Malia Baker

has only been acting professionally since 2018, but she has amᴀssed an impressive array of movies and TV shows in her short time breaking into the industry. Of course, she started acting professionally at just 12 years old in mostly uncredited roles, so some of those early roles will likely not be her best in years to come, but she has become an in-demand young talent thanks to her breakout role in the Netflix adaptation of The Baby-Sitters Club.

Since breaking out on the series, Baker has also been cast in the high-profile Descendants movies on the Disney Channel. Descendants has proven to be a huge franchise for the network, and Baker will undoubtedly be involved in shorts, music videos, and more movies for the channel moving forward. As her career blows up, the movies and TV shows of her past provide the building blocks for her future.

8

Hope At Christmas (2018)

Malia Baker In An Uncredited Role

Baker lives and works in Canada, so it is not unusual that many of her projects are made for television and filmed in the Vancouver area. That’s true of this Hallmark Channel holiday movie, which is Baker’s first on-screen role.

The movie sees a woman (Scottie Young) make a connection with a man (Ryan Paevey) in a small town who often acts as Santa Claus for town events, trying to make sure everyone has a good Christmas. He is also a teacher in town, and good with children, which is a point in his favor since she is a single mom.

Baker appears in the movie in an uncredited role as one of the kids in town. There is nothing particularly special about her role here, but appearing on a Hallmark set where things move relatively quickly and filming is finished very fast likely provided her with a great educational experience in the industry.

7

The Twilight Zone (2019)

Malia Baker As Young Anna

The 2019 remake of The Twilight Zone was not nearly as successful as the original, but the episode in which Malia Baker appears is “Blurryman,” a love letter to the original series and genre storytelling as a whole. The episode is a very meta take on science fiction as a writer’s story comes to life, and then series host Jordan Peele breaks the fourth wall to have another writer tell her own story.

Baker appears in another uncredited role here as a younger version of the writer’s sister. Because the episode takes the writer through her own life, accompanied by sightings of the seemingly sinister Blurryman, glimpses into her childhood are fleeting, so Baker does not get much of a chance to shine here.

Despite that, and despite the show being short-lived, this episode is a great one. The “Blurryman” ending encourages its audience to embrace new things and not be afraid of endings, while still being able to hold on to the imagination they had in their childhood, and it gives that message in a unique way.

6

The Flash (2019)

Malia Baker As Alice Bowen

The Flash was one of the most successful arms of the Arrowverse on the CW. It was more colorful than Arrow, seemingly the sunnier of the two shows, but it still featured quite a bit of dark subject matter, like people stalking and killing metahumans, which is part of the subject of the episode Baker appears in, “Time Bomb.”

In the episode, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and his team of heroes are on the trail of a villain who goes after other metahumans. The metahuman being targeted in this episode, however, is the mom of a young girl. Baker is the young girl who has no idea about her mother’s double-life.

The episode is used as a way for the show to address the idea of those with superpowers, or those who wear a mask and act as a vigilante, keeping secrets from those they care about. As Barry points out, he initially hid his idenтιтy from those he cared about to protect them, and he ᴀssumes Alice Bowen’s mother is doing the same. “Time Bomb” points out that without telling their families the truth, metahumans are denying their families their own choices about their lives.

Baker does not get to do much outside of plan a birthday party and be afraid for her mother, but that is because she is not the focus of the episode. Her character is a way to motivate the characters to do the right thing, so her presence needs to feel big without being big.

5

A Million Little Things (2019)

Malia Baker As Young Regina

Though Baker is only credited as “Little Girl” in her single appearance in A Million Little Things for the episode “Someday,” she plays the 12-year-old version of one of the main characters in a flashback sequence.

A Million Little Things borrows its тιтle from the idea that friendship is composed of “a million little things,” and it follows the interconnected lives of a group of friends living in Boston as they cope with the unexpected death of one of their group. One of those friends is Regina, a chef who longs to open her own restaurant, and strives to achieve that dream during the series.

Baker plays the younger version of her character in a particularly emotional storyline as it is revealed that Regina’s uncle took advantage of her at a low point in her life as a child. Baker only appears in the show for the flashback to that night, and she does a great job at portraying Regina’s hurt and desire to be liked.

