For some actors, fame is the family business. Yet the TV and film actors on this list have famous parents who aren't well-known for acting. Instead, they gained fame and fortune by following a slightly different career path. Some actors on this list had rich parents who were titans of industry, rock stars, or federal officials; others had parents who worked in the movies, but from behind the camera. No matter what their surprising jobs were, the parents of these actors had the connections and wealth to help their children succeed in show business.
Read on and vote up the actors you didn't realize had famous parents.
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- Veep
- HBO
Comedic actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus's career jump-started from her work on Seinfeld. But she wasn't the first in her family to make a splash on the global stage – far from it, in fact. Her father Gérard “William” Louis-Dreyfus was cited by Forbes as one of the world's wealthiest people.
Where did William Louis-Dreyfus's wealth come from? His great-grandfather, magnate Léopold Louis-Dreyfus, established the Louis Dreyfus Company in 1852. As an adult, William contributed to the family business by chairing one of its companies, Louis Dreyfus Energy Services.
William Louis-Dreyfus tried to use his family's staggering wealth as a force for good in the world. He funded efforts to resist voter suppression laws and he helped maintain the preservation of works of art.
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- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- Sony Pictures Releasing
Both of the Mara sisters are Hollywood actors. Older sister Kate Mara first broke into the business – she worked on such films and television series as House of Cards and Fantastic Four. Rooney Mara then followed in her sister's footsteps, eventually earning Academy Award nominations for her work in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Carol.
The Mara sisters have an unexpected claim to fame: Their family is deeply connected to the NFL. In 1925, their paternal great-grandfather Tim Mara founded the New York Giants, and their uncle John Mara now runs the organization. They also have NFL roots on their mother's side, as their maternal grandfather Art Rooney established the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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- Fight Club
- 20th Century Fox
Actor and filmmaker Edward Norton has appeared in a range of films, including Fight Club, American History X, and several Wes Anderson features. Norton is also known for his work outside the entertainment industry, and he remains a devoted advocate for social justice and environmentalism.
Norton's activism stems from his own family. His father Edward Mower Norton Jr. is a Harvard-educated lawyer who worked as a federal prosecutor in Maryland between 1977 and 1981, when Jimmy Carter was President. He also served in leadership roles for organizations like The Wilderness Society, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Conservation Lands Foundation.
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- Black-ish
- ABC
The family of Tracee Ellis Ross – star of Girlfriends and Black-ish – is no stranger to the spotlight. But while Tracee Ellis Ross excels in acting, her mother Diana Ross is a music legend with whom few can compare.
Diana Ross first gained fame as the lead singer of the Motown group the Supremes. Ross even found success as a solo artist beginning in 1970. Her distinguished career has earned her no less than 12 Grammy nominations and the title “Queen of Motown.”
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- The Girlfriend Experience
- Starz
Riley Keough has been modeling and acting since a young age. But her breakthrough year was 2016, when she generated acclaim for her work in the film Lovesong and the television series The Girlfriend Experience.
But her pedigree as an artist has pristine roots: She is the granddaughter of rock ‘n’ roll legend Elvis Presley, whose only child Lisa Marie had Keough in 1989. Like her superstar dad, Lisa Marie Presley has worked in music.
Through her mother, Keough also had famous stepfathers - Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage - the latter to whom Lisa Marie was only married to for 108 days.
Though Keough never met her grandfather, she acknowledged that his legacy still looms over her family. As she told Variety in 2022,
There's a lot of family trauma and generational trauma that started around [the time of Presley's passing] for our family.
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- Bridesmaids
- Universal Pictures
Saturday Night Live and Bridesmaids alum Maya Rudolph was not the first person in her family to carve a professional pathway in the entertainment world. She is the first actor, however: Her parents were both involved in the music industry. Father Richard Rudolph is a producer, while mother Minnie Riperton was a singer.
Riperton's hits like “Lovin' You” showcased her vocal prowess, including a range that straddled five octaves. Her unique sound even influenced Mariah Carey.
Riperton recorded a dozen albums before her untimely passing from breast cancer. She was only 31; daughter Maya was seven.
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- John Adams
- HBO
Actor Paul Giamatti earned widespread acclaim for his portrayal of John Adams, a role that won him Emmy and SAG Awards. It turns out that, like the celebrated historical figure, Giamatti's roots in New England run deep too.
His father was Angelo Bartlett Giamatti, a Renaissance man – and, appropriately, a scholar of Renaissance literature. After serving as the President of Yale University between 1978 and 1986, Giamatti fulfilled his lifelong love of baseball by becoming president of Major League Baseball's National League and Commissioner of Baseball.
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- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
Some actors come from families that are known for their money or connections; others come from families with more notorious claims to fame.
Woody Harrelson – whose Emmy-winning performance on Cheers endeared him to Americans – was nine years old when his father Charles Harrelson was acquitted for murder. Unfortunately, it wasn't a blip in the older Harrelson's life. He would be tried for murder multiple times. Most infamously, Charles Harrelson was convicted of accepting $250,000 from drug lord Jimmy Chagra to assassinate U.S. District Judge John H. Wood Jr in 1979.
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- New Girl
- Fox
Zooey Deschanel and sister Emily have both found success on television. Zooey's show New Girl remains a beloved streaming staple, while Emily gained fans from her long-running Fox series Bones. The Deschanel sisters' mother is an actor, as well, and appeared in The Right Stuff and Twin Peaks.
Unlike the Deschanel women, Zooey and Emily's father Caleb Deschanel is more at home behind the camera as a cinematographer. Caleb's work has earned him multiple Academy Award nominations, including for 1979's The Black Stallion.
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- A Black Lady Sketch Show
- HBO
After working in late-night television, comedic writer and actor Robin Thede earned widespread acclaim for her Emmy-nominated series A Black Lady Sketch Show.
