What Child Is This? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Fred Savage

Fred Savage had memorable roles in films like "The Princess Bride" and "The Boy Who Could Fly" and on the television shows "The Twilight Zone" and "Crime Story", before being cast as the protagonist on "The Wonder Years", which ran for six seasons on ABC between 1988 and 1993.

The show depicted life growing up in America in the 1960s, and won numerous awards, including an Emmy and Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Series, as well as a Peabody. In 1989, Savage became the youngest Emmy nominee for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the tender age of 13. Savage followed up "The Wonder Years" with guest roles in various shows and starring roles in a couple of short-lived series, while developing his career as a director, working almost exclusively in TV sitcoms like "Modern Family", "2 Broke Girls", and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia".

In 2015, Savage returned to a starring role on a television series when he was cast opposite Rob Lowe in the sitcom "The Grinder".

Answer: Ron Howard

Ron Howard might be best known as a respected movie director and producer, responsible for such films as "Splash", "Cocoon", "Apollo 13" and "A Beautiful Mind" (for which he won an Oscar), but he started his career in front of the camera as a child actor.

When he was just five years old, he played a boy who desperately wanted a dog in an episode of "General Electric Theater", which led to his first big break when Sheldon Leonard cast him in "The Andy Griffith Show" as Opie Taylor, the precocious son of a small-town sheriff. Howard appeared in all eight seasons of the show, and his favorite episode was based on a real life incident in which his father called him out while umpiring a baseball game when he was actually safe.

He went on to join the cast of "Happy Days" as Richie Cunningham, who was a central character for seven seasons until he left to join the army (in real life, Howard left the show to concentrate on his career as a director). Howard remained close to his two TV dads (Tom Bosley and Andy Griffith) until their deaths in 2010 and 2012.

In 2013, Howard was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

Answer: Neil Patrick Harris

Fifteen-year-old Neil Patrick Harris had just come off a Golden Globe nominated performance in the Whoopi Goldberg film "Clara's Heart" when he was cast as teenage prodigy Doogie Howser on the show that made him a star. The show followed the exploits of a child prodigy balancing his work as the country's youngest surgical resident with the struggles of being a teenager. "Doogie Howser, M.D." ran for four seasons from 1989 to 1993, and was only the start of a long career for the multi-talented Harris. "It's hard to get out of the shadow of a successful role, regardless of your age, and when you're a kid it's even stranger because you've had less memories and experiences to fall back on," Harris once said when asked why so few child stars achieve longevity in the entertainment industry.

He is one of the fortunate few who have succeeded in making the difficult transition from child star to adult actor. He has had memorable roles in movies ("Starship Troopers", "The Smurfs", "Gone Girl" and playing a fictionalized version of himself in the "Harold & Kumar" films), on stage ("Sweeney Todd", "Cabaret", and a Tony-winning role in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"), and on television ("American Horror Story" and his nine-year run on "How I Met Your Mother").

Answer: Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus was only 12 years old when she was cast in the lead role of the Disney series "Hannah Montana". The show chronicled the life of a pop sensation trying to live a regular life as a teenager in Malibu, California, and helped launched the career of this successful singer and actress.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as Cyrus is the daughter of a country star (Billy Ray Cyrus) and goddaughter of a country legend (Dolly Parton), both of whom appeared in "Hannah Montana". Like the character she plays, Cyrus became a successful singer in her own right, with hits like "Party in the USA", "The Climb" and "Wrecking Ball" to her name.

After the fourth and final season of her TV show, Cyrus concentrated on her singing career and attempted to distance herself from her wholesome Hannah Montana image.

She does credit her Disney experiences with giving her the creative freedom to explore new things with her art. In 2015, her fourth studio album "Bangerz" was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album.

Answer: Ricky Schroder

Growing up on a TV sitcom can't be easy, but that's exactly what 12-year-old Ricky Schroder did on "Silver Spoons", the role that catapulted him to teen heartthrob status. Schroder played Ricky Stratton, the wise-beyond-his-years son of an immature and irresponsible toy tycoon, for five seasons of the show.

After the series ended, Schroder successfully made the transition to well-adjusted adult actor - a rarity in Hollywood. "It is a challenge transitioning from a child star because if your ego is totally tied up in your work, and if you don't work for a while it can be scary," he once said. "It's very hard to have been famous, I think, and try to live a normal life." As an adult, he dropped the "y" from the end of his name and took on serious, dramatic roles in shows like "Lonesome Dove" and "NYPD Blue", and added the "y" back again starting from his appearance on the sixth season of "24".

He also branched out into directing, winning several awards for Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss's music video for "Whiskey Lullaby", before going on to helm the TV movie "Hellhounds" (2009) and the TV documentary series "The Fighting Season" (2015).

