# Christy Carlson Romano

Christy Carlson Romano (born March 20, 1984) is an American actress, podcaster, and singer. On the Disney Channel, she played Ren Stevens on Even Stevens and voiced the titular character from Kim Possible.

## Early life

Romano was born on March 20, 1984, in Milford, Connecticut, the youngest of four children of Anthony and Sharon (née Carlson) Romano. Romano was raised Catholic. She is of Italian descent. She began her career at six years old when she was cast in several national tours of Broadway shows, including Annie, The Will Rogers Follies with Keith Carradine, and The Sound of Music with Marie Osmond. She made her first feature film appearance in 1996 as a singing "Chiquita Banana" in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You. She also appeared in Henry Fool (1997) and Looking for an Echo (2000).

## Career
### Film and television

Romano made her Broadway debut in 1998 as Mary Phagan in the musical Parade by Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown. In 2002, she acted in three Disney Channel projects simultaneously, supplementing her work on Even Stevens with a starring role in Cadet Kelly, alongside Hilary Duff, and voice acting as the title character in Kim Possible. Romano was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for her work on Kim Possible. The show inspired an adventure scavenger hunt activity at Disney's Epcot which ran for over five years, as well as two Disney Channel movies Kim Possible: So the Drama and Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time.
Romano voiced Yuffie Kisaragi in the English version of the movie Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, as well as in the Disney/Square game Kingdom Hearts. Throughout her teens and twenties, she starred in movies for ABC Family and Disney Channel, including Campus Confidential, Taking Five, The Cutting Edge: Going for the Gold, and The Cutting Edge: Chasing the Dream. Various other appearances include MTV's Kaya, CBS' Joan of Arcadia, The WB's Summerland, and TNT's Hawthorne.
In February 2004, Romano began a 31-week run as Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast on Broadway. Romano was the youngest actress to portray the character on Broadway. She reprised the role in Atlanta's 2005 Fox Theatre production of Beauty and the Beast. In September 2008, she joined the Broadway company of Avenue Q as Kate Monster for several weeks. Romano starred as Michelle off-Broadway in White's Lies at New World Stages in 2010, alongside Betty Buckley and Tuc Watkins.
Romano penned a novel, Grace's Turn, for Disney literary subsidiary Hyperion, which received accolades by the New York Public Library (NYPL) as the 2007 Teenage Book of the Year. In 2012, she directed a music video for Steph Gold's "THE SUN" which was accepted into the Los Angeles Shorts Fest 2012. Amongst other titles, Romano has appeared in many films since her Disney days including Lifetime's Deadly Daycare, Wes Craven's The Girl in the Photographs, Loosies, and Christmas with the Andersons. In March 2016, she directed her first feature, Christmas All Over Again starring Nickelodeon's Sean Ryan Fox and YouTube star Todrick Hall; Lionsgate released the film for Christmas 2016.
Romano appeared as pop star Poppy Blu in the live action Kim Possible television movie which premiered on February 15, 2019. Starting that year, Romano started her own YouTube show called Christy's Kitchen Throwback, in which she would cook recipes with former child actors and Disney stars as guest hosts. In August 2020, it was announced that Romano would host the cooking show Bucket List Bistro for Fox.
On November 15, 2024, Fox announced that Romano was one of fifteen contestants to appear in the third season of reality quasi-military training television series Special Forces: World's Toughest Test.

### Podcasts

Romano hosts several podcasts. She hosts Vulnerable where she interviews former child stars. She also hosts I Hear Voices with her former Kim Possible co-star Will Friedle. She also hosts Even More Stevens with her former Even Stevens co-stars Nick Spano and Steven Anthony Lawrence.
In 2023, Romano launched a company called PodCo, a podcast network that focuses on rewatches hosted by the stars of popular TV series such as Wizards of Waverly Place, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Even Stevens, and others.

### Music

While working at Disney, Romano recorded songs as part of soundtracks for Kim Possible and other Disney projects. She first sang on the Disney Channel on a musical episode of Even Stevens which led to more singing on the series and with Disney in general. In 2004, Walt Disney Records released Romano's debut album Greatest Disney TV & Film Hits, a compilation of previously released soundtrack appearances and new material. After her Broadway run of Beauty and the Beast Romano signed a record deal with Jason Flom at Atlantic Records. Flom was fired before Romano released her first album and Romano's deal was not honored. She continued to write music with Kara DioGuardi and The Matrix and placed her songs in several movies.

