything Everywhere All At Once, a film which went on to be lauded by critics and audiences alike.

"I was so relieved. I was like, 'I can do this.' Filmmakers, producers do want me. The movie changed my life, and people are reaching out," he said. 

Ke even won the coveted Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2023, and shared a moving speech about the importance of chasing his dreams. 

"Dreams are something you have to believe in," he said. "I almost gave up on mine. To all of you out there, please keep your dreams alive."

Lindsay Lohan has come a long way since she made a splash in The Parent Trap in 1998, and the world has seen every iteration of the New York native since, including child star, party girl and celebrated actress.

Lindsay was a teen idol in the '00s thanks to films like Mean Girls, Freaky Friday, Just My Luck and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, yet fame took a toll on her, and she began to struggle with substance abuse and frequent run-ins with the law, culminating in over 20 court appearances.

The final straw for Lindsay's reputation came in 2006, when studio executive James G. Robinson wrote a letter about her "irresponsible and unprofessional" behaviour on the set of Georgia Rule, and pointed out her habit of being late to set or failing to turn up at all. 

The red-headed star took some time away from Hollywood to recover, and relocated to Dubai, where she wouldn't be hounded by the paparazzi.

"There's a certain calmness that I find [in Dubai]. There's no paparazzi, no cameras – that's a big deal for me," Lindsay told W magazine. 

The former child star met her husband, Bader Shammas, in Dubai, and together they welcomed their son, Luai, in 2023.

As well as building a family unit, Lindsay was also making her triumphant return to Hollywood in 2021 when she signed on to star in her first Netflix holiday film, subsequently signing a two-picture deal with the streamer the following year.

Drew Barrymore is the poster child of rising from the ashes, with the star turning her life around and building a successful brand despite a tough childhood. 

The actress melted hearts in 1982's E.T. at just seven years old, and proved her acting prowess in Firestarter two years later, yet a growing addiction to alcohol and drugs began to eclipse her life. 

After a stint in a psychiatric hospital, Drew emancipated herself from her parents at 14 and lived pay check to pay check by working odd bar and café jobs while continuing to audition, albeit unsuccessfully.

"I walked into that audition, and the casting director just sat there laughing," she told Movieline of being blacklisted from Hollywood. 

"He said, 'I can't believe you have the balls to walk into this audition, Little Miss Drug Addict. Right, like we're going to give you this job.' I was blacklisted big time. I had two, three years of casting directors telling me I'd never work again in this town."

It wasn't until 1992 that Drew scored her second big break with Poison Ivy, which garnered rave reviews and put her back on the pedestal she had fallen from.

She then reinvented herself as a rom-com and action star with The Wedding Singer, Ever After, Never Been Kissed and Charlie's Angels, and even started her own production company, Flower Films.

Drew didn't slow down after that; instead, she launched her own cosmetics brand, Flower Beauty, and now serves as one of TV's most beloved talk show hosts with the Emmy-winning Drew Barrymore Show, which has been on the air for six seasons and counting.

Macaulay Culkin was everywhere in the '90s, with starring roles in Uncle Buck, Home Alone, My Girl and Richie Rich making him one of the most recognisable actors in Hollywood at the time.

In the mid-'90s, the actor began to take the reins by emancipating himself from his parents at 15 years old and taking control of his own finances. 

"I legally took my parents' names off of my trust fund and found an executor, someone who would look over my finances, just in case anyone wanted to stick their f****** pinkie in the pie," he told Esquire.

Macaulay then chose to take a step back from Hollywood altogether and live life as a normal kid out of the public eye. 

"I wanted to go out, and I wanted to date girls, and I wanted to hang out with people my own age. I wanted to, you know, go to a party. I wanted to do those kinds of things. I can’t tell you how many Bar Mitzvahs I missed,” he explained on Mythical Kitchen.

“What I wanted is to be with people my own age. You have to remember: a lot of the stuff I did when I was a kid…I’m not doing ensembles. It’s me."

Ever so slowly, Macaulay began to reappear on-screen in projects like Robot Chicken, Changeland and Dollface, before he made a full-on comeback with parts in American Horror Story and Fallout. 

During this time, he also began to start a family with his fiancée and former child star, Brenda Song, and the pair welcomed two sons together.

Macaulay's on-screen mother in Home Alone, the late Catherine O'Hara, summed up his incredible progress during a speech at his Walk of Fame ceremony in 2023. 

"I think Macaulay survived [fame] to become a fine young man. He had, somehow, the wisdom and self-preservation at the age of 14 or something to say 'stop.' He chose to allow himself a life outside of the work, and he's been making his own choices since."