Clueless was director Amy Heckerling’s second and more satirical spotlight on the social life of southern California high schoolers. Heckerling had her first teen comedy hit with the 1983 Cameron Crowe-penned Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which was a moderate success, but Clueless far eclipsed it both at the box office and with its cultural impact. The movie spawned a spin-off TV show, made an instant celebrity out of its Alicia Silverstone, and had teenage girls quickly adopting “as if” into their vocabulary. Initially, Alicia Silverstone didn’t even want to play ditzy Cher Horowitz, feeling that she had nothing in common with the “materialistic, annoying little b*tch.” Amy Heckerling recognized the actress’ instant likability and convinced Alicia — who was mostly known at the time for her Aerosmith music video trilogy — to give the character a shot.
Today is Alicia Silverstone’s birthday — she’s 38 — and the movie will celebrate its 20th anniversary next July, which is good an excuse as any to find out what Cher and her clueless classmates have been up to since 1995.
Cher (Alicia Silverstone) So what’s Cher been up to over the last two decades? Well, in 2012 she grabbed headlines for making pretty much the entire world say “eww” by chewing her son’s food and spitting it into his mouth like he was a baby bird. Alicia Silverstone is one of Peta’s biggest celebrity spokespeople, even going so far as to write a letter to Vladimir Putin asking that the members of Pussy Riot be given vegan-friendly meals while they were locked up. As far as movie roles post-Clueless, she had a cameo as herself in Tropic Thunder and in 2012 joined with director Amy Heckerling once again to co-star with Krysten Ritter in the vampire comedy Vamps.
Dionne (Stacy Dash) Stacy Dash was well past her high school days when she paired up as Cher’s best friend on the Clueless cast. She was 27 at the time, had a 6-year-old son, and had already had roles in The Fresh Prince and Mo’ Money. Dash followed up the success of the teen comedy by starring in the spin-off Clueless TV show for its three-season run. Dash is also one of the oldest women to appear in Playboy, shedding her clothes for the magazine at age 40 in 2006. Currently she’s filming a thriller called The Patient Killer that you’ll soon probably see (or not see) on the back pages of Netflix. She also drops by Fox News every so often.
Murray (Donald Faison) After reprising his role on the Clueless TV show, Donald landed his biggest role to date as Turk on Scrubs, where he fast became real-life bff to Zach Braff. Donald’s worked with other Clueless cast members over the years, joining Breckin Meyer on Robot Chicken and as well as reuniting with Stacey Dash in the TV Land series The Exes. In 2012, he had a small role in Kick-Ass 2 and is currently filming a sci-fi comedy about a couple of geeks that invent their own sex bot called Hot Bot.
Travis (Breckin Meyer) Every teen comedy needs a goofy stoner, and Breckin Meyer was perfect as the skater slacker that couldn’t be bothered to make it to class on time because of McDonald’s Egg McMuffins. Breckin’s done pretty well for himself both behind the camera and in front of it. Following Clueless he starred in the teen comedy Road Trip and was the voice of Joseph Gribble for five years on King of the Hill when Joseph hit puberty and his voice changed. He’s lent his voice to Robot Chicken’s various characters for the past nine years and currently stars in TNT’s Franklin and Bash.
Christian (Justin Walker) After playing Cher’s sharp-dressed love interest turned gay bff, we didn’t really see too much of Justin Walker. Justin sidestepped the Clueless TV show in favor of doing some low-budget TV movies like a remake of the 1980 B-horror film, Humanoids of the Deep and Last Resort. Justin’s last film role was a 2005 indie comedy called Takeout. Since then Justin has largely left the acting world and now runs a restaurant called Teddy Teadle’s Grill in Rancho Mirage, California.
Elton (Jeremy Sisto) The official rich d-bag of the Clueless cast, Jeremy Sisto was only 19 at the time of filming but was already a married man (he divorced his then-wife in 2002). Jeremy’s had steady television work over the last 20 years with a recurring role on HBO’s sleeper hit Six Feet Under and a three-year stint on Law & Order. As far as movie roles, Jeremy was on the cusp of being “king of the world” in 1997 when he auditioned for the role of “Jack” in Titanic, but ultimately lost out to Leonardo DiCaprio. Currently, he’s pulling double duty as a regular on the TV casts of Suburgatory and The Returned.
Amber (Elisa Donovan) Amber wasn’t as mean as some of the other villains in teen comedies, but man, was she ever an annoying and spoiled brat. Like many on the cast, Elisa climbed aboard the gravy train to reprise her role in the TV series before jumping ship to join the cast of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Major studio film roles haven’t exactly been falling in Elisa’s lap, which might explain why she’s appeared in The Dog Who Saved Christmas, The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation, The Dog Who Saved the Holidays, and The Dog Who Saved Halloween. (How does a dog save Christmas so many times???)
Josh (Paul Rudd) Paul Rudd’s had more success than anyone else from the Clueless cast and seemingly appears in no less than 2.5 romcoms per year. He’s one of Judd Apatow’s go-to guys and he’s currently filming Marvel’s Ant-Man. Really, things couldn’t be going better for the guy. He did develop a wrinkle in his face around 2006, but it went away the next day, so it’s all good.
Tai (Brittany Murphy) Besides Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy arguably had the most acting success post-Clueless. The actress voiced the role of Luanne Platter for the entire series run of King of the Hill, and had prominent roles in the films Just Married, Girl, Interrupted, 8 Mile, and Sin City. The actress sadly passed away in 2009 at the age of 32, but her final film, the psychological thriller Something Wicked wasn’t released until April of this year.
