After achieving fame as a child star in the early ’90s, Thomas Ian Nicholas graduated to (slightly) more adult subjects in the raunchy teen hit American Pie (1999). During his Los Angeles childhood, Nicholas’ mother worked in casting, providing her son with an early entry into the business. The dark-haired boy first appeared on camera at age eight, playing Tony Danza’s younger self in an episode of the 1980s sitcom Who’s the Boss?. Nicholas moved to films in 1992, in the fantasy-drama Radio Flyer. Nicholas earned his first feature starring role as the miraculously endowed young pitcher in the lighthearted, child-oriented crowd-pleaser Rookie of the Year (1993). Continuing his de facto magical mystery tour, Nicholas starred as a contemporary teen transported to mythic Camelot in A Kid in King Arthur’s Court (1995) and its sequel A Kid in Aladdin’s Palace (1997). Shedding his kid persona, Nicholas formed his own rock band T.I.N. Men, releasing its first album in 1997. By 1999, Nicholas revealed that he was definitively over the age of consent (if not out of teen films) in American Pie.
As a high-school senior aiming to lose his virginity with girlfriend Tara Reid, Nicholas’ Kevin may have been in a better position to do the deed by graduation than buddy Jason Biggs, but his performance anxiety became another source of ribald humor. Nicholas followed his American Pie success with a guest-starring stint on TV drama Party of Five’s final season and the inevitable American Pie sequel. Continuing the trend of appearing in teen pics, Nicholas would next turn up in such films as Halloween: Resurrection and The Rules of Attraction (both 2002) before appearing as a young incarnation of Old Blue Eyes in Stealing Sinatra (also 2002).