Where Is the “School of Rock” Cast Now? Inside the Stars’ Lives Nearly 23 Years After the Premiere

Jack Black helped a classroom of fifth-graders find their inner rock stars in the 2003 movie

NEED TO KNOW

• School of Rock was released in theaters in October 2003
• Jack Black stars as Dewey Finn, a slacker musician who poses as a substitute teacher at a prep school and forms a rock band with the students
• The comedy features Mike White, Joan Cusack, Sarah Silverman and Miranda Cosgrove, among others

It’s been over 20 years since Jack Black’s Dewey Finn prayed to the God of Rock in School of Rock.

When the beloved film opened in theaters on Oct. 3, 2003, audiences were introduced to the wannabe rock star turned substitute teacher who formed a band with a class of private-school kids at the fictional Horace Green Prep.

Starring Black, Joan Cusack and Sarah Silverman and written by Mike White (now of The White Lotus fame), the comedy featured a host of upcoming child stars — some of whom have gone on to have successful Hollywood careers, including Miranda Cosgrove —and spawned a TV show and Broadway musical.

In April 2023, Black told PEOPLE that the hit movie was “a love letter to all the rockers who haven’t hit the big time but have that dream in their hearts, because there are so many out there, and it’s a testament to the dreamers.”

The School of Rock cast members have reunited over the years, including for the film’s 20th anniversary in 2023, as well as a few of the actors for the 2025 wedding of two of their costars.

“All those kids — dig this — they were 10 years old when we made that movie, and now they’re all, like, 30. We’re gonna get together and have a 20-year anniversary,” Black told Entertainment Tonight that April, adding, “We like to jam. I’m looking forward to seeing all of the grown-ups from School of Rock.”

So, where is the School of Rock cast now? Here’s a look at what the stars are doing today.

01 of 14

Jack Black as Dewey Finn

Black had endless roles under his belt — from The Neverending Story III (1994) to Shallow Hal (2001) — when he slipped into the stolen substitute-teacher uniform of dejected rock star Dewey Finn.

“I was really taking inspiration from my stepfather, because he was a substitute teacher,” Black told PEOPLE in 2023. “He did bring some rap music and different elements to his teaching style. And I just always thought he was so funny and interesting and quirky.”

The California native has continued to star in a string of hits, including Nacho Libre (2006), The Holiday (2006), Tropic Thunder (2008), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017), Jumanji: The Next Level (2019), A Minecraft Movie (2024) and Anaconda (2025).

He’s also voiced the character Bowser in blockbuster films like The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) and Po in the Kung Fu Panda franchise.

In April 2025, Black hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time in 20 years. Off-screen, he rocks out with Kyle Gass as part of the band Tenacious D — the pair first appeared on SNL as the musical guest in May 1998.

In various interviews over the years, the former child stars of School of Rock have spoken fondly of their “teacher” and revealed how he’s stayed in their lives since filming wrapped.

“He’s kept up with pretty much all of us from the movie since we did it,” Cosgrove told PEOPLE in June 2023. “I love him. He just acts [as] the most normal, nice guy. He doesn’t seem like he thinks he’s Jack Black at all.”

The actor has said he’s ready to make a sequel to the original.

“I wish there’d be a School of Rock 2: Electric Boogaloo,” he joked in a 2024 interview with Ireland’s JOE, nodding to the title of the 1984 sequel to Breakin’, famously titled Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Black and his former high school classmate, Tanya Haden, have been married since March 2006 and share two sons: Sammy and Tommy.

02 of 14

Joan Cusack as Rosalie Mullins

Like Black, Joan was already well known — and had two Oscar nominations to her name — when she landed the role of uptight principal Rosalie Mullins in School of Rock.

In 2018, casting director Ilene Starger revealed to Paramount on the film’s 15th anniversary that Joan, who is the sister of fellow actor John Cusack, didn’t even have to audition.

Her earlier credits included films like Sixteen Candles (1984), Working Girl (1988), Addams Family Values (1993), In & Out (1997), Grosse Point Blank (1997) and Toy Story 2 (1999), as well as Saturday Night Live and her ABC series What About Joan.

