Here’s what the Cheaper by the Dozen cast looks like now (you’ll barely recognise them)

When it comes to nostalgic comedies of the noughties, there are few if you ask me that are as underrated as Cheaper by the Dozen.

Starring Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt as the beleaguered parents of 12 children, the 2003 film is a classic and has a surprisingly star-studded cast.

Despite this though, when you have 12 kids, two parents, and various friends and partners, not everyone is going to still be in the spotlight 23 years on.

The biggest celebrity names in the cast do not really even need a ‘what do they look like now’, if you’ve watched much TV over the last few years, you will have seen Hilary Duff, Tom Welling, Ashton Kutcher, Alan Ruck, or Richard Jenkins, who all appear in the film.

Where fans are most curious, however, is in the kids in the cast (outside of Duff and Welling) and what they look like now. As most were child stars at the time, they are pretty unrecognisable.

Social media sleuth updated Cheaper by the Dozen fans on what the cast are up to now

The Cheaper by the Dozen cast is pretty stacked with celebrity cast members, but not everyone stayed in acting (20th Century Fox)

A viral post on X by a fan called Dylan summed up what the group have been up to, and it’s pretty varied and will have you feeling nostalgic.

Piper Perabo

Piper Perabo (20th Century Fox/Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)

Piper Perabo, who played Nora and had already made her name from Coyote Ugly, has remained fairly successful in TV and film, appearing in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, as well as a supporting role in Yellowstone, Billions, and Grey’s Anatomy more recently.

Kevin G Schmidt

Kevin G Schmidt (20th Century Fox/Instagram)

Kevin G Schmidt, who played Henry, has since starred in The Young and The Restless, and his latest film was 2021’s The Legend of Resurrection Mary.

Brent and Shane Kinsman

The twins are now jiu-jitsu fighters (20th Century Fox/Instagram)

Brent and Shane Kinsman, the identical twins who starred as Nigel and Kyle, haven’t acted since 2011 where both appeared in Desperate Housewives, quitting the entertainment industry entirely, both taking up Jiu-Jitsu and posting about attending tournaments on Instagram.

In TV favourite Desperate Housewives, they played Porter and Preston Scavo, and in an interview with 7News in 2020, Shane said: “Our parents, as well as the cast and crew, did such a great job of keeping us compartmentalised as kids while we were on the show.”

Alyson Stoner

Alyson Stoner has appeared in several other hit shows and films (20th Century Fox/Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images)

Alyson Stoner, who played Sarah, is essentially child acting royalty when you look at the list of projects she appeared in, starring in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Phineas and Ferb, Camp Rock, and Step Up.

She also famously appeared in Missy Elliott’s 2002 music video for ‘Work It’.

Speaking in 2025 to Good Morning America, as her memoir Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything was re-released, she said: “By the time I was nine, I was no longer in school.

“I was no longer able to connect with peers. Financially, I was taking on pressures, not necessarily to provide for my entire family, but to make sure that this industry machine and my career kept going.”

Stoner, who also works as a mental health practitioner, has now developed a big social media following, however, and one fan on X quoted the original post with a viral TikTok she shared that compared what the cast looked like now.

The cast filmed a video in 2020 that revealed what they all looked like 17 years on

Released in 2020, the entire family, bar Steve Martin, filmed small clips to compare themselves as kids to how they look now.

One of the replies said: “We need a new movie with them all as adults, this made me so nostalgic.”

Another fan commented on the original TikTok: “Wait I didn’t know cheaper by the dozen was that old jeez.”

A second film came out in 2005 but there has never been any mooted sequel film, bar a 2022 reboot starring Gabrielle Union and Zach Braff.

A third movie got placed into early production shortly after the second film, however, Steve Martin dropped out as he was unimpressed by the script.