Answer: Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio was only 16 years old when he was cast in the short lived 1990 series "Parenthood", a television adaptation of the 1989 film of the same name. Following its cancellation, DiCaprio landed guest roles in shows like "The New Lassie", "Roseanne" and "Santa Barbara", before joining the main cast of the hit TV sitcom "Growing Pains" for its seventh and final season. DiCaprio played Luke Brower, a homeless teen and student of Mike Seaver (Kirk Cameron), who is taken in and eventually adopted by the Seavers. DiCaprio concentrated on film work after his stint on "Growing Pains", and garnered good reviews for his work on films like "This Boy's Life", "The Basketball Diaries", and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?", which also earned him his first Oscar nomination. "Titanic" catapulted him to worldwide fame, and his future film roles cemented his place as one of the best actors of his generation. Additional Oscar nominations would follow for "The Aviator", "Blood Diamond" and "The Wolf of Wall Street".

Answer: Wil Wheaton

After getting attention with his sensitive portrayal of Gordie Lachance in the Stephen King coming-of-age film "Stand By Me", Wheaton was cast in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" as Wesley Crusher, the teenage son of chief medical officer Beverly Crusher.

The character had his critics, but for a lifelong Trekkie like Wheaton it represented the opportunity of a lifetime. "It was a profound experience for me," Wheaton said. "When I first got to look at the bridge and the engine room and the transporters I wasn't looking at a set, I was looking at the spaceship I had imagined since I was a child." Wheaton was part of the main cast of the show for four seasons.

He followed up his appearance on "Star Trek" by working as a voice actor for various animated programs and video games, and had roles in various films and TV shows, including playing a fictionalized version of himself on "The Big Bang Theory".

In 2012, he began hosting a YouTube series called "TableTop", in which he and a revolving roster of guest stars got together to play tabletop games.

The third season of the series was successfully crowdfunded on Indiegogo in 2014, raising over $1.4 million.

Answer: Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Gordon-Levitt was bitten by the acting bug at an early age. After playing the Scarecrow in his pre-school production of "The Wizard of Oz" at the age of four, he started booking commercials and other acting roles from age six, appearing in TV shows like "Family Ties" and "Murder She Wrote".

When he was 14, he joined the ensemble cast of "3rd Rock from the Sun" as Tommy Solomon, one of a group of aliens sent to Earth to study human behavior. Although Tommy is the oldest alien of the group, he was assigned the body of a teenage boy.

The show ran for six seasons, but Gordon-Levitt left the main cast after the fifth season so that he could attend college at Columbia University. When he decided to resume his acting career, he was only offered similar roles on other TV sitcoms, which he turned down out of fear of being pigeonholed as an actor.

He eventually made a name for himself in a series of independent films like "Brick", "Mysterious Skin" and "(500) Days of Summer", before securing roles in more mainstream films like "Lincoln" and "The Walk". Through it all, he has kept his childlike fervor for his chosen profession. "He never loses his sense of enthusiasm - truly boyish enthusiasm - for the fun thing we're doing," his "Inception" and "The Dark Knight Rises" director, Christopher Nolan, once said. "When you work on big movies, everybody gets jaded, myself included, and you have to remind yourself: If we were 10 years old, this would be pretty damn exciting. Joe never seems to forget that."

Answer: Alyssa Milano

"Who's the Boss?" revolved around a widowed ex-baseball player named Tony Micelli (Danza), who takes a job as a housekeeper for a divorced career woman in Connecticut so that he can make a better life for his daughter, Samantha, played by Alyssa Milano. Over eight seasons of the show, Samantha goes from an adorable pre-teen to a blushing 19-year-old newlywed, with all the significant milestones in between. "We did a show called 'Sam's First Bra', and then 'Sam's First Hickey', and then 'Sam Gets Her Driver's License', and then 'Sam Goes to College', and now she's married," Milano said after taping the final season episode in which Sam gets hitched. "That's a lot of growing up." Milano went on to play Jennifer Mancini in the last three seasons of "Melrose Place", Phoebe Halliwell on all eight seasons of "Charmed", and Savannah Davison the first two seasons of "Mistresses". Little known fact: Disney animators modeled Ariel in "The Little Mermaid" (1989) after pictures of a young Alyssa Milano.

Answer: Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling got his first big break at the age of 12, when he beat out thousands of other children for a role as a mouseketeer in the Disney Channel's revival of "The Mickey Mouse Club". The casting directors for the show really outdid themselves - apart from Gosling, the series also featured the talents of Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, and actress Keri Russell. Gosling went on to appear in various Canadian television series like "Are You Afraid of the Dark?", "Goosebumps", "Avonlea", and "Breaker High", before landing the title role in "Young Hercules", which had a 50-episode run in 1998 and 1999. Gosling concentrated on feature films after that, with notable appearances in "Remember the Titans" and "Murder by Numbers", before his breakout role in the romantic drama "The Notebook" (2004) with Rachel McAdams.

His portrayal of a drug-addicted teacher in "Half Nelson" (2006) earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, and went on to demonstrate his range in films like "Lars and the Real Girl" (2007), "Blue Valentine" (2010), and "Crazy, Stupid, Love" (2011).