THE CAST OF “JUNO”: SEE THE STARS OF THE 2007 OSCAR WINNER, THEN AND NOW

Find out what’s happening with Elliot Page, Michael Cera, and more stars of the coming-of-age dramedy.

What’s in a name? A lot, at least when it comes to one as evocative as “Juno," which has mythic origins (and inspired a spicy Sabrina Carpenter song).

It's also the name of Jason Reitman's 2007 film about spunky Minnesota 16-year-old Juno MacGuff (Elliot Page), whose life is turned upside down after a spontaneous hookup with classmate Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) leads to a positive pregnancy test.

After waffling back and forth for some time, Juno eventually decides to place the baby up for adoption and finds seemingly ideal prospective parents in Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (Jennifer Garner). 

The coming-of-age dramedy made a splash at the Academy Awards, taking home Best Original Screenplay and earning three nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress. It was one of the major underdog hits of 2007, becoming a critical darling on the fall festival circuit and being embraced by audiences.

The film jolted Page to stardom and sparked conversations about teen pregnancy, abortion, and (obviously) hamburger phones.

Read on to see what Page, Cera, and the rest of the cast has been up to since the 2007 film.

01 of 07

Elliot Page (Juno MacGuff)

Elliot Page captivated the world with his layered performance as Juno, a sharp-tongued teenager navigating an unplanned pregnancy and complicated circumstances “way beyond my maturity level.”

“[Juno] was a great experience,” Page told The Guardian in 2023. “It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had making something. It was an incredible group of people and I had a tremendous time. I remember Michael Cera and I were like: ‘This seems it could be kinda cool’ — but nobody expected it to blow up to the degree that it did.” 

The Canadian actor found an early break with the CBC’s Pit Pony before gaining recognition in the states for the vengeful psychothriller Hard Candy (2005) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).

Following the actor’s Oscar-nominated performance as Juno, he flexed his roller derby skills in Whip It (2009), became Leonardo DiCaprio’s dream architect protege in Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010), and kept her toes in indie waters with The East (2013) and Touchy Feely (2013).

After appearing in the Flatliners (2017) remake, Page returned to television to play Viktor Hargreeves on Netflix’s comic book adaptation The Umbrella Academy.

The actor came out as a trans man in 2020, writing on social media, “Hi friends, I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they, and my name is Elliot. I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life.”

Page will soon reunite with Nolan for his epic retelling of The Odyssey (2026).

02 of 07

Michael Cera (Paulie Bleeker)

Michael Cera starred as the mild-mannered Paulie, the father of Juno’s child. His adorkable performance had audiences everywhere somehow madly swooning over his running shorts, acoustic guitar skills, and orange Tic Tac vice.

Prior to stepping into Bleeker’s track shoes, the Canadian star inspired a million memes as George Michael Bluth on Arrested Development alongside future Juno costar Jason Bateman. He quickly went from sitcom star to movie star, with Superbad (2007) in particular pushing him to a new level of notoriety. 

The actor called his sudden rise to fame “overwhelming.” 

“I didn’t know how to handle walking down the street. Fame makes you very uncomfortable in your own skin and makes you paranoid and weird,” he told The Guardian in 2013. “There were lots of great things about it, and I met a lot of amazing people, but there’s a lot of bad energies, too, ones that I was not equipped to handle.”

He went on to headline Edgar Wright’s cult classic Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) before making an indie pivot in the ensuing years and returning to the Bluth household for Netflix’s AD revival. He went on to play an over-the-top version of himself in This Is the End (2013) and earned plaudits for his heel turn in Molly’s Game (2017), opposite Jessica Chastain.

In recent years, Cera joined Wes Anderson’s acting troupe for The Phoenician Scheme (2025) and reunited with Wright for The Running Man (2025).

Cera has two children with his wife, Nadine.

03 of 07

Jennifer Garner (Vanessa Loring)

Jennifer Garner played Vanessa, the prospective adoptive mother of Juno’s child who’s wanted to be a mom for as long as she can remember. 

“Sometimes everything is a struggle, and you're always trying to find what is going to make a scene work or how to communicate with the other actors,” the actress said on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2008. “But this [Juno] was never hard. It never seemed like work at all."

For Garner, her career seemed to take off all at once. The Houston native first turned heads with her Golden Globe-winning role as Secret Agent Sydney Bristow on Alias — which came just after her key role in Pearl Harbor (2001) and just before her scene-stealing turn in Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can (2002).

From there, she went from small-screen spy to big-screen romantic lead in 13 Going on 30 (2004) and superhero in Daredevil spinoff Elektra (2005). After starring alongside Matthew McConaughey in the rom-com Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), the two reunited for the Oscar-winning Dallas Buyers Club (2013).

The actress has leaned into maternal roles and warm family comedies over the years, including Love, Simon (2018), Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2014) and Family Switch (2023).

Garner shares three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck.

04 of 07

Jason Bateman (Mark Loring)

Jason Bateman played Mark, Vanessa’s husband who, as it turns out, maybe isn’t ready to be an adoptive father after all.

