Christy Carlson Romano became a Disney Channel favorite after playing the whip-smart Ren Stevens for three seasons on Even Stevens, voicing the iconic teen hero in Kim Possible, and appearing alongside Hilary Duff in the 2002 Disney Channel Original Movie Cadet Kelly. She later brought her talents to the stage, making her Broadway debut as Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast for a 31-week run in 2004. Romano returned to New York’s theater scene in 2008 when she joined the cast of Avenue Q.
Beyond acting, Romano expanded her career into writing, directing, and academia. She published the novel Grace’s Turn in 2007, directed the 2016 feature film Christmas All Over Again, and earned a Film Studies degree from Barnard College. On December 31, 2013, she married writer-producer Brendan Rooney. The pair share two daughters, with their youngest born in February 2019.
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In 2019, Romano reconnected with the Disney franchise that helped define her career, appearing as pop star Poppy Blu in the live-action Kim Possible movie. That same year, she offered a candid look at life after child stardom in a deeply personal Teen Vogue essay. “I have never been perfect or pulled together as my reputation or the success of my young adulthood might suggest,” she wrote. “During a period of time in my life, I grappled with depression, drinking, and more, desperate to find fixes for how I felt.”