Joan has stayed busy since starring in School of Rock, appearing on shows like The Office, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Homecoming. She also earned five Emmy nods for her recurring role on Shameless, winning Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

The actress has also had roles in Raising Helen (2004), Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2013) and Instant Family (2018), while also lending her voice to Jessie in the Toy Story sequels. She’s voiced other characters on animated series like Phineas and Ferb, Peep and the Big Wide World and The Stinky & Dirty Show.

Joan has been married to attorney Richard Burke, with whom she has two children, since 1996. She stepped away from the spotlight for about a decade to raise her kids in Chicago.

03 of 14

Mike White as Ned Schneebly

White both wrote and co-starred in the film, flexing the skills he’d developed writing on Dawson’s Creek and starring and writing in 2000’s Chuck & Buck. His character Ned Schneebly was supposed to be substituting — until Dewey impersonated him and stepped in.

As he recalled to Paramount on the film’s 15th anniversary in 2018, “Jack was my next-door neighbor … and he would occasionally give me scripts that had been submitted to him to star in. They were invariably these flat comedies, or he was like the John Belushi guy who gets drunk and falls through a sliding glass door or something.”

He continued, “I’m reading these scripts, and I was like, ‘I could do better than this.’ Obviously, music is a big passion of his; he has his band Tenacious D. I had the idea of him leading a band of little kids — somehow it just seemed like a funny visual. Then I got the idea that it would be fun to have him be more of a W.C. Fields a little bit, like a guy who isn’t really somebody you’d want around kids, but that’s part of the fun of it.”

In the years since, White has picked up acting roles in The Stepford Wives (2004) and Zombieland (2009), as well as taking a detour on two seasons of The Amazing Race and finishing as runner-up on season 37 of Survivor. He also appeared on an episode of Pushing Daisies in 2007 and had a recurring role on Enlightened. (He also directed a few episodes of the HBO show.)

A native of Pasadena, Calif., White’s writing credits include films like Nacho Libre, Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) and Despicable Me 4 (2024), as well as series like the Nickelodeon TV spinoff of School of Rock and, perhaps most notably, The White Lotus, for which he won three Emmy Awards in 2022.

04 of 14

Sarah Silverman as Patty Di Marco

According to Starger, Tina Fey auditioned for the role that would go to Silverman, who was “hilarious” when she read for Ned’s beleaguered girlfriend Patty Di Marco.

“It was fun to play a character like that,” Silverman told E! News. “I wanted to be a part of the movie more than anything, and this combination of Jack Black and Mike White, [director] Richard Linklater and Joan Cusack, I would’ve taken an eraser on [the] chalkboard.”

Like her young costars, the two-time Emmy winner hasn’t stopped moving. She led her own sitcom, The Sarah Silverman Program, and appeared in films such as Rent (2005), Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), Battle of the Sexes (2017), Maestro (2023) and Tangles (2026), as well as TV series like Monk, The League, Masters of Sex and Nobody Wants This.

The New Hampshire native also voiced speedster Vanellope in Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and its 2018 sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet and regularly voices characters on Bob’s Burgers.

In 2022, her memoir, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, made its world premiere onstage as an Off-Broadway musical and had a run in Washington, D.C., in early 2025.

Silverman is in a relationship with comedian and TV writer Rory Albanese.

05 of 14

Miranda Cosgrove as Summer “Tinkerbell” Hathaway

School of Rock was Cosgrove’s breakthrough and first credited role on-screen. She played Summer, the class perfectionist who ultimately became the band manager.

Ahead of the film’s 20th anniversary, the actress attributed the good vibes on set to her former costar Black.

“He’s always been unbelievably nice,” she told PEOPLE in June 2023. “And I can honestly say one of the main reasons I love acting, and why I probably tried to keep doing it for so long, is because of what a great experience he made doing School of Rock.”

After working steadily on kid-favorite TV shows and movies, including Drake & Josh, she landed her own starring role on iCarly beginning in September 2007. (Black even guest-starred on an episode!) In addition to singing the show’s theme song, “Leave It All to Me,” Cosgrove also released her only studio album, Sparks Fly, in 2010. She also starred in films like 2005’s Yours, Mine & Ours.

After iCarly wrapped in November 2012, Cosgrove took a break from acting to attend the University of Southern California, where she studied psychology, though she originally majored in film.