4

Are You Afraid Of The Dark (2021)

Malia Baker As Gabby

Are You Afraid Of The Dark was a 1990s staple for kids who were not old enough to watch horror movies just yet. The creepy series saw high school students in the Midnight Society gather around a fire in the middle of the night to see who could tell the scariest story. The series got a revival in 2019 with a new cast of characters and new stories.

Baker appears in the second season as Gabby, the daughter of a single mom, and a new member of the Midnight Society who nobly agrees to help track down another missing kid, someone taken by “the shadow man,” who becomes the antagonist for the second season’s episodes. The season offers the audience some of its scariest content yet, but still remains safe for kids. Baker is perfect in her brief time in the show.

Unfortunately, the revival only lasted for three seasons, each with a different cast, and likely won’t have the same longevity as the original with Paramount+ removing it from their streamer.

3

Caught In His Web (2022)

Malia Baker As Olivia

A lot of young actors will move from playing roles in children’s programming to more dramatic roles on the CW. Baker, however, snagged a role in a Lifetime original movie instead. While the network is known for using melodrama over substance in a lot of its projects, it is also great at bringing movies to life that are inspired by real stories. That’s the case for Caught in His Web.

The movie features three young women who each find themselves tormented by a cyberbully who uses the name Blake. Blake, however, does not just harᴀss them through digital means. He also manipulates them, coerces them to send him ɴuᴅᴇ pH๏τos, and upends their lives. When the girls realize that they are not the only ones targeted, they band together to work with a detective to figure out who Blake really is.

Baker stars as one of the three girls alongside Emma Tremblay and Alison Thornton before more than a dozen whose online accounts have been hacked into are discovered. Baker is the one of the initial main ensemble who does not come clean about her online activity and turns to prescription drugs to numb the pain. It’s a much more dramatic turn for her than her previous roles, and she proves that she has the staying power to pursue drama here, even if the movie does not offer anything fresh to conversations about cyberbullying.

2

Descendants: The Rise Of Red (2024)

Malia Baker As Chloe

The Descendants movies for the Disney Channel are inspired by a series of novels of the same name. They explore the second generation of fairy tale characters, the children of the heroes and villains we already know. While the first trilogy starred Dove Cameron, Sofia Carson, and Cameron Boyce, a new set of movies kicks off with The Rise of Red and a mostly new cast.

This movie follows the daughters of Cinderella (with Brandy returning to the role of Cinderella) and the Queen of Hearts (played by pop superstar Rita Ora) as they end up traveling back in time to win their parents were students at the same school – before the Queen of Hearts was a villain.

Baker appears as the daughter of Cinderella. She is a somewhat sheltered young woman who has led the very privileged life of a princess, which is vastly different from how her own mother grew up. Baker plays the naïveté and the well-meaning nature of Chloe easily. She also gets to show off her singing and dancing abilities here, something her other roles have not allowed her to do.

While The Rise of Red is easily the weakest movie of the franchise so far, it’s still a great way to introduce new characters to the mix and allow the universe to continue to evolve, especially with talented actors like Baker.

1

The Baby-Sitters Club (2020-2021)

Malia Baker As Mary Anne Spier

The Baby-Sitters Club provided Malia Baker with her breakout role. The series of novels on which the series is based has been adapted twice for the screen before – once as an HBO series that re-aired on the Disney Channel in the 1990s and once as a movie a few years later. The Netflix series sought to modernize the tales, bringing in topics like gender idenтιтy and social media to the group of iconic characters.

Following a group of preteens as they navigate middle school and life changes, the series focuses on the girls as they babysit for kids in their neighborhoods. They meet as a club to take calls and pick up jobs from the parents they know. While they might not be able to drive or stay up late, they can help parents with that crucial window between getting out of school and getting off work, or give up their weekends to bond with kids younger than them.

Though the stories have been brought into the modern day, the coming-of-age stories highlighted in The Baby-Sitters Club are timeless. For Baker’s Mary Anne, those stories involve getting her first crush (and first boyfriend) and convincing her father not to treat her like a baby anymore. Baker flawlessly brings Mary Anne to life with a quiet strength befitting the shyest member of the Baby-Sitters Club.

Her chemistry with the rest of the cast is also perfect, and it will be interesting to see if Baker can recapture the magic of her best TV show again so early in her acting career.