Thede's family shows that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Her mother Phyllis Thede is a Congressperson who has been representing her district in Iowa since 2013.
Thede told NPR that her mother's constituents aren't wowed by her Hollywood credentials:
[…] her constituents in Iowa are just really, you know, salt of the earth sort of people. They really don't care about my sketch show on HBO. I was with her on the campaign trail and one of them said, ‘So I hear you’re on TV, have you been on anything I watch?' And I said, ‘Well, what do you watch?’ And he said, ‘Only Wheel of Fortune.’ I said, ‘Then I guess you haven’t seen me, sir. Please vote for my mom.'
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- Emily in Paris
- Netflix
Actor Lily Collins has found success in both classic and contemporary roles, including in a recent BBC adaptation of Les Misérables and as the star of Emily in Paris.
Though she spent much of her childhood and young adulthood in southern California, Collins was born in the United Kingdom, home of her father Phil Collins. Collins is known as a singer and drummer with the band Genesis, but he also has enjoyed a long and prosperous solo career. Among his accomplishments was writing the music for the Disney film Tarzan.
Lily Collins has spoken about her complicated relationship with her father and even weighed adopting a different surname to use professionally.
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- Girls
- HBO
Zosia Mamet gained recognition for her role on the HBO show Girls. Mamet's father may not have garnered fame on the stage, but he works closely with actors: David Mamet is one of the most decorated American playwrights working today. His plays – like Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo – have won countless awards, including multiple Tonys, Drama Desks, and Pulitzer Prizes.
As a young actor, Zosia often got advice from her father on the industry. As she told Vanity Fair:
My dad always used to say to me, when I was young, he was like, ‘This industry is so much about talent, but so much more about persistence. It’s like, who is the last man standing?' He was like, ‘You are going to be told ‘no’ so many times. There are going to be so many doors that are shut in your face and you just have to be the one that's like, ‘Every time a door shuts, you just go and you knock on another one and then you knock on another one.’ It's like, who is the person who's continuing to knock on doors after other people are like, ‘I’m done knocking. I'm over it.'
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- Westworld
- HBO
Cambridge-educated, Bafta-winning actor Thandiwe Newton has appeared in films and television series ranging from Westworld to Beloved. But the greatest story she's ever been a part of is her own. Born in London to a British father and Zimbabwean mother, Newton is proud of her global roots. Indeed, her maternal grandfather was the chief of Zimbabwe's Shona people, a fact that makes Newton's mother an African royal.
Newton has leaned into her Zimbabwean heritage in recent years. In 2021, she abandoned the Anglicized version of her first name – she had previously been known as “Thandie” – in favor of her original birth name, Thandiwe. On her connection to her mother's home, Newton told Ebony:
I wouldn't describe myself as a Zimbabwean woman. I am intellectually connected to Zimbabwe completely. But in terms of my heart, soul, and gut, and where I draw my pride and strength from, I was disconnected before I was even born. So I […] want to absorb the sense of place […] which I've kind of never been entitled to, I guess, growing up in England. A lot of ignorance and confusion, not from me, but in perception. Can I be British if I am Black? It's a thing!
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- The Luminaries
- Fremantle
Actor Eve Hewson has worked with Hollywood heavyweights like Steven Spielberg and Stephen Soderbergh in Bridge of Spies and The Knick. But her own father is a heavyweight in the music world: Bono.
Irish rock star and philanthropist Bono began his career with the band U2. The band became a worldwide phenomenon just as Ireland was trying to find a way forward after decades of The Troubles.
Despite Bono's success in the entertainment industry, he was reportedly less-than-enthusiastic about Hewson becoming an actor. She explained,
I've been acting since I was 15 and my parents were just terrified. I think because they've been around and know what Hollywood is, especially for a woman.
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- Get Out
- Universal Pictures
When actor Allison Williams gained fame for her role in the hit HBO comedy Girls, many people didn't realize that her father was a household name: Television journalist Brian Williams has spent decades on the air with NBC and MSNBC.
Williams's storied career in television journalism was not without controversy, however. In 2015, it emerged that he had lied about an experience he claimed to have had while reporting from Iraq. Following the scandal, Williams moved to MSNBC, where he rebounded. His show The 11th Hour became one of cable television's highest-rated programs.
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- Star
- Fox
Quincy Brown is carving out a career for himself as an actor. As he told Essence in 2022, “My passion definitely lies in the arts. Acting and music make me really happy, and I'm really looking to grow.” He is perhaps best known for his work on the show Star.
But Brown's claim to fame runs deeper than the Lee Daniels-helmed vehicle showed. Brown is the son of musician and producer Al B Sure! and model-turned-actor Kim Porter. Porter went on to have a relationship with another music powerhouse: Sean Combs. Like her partner, Porter claimed a large influence in the music industry and even “helped discover Janelle Monáe,” according to Essence.
Porter passed from pneumonia in 2018 at the age of 47. As Brown said of his mother:
[…] she definitely was and still is the most important woman in my life. Any time something comes across my way and I think of her first, that means something […] She's had that much of an impact on me to where I can talk about her every day for the rest of my life.
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- Girls
- HBO
As a writer, director, and actor, Lena Dunham is a multi-talented storyteller. Similarly, Dunham's parents are artists. Dunham's mother Laurie Simmons is a photographer and artist whose work pokes at the idea of American consumption and suburbia. Simmons's husband Carroll Dunham is a painter whose art has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Her parents' work left a lasting impression on Lena Dunham, who shared with Slate:
When I was little, I thought the New York art world was everything. I can't remember a time when I wasn't aware of the mechanics. You go into your studio, you have studio visits, you have openings. […] I thought that was what people's jobs were and I thought it was cool to be the same things as your parents.
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