During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the actor revealed that he originally turned down the role.

“When I read that script, I was in a weird mood. We had just had a child, and I said no,” he recalled. “Then they went to another actor, and they got about two weeks away from actually shooting, and that actor sent a text message to Jason Reitman simply saying, ‘I'm out.’ Jennifer Garner actually said, ‘Go back to Jason and see if he'll reconsider.’”

The New York native got an early start in the industry in the ‘80s, appearing on Little House on the Prairie and The Hogan Family. His child stardom turned to infamy with Teen Wolf Too (1987), followed by more than a decade of flops and false starts. Then Arrested Development happened, and he’s been a ubiquitous presence ever since.

His Golden Globe-winning performance paved the way for a string of comedy roles — Horrible Bosses (2011) and The Change-Up (2013) among them — while he gradually gravitated toward darker work. He found a prestige crime series to call his own with Netflix’s Ozark, which earned him an Emmy for directing.

In addition to recent acclaimed big-screen work in Game Night (2018), Air (2023), and both Zootopia films, his small-screen pace has only ramped up. He starred alongside Jude Law on Black Rabbit before landing on HBO with DTF St. Louis, opposite Linda Cardellini and David Harbour.

Bateman married actress Amanda Anka in 2001 and they share two daughters.

05 of 07

Allison Janney (Bren MacGuff)

Allison Janney played Juno’s no-nonsense yet supportive stepmother, Bren, who has a fondness for Weimaraners and a bone to pick with mouthy ultrasound technicians.

“I kept waiting for the ‘evil stepmother’ to make it hard for Juno, and then she didn't. She was actually trying to support her stepdaughter and say, ‘It isn't going to be easy, but I'm going to be here for you,’” she reflected in an interview with Flipside Movie Emporium. “There's something wonderful about Diablo [Cody]; she does not seem to judge any of her characters… Diablo herself was a stepmother too, and I think she wanted to debunk the evil stepmother myth personally.” 

The veteran character actress — having appeared in supporting roles in such films as The Ice Storm (1997) and Big Night (1996) — got her true break when she landed the role of C. J. Cregg on The West Wing, racking up a whopping four Emmy wins.

She went on to earn a fifth Emmy for her guest role as a sexually repressed housewife on Masters of Sex, followed by two more for the offbeat sitcom Mom.

The Boston native’s movie career is nothing to sneeze at, either. She nabbed an Academy Award for her portrayal of Tonya Harding’s mother in I, Tonya (2017) and has appeared in such varied and acclaimed films as American Beauty (1999), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Help (2011), and Bad Education (2019).

Meanwhile, she’s continued to be in high demand on television, with critically acclaimed work on Palm Royale and The Diplomat.

06 of 07

J.K. Simmons (Mac MacGuff)

J.K. Simmons provided some much-needed fatherly wisdom as Juno’s dad, Mac.

“God bless Jason Reitman,” the actor told The Chicago Tribune in 2019. “He said when he read the script he basically had the movie cast. … Of course, the producers didn’t know who we were … they wanted really well-known actors to play all of these parts. Jason continued to fight for us, even going so far for [Elliot Page] and I to do a full-on, old-fashioned screen test so he could convince the powers that be that the only way to do this movie was with these actors… It also really expanded my cast-ability, if that’s a word.”

The character-actor legend was an old familiar for procedural fans thanks to his long-running role with the Law & Order franchise. He garnered even greater attention for his portrayal of white supremacist prisoner Vernon Schillinger on HBO’s Oz. And of course superhero fans will always love him for his bombastic interpretation of Daily Bugle editor-in-chief J. Jonah Jameson from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy.

But it was his intimidating performance as a merciless jazz instructor in Whiplash (2014) that pushed him to a new level. He won an Oscar for the performance, and has been one of the most reliable big-screen actors in town ever since.

He earned a second Oscar nomination for Being the Ricardos (2021), and has also appeared in films like The Accountant (2016), Justice League (2017), Palm Springs (2020), and Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 (2024).

The Michigan native has also booked a considerable amount of voice work in addition to major TV gigs on The Closer, Counterpart, and Night Sky.

Simmons married Michelle Schumacher in 1996. They have two children together.

07 of 07

Olivia Thirlby (Leah)

Olivia Thirlby rounded out the cast as Leah, Juno’s best friend. 

Thirlby was a newcomer at the time, with small roles in United 93 (2006) and David Gordon Green’s Snow Angels (2007). The New York City native went on to appear in Dredd (2012) and The Darkest Hour (2011), as well as a small part in the acclaimed drama Margaret (2011).

In addition to her portrayal of scientist Lilli Hornig in Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023), she’s found regular work on TV in the likes of Goliath, The L Word: Generation Q, Y: The Last Man, and Marvel’s Wonder Man.

The actress married Jacques Pienaar in 2014; they divorced in 2021.

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Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly

2026-04-10T21:15:33Z