Please Rewind Talent Wall

Amy O'Neill

Amy O'Neill is an American film and television actor best known for playing Amy Szalinski in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Born on July 8, 1971, in Pacific Palisades, California, she began auditioning alongside her siblings at ten, making the after-school drive to Hollywood before landing her first television appearance at 13. That debut, as a younger version of Betty White's Ellen Harper on Mama's Family, opened the door to steady television work. O'Neill appeared in Matt Houston, Night Court, Highway to Heaven and The Twilight Zone, as well as the game show Body Language. In 1986, she took on the more sustained role of pregnant teenager Molly Stark in The Young and the Restless, appearing across 30 episodes. Her television work also included Family Ties and the 1989 films Desperate for Love and I Know My First Name Is Steven. The same year brought Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, where O'Neill's Amy Szalinski became part of the movie's miniature backyard adventure after an experimental shrink ray reduced the Szalinski children to a quarter of an inch. She brought a grounded teenage presence to a story built around an outsized family-movie premise. O'Neill briefly reprised the role in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, appearing in the opening scene as Amy leaves for college. O'Neill continued moving between television and film, with appearances in The Young Riders, Gabriel's Fire and Murder, She Wrote. She also played Pandra in White Wolves: A Cry in the Wild II, about a group of young adults stranded in the Cascade Mountains. She stepped away from acting in 1994 after receiving scripts that required nudity. Her later screen appearances have been occasional. In 2005, she reunited with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids co-star Thomas Wilson Brown for Channel 4's documentary The 100 Greatest Family Films, and in 2008 she appeared as an officer's wife in the independent film The Japanese Sandman.