She returned to acting in 2016, joining the cast of Crowded, and later starred on and executive-produced an iCarly revival from 2021 to 2023. She also appeared in The Intruders (2015), Mother of the Bride (2024) and The Wrong Paris (2025), though she’s become most known for voicing the character Margo in the Despicable Me franchise.

06 of 14

Angelo Massagli as Frankie “Tough Guy”

Angelo Massagli had seven episodes of Cosby and the 2002 film Stuart Little 2 to his name when he joined the cast as Frankie, the Mr. “Tough Guy” who worked security.

In 2021, his name was in the news again, not for acting but because fans discovered he had been dating School of Rock costar Caitlin Hale since 2016. (The two have since tied the knot in a formal ceremony in January 2025.)

Massagli told Inside Edition in May 2021 that several years prior, he learned Hale was moving to Florida, where he was living at the time.

“We have a group chat where all the School of Rock kids, we just hit each other up whenever someone moves somewhere new or is doing something different,” he said.

He largely left acting after the film, save for a recurring role on The Sopranos from 2002 to 2007 and a guest spot on the ABC drama Cupid in 2009.

The former actor graduated from Northeastern University in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in English, then earned his juris doctorate from the University of Miami School of Law in 2019.

According to his LinkedIn, Massagli is an admitted New York state attorney and has worked as a music product counsel at TikTok since October 2023.

07 of 14

Caitlin Hale as Marta “Blondie”

Save for a couple of episodes of Max & Wrigley and Blue’s Clues and a day playing a role on All My Children, School of Rock — in which she sang backup vocals — was Hale’s only acting credit.

The film’s audition introduced Hale to her future costar and now-husband Massagli, who recalled meeting her for the first time in a joint interview with Inside Edition in 2021.

“I get in there and the little blonde girl next to me, she gets called in first, and she starts singing show tunes and just blows the roof off the place. It was excellent,” Massagli said.

After saying their “I dos” in January 2025, Hale joked on Instagram in February that she’s “officially a Real Housewife of New Jersey.” Much of the School of Rock cast reunited for their wedding, per The New York Times.

Hale, who was born in Connecticut, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and public relations from Arizona State University before earning her bachelor of science and a master’s degree in health leadership at Nova Southeastern University, the NYT reported.

She was working as an OB-GYN sonographer, but, per her Instagram bio, is now a realtor in New Jersey, where the couple resides, as well as an endometriosis advocate.

08 of 14

Maryam Hassan as Tomika “Songbird”

As her character Tomika’s nickname implied, Maryam Hassan stole the show with her vocals, ultimately singing lead alongside Dewey. Like many of her young costars, she hadn’t worked in Hollywood before School of Rock, and it remains her only film credit.

Hassan now performs music as Mayhrenate. She is also a professional makeup artist and photographer, per Instagram, and co-owns MAHJ Bridal Atelier.

In January 2021, Hassan told Vulture of her fond memories from filming, spilling the beans on the cast’s lively group chat and frequent mini-reunions.

She also noted how blown away she was by fans’ continued love for the movie. “When it first came out, I was just happy to be involved and have the opportunity to sing in front of others. Thinking about the scope of it was never on my mind,” Hassan said.

She continued, “It wasn’t until 10 years after, at the reunion [hosted by the Austin Film Society in 2013], when I realized the extent of how big of a deal it was. There were adults, young adults and kids who showed up and knew all of the words to our songs. I didn’t know that it transcended to a different generation, you know?”

Per her artist bio, Hassan is now based in the New York City metro area.

09 of 14

Robert Tsai as Lawrence “Mr. Cool”

Much like his fellow young costars, New Jersey-born pianist Robert Tsai had little acting experience before School of Rock.

According to Hassan’s Vulture interview, the casting directors looked for kids with musical experience, not necessarily robust acting résumés.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Tsai hasn’t acted since the film’s release. He further pursued his musical passions at Dartmouth College, where he performed concerts and “continued to kill it on the keys.”

10 of 14

Aleisha Allen as Alicia “Brace Face”

Aleisha Allen played Alicia, another of the band’s star vocalists.

