Joey King

The Girl Who Starred in a Hundred Commercials

Joey King shaved her head for the third time in 2019 to play Gypsy Rose Blanchard. She was nineteen and had an Emmy nomination waiting for her. But her story didn't begin with Hulu's criminal drama, but in the aisles of a California supermarket promoting Life cereal.

She appeared in more than a hundred commercials before turning seven. That early start taught her to see the film set as a natural playground. In 2010, she starred in Ramona and Beezus alongside Selena Gomez. The movie served as a measure of her ability to carry the weight of a studio production while still just a girl.

And the machine never stopped.

King landed supporting roles in major productions such as Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. In the latter, she played the young version of Talia al Ghul under the direction of Christopher Nolan. It was a brief but physically demanding role that forced her first radical image change in front of the mirror.

The algorithm and prestige

In 2018, The Kissing Booth premiered on Netflix. Critics tore it apart. But teen audiences made it a phenomenon of instant viewing that shook up the platform's metrics. Sixty million people watched the movie in its first month of availability.

That box office hit gave her the clout to demand roles beyond conventional romantic comedies. So she took on the challenge of The Act in 2019. Her physical and vocal transformation to play a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy silenced those who had pigeonholed her in teen films.

But King didn't want to be just a for-hire actress.

She founded her own production company, All The King's Horses, before turning twenty. In 2021 she signed an exclusive deal with Netflix to develop and produce original content. This move made her one of the youngest producers in the industry with the power to greenlight big-budget projects.

Contract power and action

In 2022, she shared the screen with Brad Pitt in Bullet Train, playing a British killer with a schoolgirl air. The role demanded precise handling of dark humor and fight choreography. By then, King was no longer the sweet face of high school comedies but an actress with full control over her brand image.

Because in Hollywood, early fame is often a deadly trap.

King avoided being forgotten through an aggressive diversification of her business interests. In 2024, she premiered the dystopian drama Uglies and the comedy A Family Affair, sharing the poster with Nicole Kidman. Both projects were developed under her direct supervision or through executive producing deals that secure her share of the streaming profits.

She married director Steven Piet in 2023 in a private ceremony in Mallorca. Her production company now manages contracts worth more than one hundred million dollars per annual content package.