10 Amazing Performances That Turned Teen Idols Into Legitimate Actors

Look, there€™s no way to sugarcoat this: as soon as your face turns up on the cover of an issue of Tiger Beat, people are going to have a hard time taking you seriously as an actor. When it comes to major teen heartthrobs, there€™s an almost insurmountable obstacle in the way of them gaining the respect of audiences and critics alike. There€™s a vaguely misogynistic, condescending undertone to the idea that if teenagers, especially teenage girls, like something, it can€™t be good. Is that fair? No, not really. But it€™s definitely a huge force in popular culture. These are the actors who somehow managed to overcome their status as teen idols, and took roles that made people notice them. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that the actors on this list didn't have any good performances before they made these movies. Far from it. It's more that these were the roles that made audiences see them in a different light, and allowed them to make that slight but significant shift in the public consciousness from "teen star" to "actor". You can work on a hundred meaningful projects and still just be seen as the MTV Movie Awards Best Kiss Winner if you don't have that one performance that forces everyone to take you seriously.