Christy Carlson Romano

**Christy Carlson Romano** (born March 20, 1984) is an American actress, comedian, voice actress and singer. She is known for her role as Ren Stevens in the Disney Channel sitcom *Even Stevens*, and as the voice of the titular character in the Disney Channel animated series *Kim Possible.*

## Early life

Romano was born in Milford, Connecticut, the youngest of four children of Anthony and Sharon Romano. 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 Carradineand *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*.[4] She also appeared in *Henry Fool* (1997) and *Looking for an Echo* (2000).

## Career

Romano made her Broadway debut in 1998 as Mary Phagan in the musical *Parade* by Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown. In 2002, Romano became the first person to act 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*. She 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.*

She 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*.[*citation needed*] Throughout her teens and twenties, Romano 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's *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. 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. She 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 retuned working with Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle on their newest project Big Hero 6: The Series and plays a young bot-fighter named Trina

Romano appeared as pop star Poppy Blu in the live action *Kim Possible* television movie which premiered on February 15, 2019.

### Music career

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.*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.

### Literary career

After her singing career, Romano used her vocal talents to narrate for 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, "Kaledoscope 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

Romano 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. In June 2016, the couple announced that they were expecting their first child; their daughter was born in December 2016. On August 31, 2018, she announced in *People* that she and Rooney were expecting their second child, a girl, to whom Romano gave birth in February 2019.