Amy O'Neill

O'Neill was born in Pacific Palisades, California, the daughter of Virginia, an art school director, and Thomas O'Neill, a Los Angeles construction company owner.^[3]

O'Neill began auditioning for parts at age ten with her siblings.^[3] After her school session, they would drive out to Hollywood and make her first appearance on television at age 13 in an episode of Mama's Family as a younger version of Betty White's character, Ellen Harper.^[4] She continued working on television shows such as Matt Houston, Night Court, Highway to Heaven and The Twilight Zone. She also appeared on the American game show, Body Language in the summer of 1985. After an appearance on Family Ties, O'Neill further cast the role of the pregnant teenager Molly Stark on the daytime soap, The Young and the Restless for thirty episodes in 1986.

She appeared in the 1989 television films, Desperate for Love as Tammy Lauren's best friend, with Christian Slater and as Jodie in I Know My First Name is Steven, before appearing in her most recognized role as Amy Szalinski in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.^[1][5][6] In the film, she and her brother are shrunk to 1/4 inch high by the father's (Rick Moranis) shrink ray.^[7][8] O'Neill had a role in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but most of her scenes were cut due to time constraints.^[9] She played Lisa Barnes in the unsold pilot Where's Rodney?, with Rodney Dangerfield and her Honey, I Shrunk the Kids co-star Jared Rushton.^[10] She continued working in television series such as Room for Romance, The Young Riders, and Gabriel's Fire, and starred as Susan Hartley in an episode of Murder, She Wrote.^[11]

O'Neill reprised the role of Amy Szalinski in the 1992 film Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, albeit only in the opening scene where she leaves for college.^[12] The reason for this is that the film was originally a standalone story unrelated to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and when the plot was changed to include the Szalinski family, there was no parallel character that O'Neill could replace.^[13] She later appeared in the television film, White Wolves: A Cry in the Wild II as Pandra, one of the young adults stuck in the Cascade Mountains, having to fend for themselves.^[14] In 1994, she appeared in the National Lampoon film, Attack of the 5 Ft. 2 In. Women as a "German Skater".^[15] She quit her acting career in the same year after getting scripts that required nudity.^[16]

She returned to television to appear in a 2005 Channel 4 documentary with her Honey, I Shrunk the Kids co-star Thomas Wilson Brown in The 100 Greatest Family Films.^[a][17] In 2008, she appeared as an officer's wife in an independent film, The Japanese Sandman. In 2013, O'Neill was further working to produce a film tentatively titled Burn Down the Night, based on the 1982 book of the same name by Craig Strete, about the life of Jim Morrison before he joined The Doors.^[18]

After temporarily shifting from her regular acting career in the mid-1990s, Amy O'Neill is active in the performance art community of Los Angeles as one of the trio Girls on Stilts, a circus-style troupe.^[3] She once described circus learning as challenging and once resulted in a black eye facial injury, though she eventually later mastered the skills after several practices.^[3]