Already busy with work on Blue’s Clues and other kids’ programs, as well as 1999’s The Best Man, before School of Rock, Allen continued to act, joining the casts of Are We There Yet? (2005), Are We Done Yet? (2007) and Young Adult (2011). Her last credited role was 2012’s You’re Nobody ‘til Somebody Kills You.

Her Instagram bio reads, “Working since age 3. Chances are, you grew up w/ me on your screen somewhere. I appreciate that ❤️.”

Allen earned a bachelor’s degree in communication science and disorders from Pace University and a master’s degree in the same field from Columbia University. The former child star has been working as a licensed speech-language pathologist (SLP) since 2017, according to her Expressable profile.

11 of 14

Rivkah Reyes as Katie “Posh Spice”

School of Rock was Rivkah Reyes’ first role, and while they have happy memories from portraying bassist Katie, the years that followed weren’t easy for them.

Reyes, who prefers they/them pronouns, wrote in a Medium essay in March 2020 that they got bullied at school and their anxiety was compounded by feeling pressure to land bigger roles than “the girl from School of Rock.” Reyes also struggled with substance abuse, eventually becoming sober in 2017, per the New York Post.

They has since racked up many acting credits, including Monuments (2020), A Picture Perfect Holiday (2021), Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls and The Merry Gentleman (2024).

They have also been releasing music, including the 2026 single “Miss Congeniality,” and co-hosting Buck Wild, a queer line-dancing party in Brooklyn, N.Y., as “Sugarfoot.”

12 of 14

Brian Falduto as Billy “Fancy Pants”

In March 2023, Brian Falduto, who played band stylist Billy, recounted his School of Rock audition.

“I walked into the room and sang a boy soprano rendition of ‘Send in the Clowns.’ So, I’m pretty sure that’s the reason I was cast. My character didn’t exist before that audition,” he told PEOPLE.

Like many of his young costars, Falduto has also entered the music business. The up-and-coming country singer released his 2003 debut album Gay Country as a testament to owning his sexuality after being ridiculed for his character’s “flamboyant, eccentric” personality.

“People seek to label something they don’t understand, and this was 2003. There wasn’t a lot of queer representation, so I think people just instantly labeled me gay,” Falduto told PEOPLE in June 2021. “I didn’t even know what being gay was other than that you didn’t want to be called it.”

Falduto’s only film credit is School of Rock, but he’s also acted onstage, and he studied theater at Wagner College. He is now a professional and relationship coach, per his website.

13 of 14

Joey Gaydos Jr. as Zack “Zack-Attack” Mooneyham

Joey Gaydos Jr.’s string skills helped him step into the role of lead guitarist Zack, his lone acting role.

Since then, Gaydos continued to use music as a form of artistic expression. He has released multiple albums, including 2025’s Hydroacoustics and 2026’s On Keyboard.

Per his website, he’s working on “genre-fluid solo music” and plays in the group Never Sorry.

His costars have shown their support. Reyes commented on a video shared on Instagram in March 2026 of Gaydos playing some of his recent music, “such a genius.”

14 of 14

Kevin Clark as Freddy “Spazzy McGee” Jones

School of Rock was the first and only film for Kevin Clark, who portrayed drummer Freddy Jones. The Illinois-born artist went on to find his footing in music, performing with bands like Dreadwolf and Jessie Bess and the Intentions.

He reunited with Black in Chicago in November 2018, where the Jumanji star rocked a Dreadwolf T-shirt.

In May 2021, Clark was fatally hit by a car while riding his bike in Chicago. He was 32.

Several School of Rock castmates memorialized him on social media, with Black writing on Instagram, “Devastating news. Kevin is gone. Way too soon. Beautiful soul. So many great memories. Heartbroken. Sending love to his family and the whole School of Rock community.”

Cosgrove echoed the sentiment, calling Clark an “amazing soul.”

“I’ll always remember your spirit and how kind you were to me. I’ll never forget all the memories,” she wrote on Instagram.

Reyes also memorialized Clark on social media, writing on X, “Love you forever, spaz. I will never forget your hugs and your laugh and the sheer joy on your face when we’d run into each other in Chicago. Thank you for always showing up for me with that ‘big brother I never had’ energy.”

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