The idea of “nepo babies” has grown in popularity over recent years, ascending to the status of recurring Internet joke. While most nepo babies memes aren’t anything more than just that, memes, they do reflect something that has always been present in the entertainment industry. It has actually been there for way longer than TikToks about it—children of well-known people in the industry getting an easier entry into it than people who have absolutely no initial connection with it.

In a way, nepo babies aren’t exclusive to the entertainment industry but can be found in pretty much any compeтιтive field where connections and networking play a major role. While several currently active actors and actresses don’t like being asked questions about their famous parents, being labeled as a nepo baby doesn’t necessarily reflect on their talent—in fact, there are plenty of nepo babies who are incredibly good performers in their own right.

10

Phoebe Dynevor

Bridgerton, Fair Play

Phoebe Dynevor rose to fame when she led the very first season of Bridgerton as the eldest of the тιтular family’s daughters, Daphne, making her debut on the vicious marriage mart of Regency London. From there she has gone on to star in films such as The Color Room, Fair Play, and spy-thriller Inheritance, and her acting credits also include a series of television roles in her native England before her blockbuster run on Bridgerton.

Dynevor might not be the first name that comes to mind when counting off “nepo babies,” especially not to anyone in the United States, but her mother is an absolute pillar of English television. That’s actress Sally Dynevor, née Whittaker, who has been starring in the soap opera Coronation Street since the mid-’80s, and has become an incredibly familiar face to all fans of this long-running show.

9

Domnhall Gleeson

Anna Karenina, Star Wars

It’s common for famous parent-child duos to share red carpet pH๏τos and industry connections, but it’s not always that it extends to roles as well. Irish actor Downhill Gleeson and his father, Brendan, however, have both starred in the Harry Potter franchise—as has half of the English and Irish film industry. Domnhall appears in both Deathly Hallows movies as the eldest Weasley brother Bill, while Brendan brought the rough ex-Auror Alastor “Mad Eye” Moody to life starting with Goblet of Fire.

Domnhall Gleeson’s career includes turns in mᴀssive productions like the Star Wars prequel trilogy and The Revenant as well as indie movies like Ex Machina and romantic dramedies like About Time. When it comes to acting credits, though, he still has much to learn from his father, one of the most prominent Irish actors currently active. Among Brendan Gleeson’s most recent works is The Banshees of Inisherin, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

8

Nico Parker

The Last Of Us, How To Train Your Dragon

Despite her young age, English actress Nico Parker has some very enviable acting credits on her resume. The most impressive of these is arguably her brief but heartbreaking turn as Sarah Miller in HBO’s live-action adaptation of The Last of Us. While she appears only in the first harrowing episode of the show, where her father Joel—played by Pedro Pascal—tries to carry her to safety through the zombie outbreak, her performance is so raw and striking that it remains with audiences throughout the entire run of the show’s first season.

Nico Parker is set to star as Astrid in the upcoming live-action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon.

One might say that such talent is a family thing, since Nico Parker is the daughter of not one but two industry professionals. Her father, Ol Parker, is a writer and director, whose credits include Imagine Me & You and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Perhaps more famously, her mother is actress Thandiwe Newton, who has received widespread critical acclaim—and an Emmy Award—in recent years for her role as Maeve in HBO’s drama Westworld.

7

Liv Tyler

Lord Of The Rings, Armageddon

Liv Tyler is a very well-known face to anyone who has seen the genre-defining and award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy—so almost everyone. She starred in all three movies as Arwen Undómiel, daughter of Elrond and future Queen of Gondor, in a role that propelled Tyler forward to a variety of roles from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to shows like Harlots on the BBC and 9-1-1: Lone Star on Fox. Her career, however, had already started before Lord of the Rings.

Tyler’s most recognized pre-LotR role is one that also includes part of her famous family. Tyler starred in Michael Bay’s Armageddon, a movie that notably features music by Aerosmith in its soundtrack—and Liv Tyler’s biological father is none other than Aerosmith’s lead singer Steven Tyler. Tyler’s mother Bebe Buell is also a public personality, as is her adoptive father, musician Todd Rundgren.

6

Kiefer Sutherland

24, Fire Walk With Me

Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland is best known for his Emmy-winning run as Jack Bauer in the Fox drama 24, which aired from 2001 to 2014. His career, however, includes a long list of acting credits in movies like Melancholia, Pompeii, and Fire Walk with Me. Sutherland has also done some dubbing work, lending his voice and his facial motion capture movements to two games in the Metal Gear franchise.

