She’s all grown up! Abigail Breslin’s transformation is pretty impressive. From her Little Miss Sunshine days to her Scream Queens reign, she’s tackled all kinds of projects and made quite the name for herself. When she was young, she broke onto the scene as a critically acclaimed child star, and now that she’s in her 20s, she’s still killing the game.
Over the years, the actress has been nominated for her fair share of awards — including an Oscar — and starred alongside plenty of Hollywood’s biggest names. In addition to taking on both TV and movie gigs, she’s also tried her hand at singing. In 2011, she played the titular role in Janie Jones, where she recorded five original songs as her character. Soon after, she started putting out music of her own.
In 2013, she dropped her first song, a holiday track called “Christmas in New York.” The following year, she put out a scathing breakup song called “You Suck,” where she took blistering aim at an ex-boyfriend. Not only is the song so blatantly about 5 Seconds of Summer’s Michael Clifford that it’s iconic, but it also generated major backlash. Though Abigail hinted in an interview with Refinery 29 that she was originally embarrassed, she seemed to look back at the single as a major part of her path to maturity.
“When you’re 16 years old and you like a guy, your mind is different,” she said in October 2019. “That’s when I realized that my mistakes are public mistakes. … People want certain things from child stars or child actors. You have to be really smart and really cool, but also they want you to be not too precocious. Not too done up, but not too little girlish. If you wear this, then you’re a slut; if you wear that, you’re a prude.”
Over half a decade later, she’s proud of all of the progress she’s made in her career. “It kind of took a few years in my teens for people to stop viewing me as just a little girl,” she said. After a brief break from the limelight, she was ready to jump back into work. With the Zombieland sequel under her belt and another movie called Stillwater in the works, she’s ready to take the silver screen by storm once more.
Check out Abigail Breslin’s transformation from a young child star to now.