Entertainment
If you spent your teenage years navigating through the 00's, chances are that you tried to channel Marissa from The OC in your personal style, and used quite a bit of brain power wondering why the hell Austin Ames couldn't tell that it was Hilary Duff in A Cinderella Story.
Another classic that no doubt shaped your perceptions of life and love as a high-schooler was the modern-day fairytale, The Princess Diaries. It was Anne Hathaway's breakout film, where she played the gangly and frizzy Mia Thermopolis, who finds out that she's actually related to Genovian royalty (none other than queen Julie Andrews) and her whole life is given a makeover as a result.
All of a sudden, she's beautiful and popular, and even though she has to deal with slimy boys like Josh Bryant, she ends up falling for the guy who liked her all along, even when she was "invisible". Michael Moscovitz was the older brother of Mia's bestie Lily, and he's a kind of dorky-but-hot teenager in a band who likes putting M&Ms on pizza. He's the perfect guy for Mia and yes... I am very invested in this film.
But what's he doing now? Even though Anne Hathaway has enjoyed great success following The Princess Diaries, the guy who plays her love interest hasn't been seen on screen since.
The actor's name is Robert Schwartzman, and he was barely 18-years-old when they filmed The Princess Diaries in 2000. Now, he's 35, and let me tell you, he's still hot.
See?
It seems that since filming the chick flick, Robert has chosen his musical career over acting. As you can tell in the movie, he is actually pretty talented, and he's said before that music "feels more like me" than acting ever did.
"Really, it was all about my band even before I got the part in [The Princess Diaries]," he told Seventeen. "I've always been real close to film world. I love film, and I will do things in film, but music is more satisfying. It feels more like me."
He's since focused on making music with his band Rooney, who are still alive and well these days too. Interestingly, Rooney featured on a couple of episodes of The OC as one of the bands Seth was obsessed with during that awkward love triangle between him, Summer, and Anna.
Funnily enough, he comes from a very famous family in the film industry. It seems so obvious now that I know his full name (rather than just referring to him as the cute band dude from The Princess Diaries who puts M&M's on pizzas), but Robert Schwartzman's brother is Jason Schwartzman.
Jason has starred in most Wes Anderson films and has written episodes for a number of TV shows including Gossip Girl. He's also worked on The OC as a writer, and his old band Phantom Planet made the theme song for the show. The two brothers are cousins to Nicolas Cage and Sofia Coppola, with their uncle being the great Francis Ford Coppola.
Wow, what a ride it's been following the backlinks through IMDb to find all this out.
It seems as of late, Robert's been dabbling with the movie business again, this time directing the film The Unicorn which stars Lauren Lapkus, who you probably know from Orange is the New Black or HBO's Crashed.
Well, now you know what he looks like almost two decades on, as well as what he's been up to. Fingers crossed for a Princess Diaries 3 where we see Mia reunite with Michael?