Joey King

Joey King (birthname: Joey Lynn King) can claim one of the most successful recent cases of a busy child and teen actor transitioning to adult roles in major feature films after minor roles in 20th Century Fox’s Dr. Seuss animated version of Horton Hears a Who! (2008) and the horror film, Quarantine (2008), King was cast in her first lead role in Ramona and Beezus (2010) with Selena Gomez, Bridget Moynihan, and Sandra Oh.

From age 12 and forward, King has acted in multiple movies nearly every year since, including six features in 2018. Most of these have been child and teen roles in adult-skewing films, many with significant filmmakers (including several with directors Roland Emmerich and James Franco).

These include Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), with Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, and Emma Stone. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012), with Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Garl Oldman, and Anne Hathaway.

James Wan’s horror hit, The Conjuring (2013), with Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Sam Raimi’s box office disappointment, Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), with James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, and Michelle Williams. Emmerich’s White House Down (2013), with Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. Emmerich’s Stonewall (2015), Jeremy Irvine, Ron Perlman, and Jonathan Rhys Meyer.

Emmerich’s reboot of Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), with Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. The comedy Going in Style (2017), with Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Alan Arkin. Veena Sud’s psychological horror film, with Mireille Enos and Peter Sarsgaard. Lydia Dean Pilcher’s and Ginny Mohler’s period drama Radium Girls (2018), with Abby Quinn, Cara Seymour, and Scott Shepard. Franco’s most recently released feature, Zeroville (2019), with Franco, Megan Fox, and Seth Rogen.

In 2020, Joey King entered a new phase of her career, partnering with Hulu to produce films and limited series for the Hulu streaming service and making her one of the younger producers in Hollywood.

Beginning with the sequel, Netflix’s The Kissing Booth 2 (2020), Joey King added the credits of the producer or executive producer to her filmography, including The Kissing Booth 3 (2021), with Joel Courtney and Jacob Elordi; Arie Posin’s science fiction romance for Paramount+, The In Between (2022), with Kyle Allen; Le-Van Kiet’s action fantasy film for Hulu and 20th Century Studios, The Princess (2022), with Dominic Cooper and Olga Kurylenko; and director McG’s dystopian film for Netflix and based on Scott Westerfeld’s novel, The Uglies (2023), with Keith Powers and Laverne Cox, on which King is also an executive producer.

King is in the star-studded ensemble of the Japanese-based (though English-language) action comedy Bullet Train (2022) with Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Michael Shannon.