### Other ventures

After her singing career, Romano began narrating audiobooks, including Pop Princess by Rachel Cohn, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer trilogy by Michelle Hodkin, and Beautiful Blue World by Suzanne M. LaFleur. She also narrated audiobooks To Catch a Killer by Sheryl Scarborough, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong, Kaleidoscope Hearts by Claire Contreras, and the Adventures of Owl Series by Kristi Charish. On August 22, 2006, she published her own novel, Grace's Turn, for which she provided the narration as well.

## Personal life

After Even Stevens ended, Romano struggled with depression, self-harm, and alcohol abuse during her late teen years and early twenties. Her experience of playing Belle in Beauty and the Beast on Broadway was taxing on her voice, which was already in delicate condition after she had to have surgery to remove vocal nodules right before her audition. She also admitted that she was pushing her voice past its limit in order to get through her run while trying to make Disney Theatrical Productions proud.
Romano later attended Barnard College and received her degree in Film Studies. Romano and writer-producer Brendan Rooney met in February 2011 while she was studying at Barnard College. They became engaged in November and, after two years of engagement, married on December 31, 2013 at the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta. They have two daughters: Isabella Victoria, born December 24, 2016, and Sophia Elizabeth, born February 18, 2019.
In a 2023 Fox News Digital article Romano stated "I don’t identify as a celebrity at all, by the way. I think ‘public person’ probably makes more sense, or now content creator. I think that the term celebrity is so gross and outdated."
On February 7, 2025, Romano was shot in her right eye during a clay pigeon shooting outing with her husband for his 42nd birthday, which was accidentally caused by another party. Rooney assessed the situation and had her taken to a hospital. She described her injuries that involved a bullet hole underneath her eye which was swollen with blood inside her eyeball, a fragment on her side near the eye which got cleaned out, and a fragment that got lodged behind her eye which is too risky to have surgically removed. Romano stated that the doctors will continue to monitor her and can see normally at the moment.

## Filmography
### Film

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1996 | Everyone Says I Love You | Trick-or-Treat Child | |
| 1997 | Henry Fool | Pearl | |
| 1999 | Goosed | Gail | |
| 2000 | Looking for an Echo | Tina Pirelli | |
| 2005 | Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children | Yuffie Kisaragi | Voice role |
| 2007 | Taking Five | Danielle Thompson | |
| 2010 | The Legend of Secret Pass | Nica | Voice role |
| 2010 | Suicide Dolls | Amber | |
| 2010 | Movin' In | Ann Beck | |
| 2010 | Mirrors 2 | Jenna McCarty | |
| 2011 | Loosies | Carmen | |
| 2012 | Infected | Kelly | |
| 2013 | Lucky Dog | Sharon | |
| 2014 | Prism | Grace | |
| 2014 | Real Love | Brie | Short film |
| 2014 | Bear with Us | Quincy Adams | |
| 2015 | The Girl in the Photographs | Britney | |
| 2016 | Christmas All Over Again | Marilyn | Also director and producer |
| 2017 | Blood Circus | Sherry | |
| 2021 | Single Mother By Choice | Herself | HBO Max original film |

### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1996 | The Many Trials of Tammy B | Dani | Television film |
| 1999 | Guiding Light | Erica | |
| 2000–2003 | Even Stevens | Ren Stevens | Main role |
| 2001 | B.S. | Andy Brenner | Television film |
| 2002 | Cadet Kelly | Cadet Captain Jennifer Stone | Television film |
| 2002–2007 | Kim Possible | Kimberly Ann "Kim" Possible | Lead voice role |
| 2003 | The Even Stevens Movie | Ren Stevens | Television film |
| 2003 | Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time | Kim Possible | Voice role; television film |
| 2004 | Joan of Arcadia | Officious Hall Monitor God | Episode: "The Book of Questions" |
| 2005 | Kim Possible: So the Drama | Kim Possible | Voice role; television film |
| 2005 | Summerland | Gigi | Episode: "Where There's a Will There's a Wave" |
| 2005 | Lilo & Stitch: The Series | Kim Possible | Voice role; episode: "Rufus: Experiment #607" |
| 2005 | Campus Confidential | Violet | Television film |
| 2006 | The Cutting Edge: Going for the Gold | Jackie Dorsey | Television film |
| 2006 | Family Guy | Quagmire's One-Night-Stand | Voice role; episode: "I Take Thee, Quagmire" |
| 2006 | Casper's Scare School | Mantha | Voice role; television film |
| 2007 | Kaya | Kat | 3 episodes |
| 2008 | The Cutting Edge: Chasing the Dream | Jackie Dorsey | Television film |
| 2009 | Hawthorne | Alex | Episode: "Night Moves" |
| 2009 | Wolvesbayne | Alex Layton | Television film |
| 2010 | Iris Expanding | Zelda | Unsold television pilot |
| 2010 | The Penguins of Madagascar | Little Girl #1 / Lunacorn | Voice role; episode: "Hello, Dollface/Huffin and Puffin" |
| 2012 | MyMusic | The Devil | Web series; episode: "Sabotage!" |
| 2014 | Deadly Daycare | Gabby | Television film |
| 2016 | Christmas with the Andersons | Caroline | Television film |
| 2018 | Big Hero 6: The Series | Trina | Voice role |
| 2019 | Maternal Instinct | Gloria | Television film |
| 2019 | Dream Killer | Grace Rodson | Television film |
| 2019 | Kim Possible | Poppy Blu | Television film |
| 2025 | Special Forces: World's Toughest Test | Herself | Contestant in season 3 |
| 2025 | Chibiverse | Kim Possible | Voice role; episode: "Dr. Doof's Lab" |

### Video games

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 2002 | Kingdom Hearts | Yuffie | Voice role |
| 2002 | Kim Possible: Revenge of Monkey Fist | Kim Possible | Voice role |

## Theater

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1990 | Annie | Molly | Regional; Atlanta |
| 1992-1994 | The Will Rogers Follies | James Rogers | National Tour |
| 1994-1995 | The Sound of Music | Marta von Trapp | National Tour |
| 1995 | Ruthless | Tina Denmark | Regional; Galveston |
| 1995 | The Dr. Seuss Children's Opera | Gertrude McFuzz | Regional; Boston |
| 1996 | Night of the Hunter | Mary | Off-Broadway |
| 1997 | Spider's Web | Pippa | Regional; Westport/Connecticut Tour |
| 1998–1999 | Parade | Mary Phagan | Broadway |
| 1999 | Stars In Your Eyes | Jo Jenson | off-Broadway |
| 2004 | Beauty and the Beast | Belle | Broadway |
| 2005 | Beauty and the Beast | Belle | Regional; Atlanta |
| 2008 | Avenue Q | Kate Monster/Lucy the Slut | Broadway |
| 2010 | White's Lies | Michelle | Off-Broadway |

## Discography
### Album

* Greatest Disney TV & Film Hits (2004)

### Cast recording

* Parade – Original Cast Recording (1999)

### Other album appearances

| Title | Year | Album |
| "Chiquita Banana" | 1996 | Everyone Says I Love You |
| "Say The Word" | 2003 | Kim Possible |
| "Circle of Life" (among Disney Channel Stars) | 2004 | Disneymania 2 |
| "Teacher's Pet" | 2004 | Teacher's Pet |
| "Anyone But Me" | 2004 | Zenon: Z3 |
| "Let's Bounce" | 2004 | The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement |
| "Toy Town" | 2004 | Radio Disney Jingle Jams |
| "Best Time of the Year" | 2007 | Disney Channel Holiday |

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Award | Category | Work | Result |
| 2001 | Young Artist Award | Best Performance in a TV Comedy Series – Leading Young Actress | Even Stevens | Won |
| 2002 | Young Artist Award | Best Performance in a TV Comedy Series – Leading Young Actress | Even Stevens | Won |
| 2003 | Young Artist Award | Best Young Adult Performer in a Teenage Role | The Even Stevens Movie | Nominated |
| 2005 | Daytime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program | Kim Possible | Nominated |