Rowan Blanchard

ROWAN BLANCHARD

Date of Birth: October 14, 2001

A Los Angeles native, Rowan began acting an early age — five, to be exact. In 2010, she was cast as Mona’s (Michaela Watkins) daughter in the romantic comedy The Back-up Plan, starring Jennifer Lopez.

She also gained valuable experience in front of the camera playing Caitlin on 10 episodes of the Disney Junior Channel show Dance-A-Lot-Robot, a show that ran three minutes and would play in between longer shows on the network.

The following year, she played Rebecca Wilson in Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011). Her big break would come at age 11, when it was announced in January of 2013 that she would star in Disney Channel’s Girl Meets World — a spinoff of the 1990s TV series Boy Meets World. She worked hard to get the role — doing 12 auditions in total before she was chosen, including one with Sabrina Carpenter, who would play her best friend on the show. Playing Riley Matthews, the spunky daughter of Corey and Topanga Matthews (played by original Boy Meets World stars Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel), Rowan, along with Sabrina, also sang the theme song for the show. The series lasted three seasons and was a hit among fans old and new. Rowan also starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Invisible Sister, as Cleo.

Aside from acting, Rowan is also an engaged human rights activist, and has offered her voice to a number of social justice issues she is passionate about. She often takes to social media to bring awareness and support to a variety of topics such as human rights and gun violence, to her millions of (mainly) young followers.

In December 2015, Rowan revealed that she struggles with depression, writing on Instagram, "I learned this year that happiness and sadness are not mutually exclusive. They can exist within me at the same time in the same moment." She went on to write in the same essay, "If you love something, find a way to do it- life is much too short."

In her first TV role post-Girl Meets World, Rowan guest-starred as Aliza in ABC’s The Goldbergs. She has also played a starring role in the independent sci-fi film A World Away (written and directed by her father, Mark Blanchard), and played mean girl Veronica in Disney’s film adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time (2018) alongside Chris Pine, Reese Witherspoon, Zach Galifianakis and Oprah Winfrey.

The oldest of three children, Rowan is a pescatarian (a vegetarian who eats fish) and loves dogs, reading, singing and basketball.

Filmography:

A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
A World Away (2017)
Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011)
The Back Up Plan (2010)