Rowan Blanchard

Background

Rowan Eleanor Blanchard was born in Los Angeles, California to yoga instructors Elizabeth and Mark Blanchard-Boulbol. Her paternal grandfather is of Armenian, Syrian, Lebanese, and Moroccan descent, while her paternal grandmother is of English, Danish, and Swedish descent. Her paternal great-grandparents met in Aleppo, Syria. Her name was inspired by a character in Anne Rice’s “The Witching Hour.” Blanchard began acting at the age of five, first as Mona’s daughter in “The Back-up Plan” and later as Caitlin in the Disney Junior Original Series, “Dance-a-Lot Robot.” She starred as Rebecca Wilson in “Spy Kids: All the Time in the World” and as Raquel Pacheco in “Little in Common” in 2011.

Blanchard was cast as Riley Matthews in the Disney Channel series “Girl Meets World” in late January 2013. She also performs the title song with co-star Sabrina Carpenter. She was also a member of the “Disney Channel Circle of Stars”. Blanchard was cast as Cleo in Disney Channel Original Movie “Invisible Sister” in early January 2015. Blanchard had a recurring role on A.B.C’s “The Goldbergs” from 2017 to 2018. Blanchard also co-starred in the March 2018 release of the feature film adaptation “A Wrinkle in Time.” On March 27, 2019, “Deadline Hollywood” reported that Blanchard had been cast as Alexandra Cavill in T.N.T’s “Snowpiercer,” a futuristic thriller starring Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs and based on Bong Joon-ho’s 2013 South Korean-Czech film of the same name, from Marty Adelstein’s Tomorrow Studios and Turner’s Studio T. Blanchard will appear as a guest star in the series’ second season, with the possibility of becoming a series regular.

Blanchard revealed on Instagram in 2014 that she was suffering from depression. Also, in a series of tweets in January 2016, she stated that while she had previously “only ever liked boys,” she was now “open to liking any gender,” and thus identifies as queer. Blanchard is an advocate for feminism, human rights, and curbing gun violence. While the majority of her comments on these issues are posted on Twitter or Tumblr, she has spoken at the U.N. Women and U.S. National Committee’s annual conference as part of the feminist campaign #TeamHeForShe.