Raven-Symoné
Raven-Symoné is an actor, born 1985.
Child stardom usually has a short shelf life, and Raven-Symoné has spent her career refusing the expiry date. She arrived as Olivia Kendall on The Cosby Show as a small child, moved on to Nicole Lee on Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, and by the time most former kid actors are being written about in the past tense she was headlining her own Disney Channel series.
That series, That's So Raven, is the spine of everything. It gave her a broad, physical, unembarrassed comic style that she has never really abandoned, and it turned into a franchise: The Cheetah Girls and its sequel, Monique in Kim Possible, Nebula Wade in the Zenon films, Melanie Porter in College Road Trip. She also became a fixture of Disney's voice casts, playing Iridessa across eight Pixie Hollow entries in this catalogue alone, on top of Charisse in the Doctor Dolittle films and Danielle in Fat Albert.
The accolades are real and easy to underestimate: five NAACP Image Awards, two Kids' Choice Awards, three Young Artist Awards and five Emmy nominations, plus a place on VH1's list of the hundred greatest child stars in 2012. She is also credited as a director, which matters for the third act, because in 2017 she brought Raven Baxter back in Raven's Home as an adult rather than as nostalgia. Around it sit sharper grown-up guest parts, Rhonda Johnson on black-ish being the pick of them.
Movies (30)
- Stop! That! Train! (2026)
- The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004)
- The Little Rascals (1994)
- Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014)
- Secret of the Wings (2012)
- Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy (2014)
- Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special (2026)
- Tinker Bell (2008)
- Doctor Dolittle (1998)
- Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue (2010)
- Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (2009)
- Pixie Hollow Games (2011)
- Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001)
- Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama (2005)
- Everyone's Hero (2006)
- Fat Albert (2004)
- Animal Crackers (2018)
- Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation (2024)
- Pixie Hollow Bake Off (2013)
- The Cheetah Girls (2003)
- College Road Trip (2008)
- Good Hair (2009)
- Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999)
- The Cheetah Girls 2 (2006)
- Zenon: Z3 (2004)
- Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time (2003)
- Revenge of the Bridesmaids (2010)
- Child Star (2024)
- Light Girls (2015)
- Mighty Oak (2020)
TV (22)
- Kim Possible (2002)
- The Cosby Show (1984)
- black-ish (2014)
- That's So Raven (2003)
- Raven's Home (2017)
- Big City Greens (2018)
- 25 Words or Less (2018)
- My Wife and Kids (2001)
- Hangin' with Mr. Cooper (1992)
- Match Game (2016)
- Pictionary (2022)
- Fillmore! (2002)
- Drop the Mic (2017)
- Animals. (2016)
- See Dad Run (2012)
- Trailblazer Honors (2014)
- The Adventures of Disney Fairies (2010)
- Turning the Tables with Robin Roberts (2021)
- Just Roll with It (2019)
- Alex Haley's Queen (1993)
- Live from the Other Side with Tyler Henry (2024)
- The Wheel (2022)
Where to start with Raven-Symoné
You can make the entire case with That's So Raven, and it holds up better than the rest of the 2000s Disney Channel catalogue because the comedy is built on her physical performance rather than on catchphrases.
Go straight from there to Raven's Home, which is the unusual part: a former child star returning to her own character on her own terms, and getting more out of it the second time. The Cheetah Girls is the other pillar of that era if you want the music side.
For the animation, Kim Possible is the best-written show she has been part of and Tinker Bell starts the Pixie Hollow run. In live-action film, Doctor Dolittle and College Road Trip are the family credits most people have already seen, and black-ish is the sharpest adult work in the list.