As his surname might suggest, Sutherland is the son of Donald Sutherland, who sadly pᴀssed away in the summer of 2024. Most famous for bringing to life Mr Bennet in the 2005 movie adaptation of Pride & Prejudice and the chilling President Coriolanus Snow in the Hunger Games franchise, Donald Sutherland’s career was long and filled with successes. Sutherland’s mother, Shirley Douglas, was also an actress—she and Kiefer Sutherland appeared together in a 1997 production of The Glᴀss Menagerie.

5

Tracee Ellis Ross

Black-ish, Girlfriends

Tracee Ellis Ross has established herself as a recurring face on television, especially thanks to her role as Rainbow “Bow” Johnson, who appears in Black-ish and its spin-off shows, Grown-ish and Mixed-ish. Ross’s career, though, spans much beyond that and includes movies like American Fiction and The High Note, as well as other television shows like Girlfriends and Reed Between the Lines.

Her work as Rainbow “Bow” Johnson gained Tracee Ellis Ross earned her a Golden Globe as Best Actress in a Television Series Musical or Comedy.

Ross’s parents are both household names, even though they belong to a slightly different area of entertainment than Ross herself by being both musicians rather than actors. Her father, Rober Ellis Silberstein, is a music executive who managed, among several other stars, “Motown Queen” Diana Ross. Diana Ross, who was the lead singer of best-selling girl group The Supremes, was married to Silberstein from 1971 to 1977 and is also Tracee Ellis Ross’s mother.

4

Jennifer Aniston

Friends, Bruce Almighty

Jennifer Aniston is arguably a pillar of American television, even though her career has included several movies as well as television. Still, her ten-year role as Rachel Green on Friends helped her get recognition all over the world and cemented her as the household name she still is. It also won her an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a SAG Award. Aniston’s other acting roles include rom-coms like Marley & Me, He’s Just Not That Into You, and most recent shows like The Morning Show.

Both of Jennifer Aniston’s parents worked in the entertainment industry and were based in Los Angeles, where Aniston was born. Her father, Greece-born John Anthony Aniston, was a recurring face on NBC’s Days of Our Lives for more than thirty years. Aniston’s mother, Nancy Dow, appeared in the 1967 movie The Wild Wild West and the 1969 film The Ice House.

3

Chris Pine

Star Trek, Hell Or High Water

American actor Chris Pine actually comes from a long line of industry professionals that doesn’t just include his parents. His father, Robert Pine, starred on the television show CHiPs which ran from 1977 to 1983 and also had a myriad of smaller roles in dozens of other productions. Pine’s mother, Gwynne Gilford, worked in television in the Eighties, appearing in Masters of the Universe and Kate’s Secret among others. Gilford’s mother was also an actress—Anne Gwynne, one of Hollywood’s very first scream queens.

Chris Pine himself has a career worthy of someone whose acting genes go back two generations. After his appearance in cult classic The Princess Diaries 2, he went on to reboot the role of iconic starship captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek as well as star in a series of successes that went from Westerns like Hell of High Water to animated movies like Rise of the Guardians to period pieces like Outlaw King.

2

Dakota Johnson

Fifty Shades Of Grey, The Lost Daughter

American actress Dakota Johnson rose to international fame when she starred as Anastasia Steele in the Fifty Shades movie trilogy, the live-action adaptation of the book series of the same name by E.L. James. She had had quite the career before that, which included biopic The Social Network and the action comedy 21 Jump Street, and that career did nothing but grow after the end of the Fifty Shades franchise. Johnson starred, among others, in the Luca Guadagnino-directed remake of Suspiria, in the psychological drama The Lost Daughter, and in the superhero movie Madame Web.

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Both of Johnson’s parents are more than well-established within the industry. Her father is actor Don Johnson, who starred in shows like Miami Vice and movies like Django Unchained and Knives Out. Her mother is actress Melanie Griffith of Something Wild and Working Girl fame. Griffith herself is the daughter of actress Tippi Hedren, who famously starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Johnson also considers her mother’s third husband, Spanish actor Antonio Banderas, as her step-father.

1

Jared Harris

Chernobyl, Foundation

It’s sometimes easier to recognize famous father-son duos since they usually share a surname, but the connection might not be that immediate—especially if the surname is somewhat common. That might be the case for English actor Jared Harris, who has starred in a considerable number of acclaimed television shows from Mad Men to The Crown, from Chernobyl to The Terror, from The Expanse to Foundation. Even though his better-known roles are on television, Harris’s acting credits also include movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin ʙuттon and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadow.

Harris’s father was Richard Harris, one of the faces of the British New Wave of the early Sixties, whose long career spanned several decades and included two Best Actor nominations at the Academy Awards for This Sporting Life and The Field. Among the roles that made him known to the wider public are Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Professor Albus Dumbledore in the first two movies of the Harry Potter franchise—Chamber of Secrets actually being his final film role.