Shia LaBeouf may be a Hollywood movie star now, after appearing in two Transformers blockbusters, an Indiana Jones four-quel and headlining the Rear Window-inspired thriller Disturbia, but dude got his start over on the Disney Channel on the kiddie comedy Even Stevens. 

Of course, not every former child actor gets to claim Steven Spielberg as his personal lord and saviour -- Spielberg directed or executive-produced all four of Shia's major movies, including Disturbia which comes to Showcase this Saturday at 10pm ET/PT -- but they don't all end up like the Diff'rent Strokes kids, either (i.e. dead, on drugs or parodied by Broadway puppets and self-parodied in the mockumentary Midgets vs Mascots).

So here's a look at how a few former child actors made the transition. Or, y'know, didn't.

Neil Patrick Harris:
Nobody could have predicted that the boy formerly known as Doogie would one day become popular enough to be known by his initials. But NPH has proven to be an impeccable career navigator. After his teen doctor show was axed, Harris went back to his home state of New Mexico to climb mountains for a few years. He returned via the Broadway stage where he showed off his chops as both actor and song-and-dance man. Then he defused the child actor jokes with a, wait for it, legendary Harold and Kumar cameo. From there he became the breakout star of How I Met Your Mother, playing TV's greatest lothario since Sam Malone while casually coming out of the closet in real life, and became a much-raised host of this year's Tony and Emmy awards. Oh, and he won eternal geek love with his turn as the title character in the Emmy-winning, Joss Whedon-directed online supervillain musical Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog. 

Anna Paquin:
Winning an Oscar at age 11, the second-youngest ever, sets expectations pretty freaking high. But the Winnipeg-born actress largely left the limelight except for a few small roles before playing Rogue in the smash X-Men trilogy (the first two of which, at least, totally ruled). After these summer blockbusters, some might have questioned her decision to take a TV role. But the show was HBO's True Blood which quickly ran with the vampire zeitgeist and in season two became a full on pop-cultural obsession. Though to be honest, Paquin and her co-star/fiancé Stephen Moyer are the show's least interesting actors. Still, nobody's talking about her childhood Academy Award anymore.  

Lindsay Lohan:
The onetime Disney princess once starred in actual movies (Freaky Friday, Parent Trap) rather than being groomed like Shia on the Mouse House's cable network. She won massive critical acclaim as a child actress and seemed poised for greatness thanks to roles in the Tina Fey-scripted classic Mean Girls. But it's been all downhill from there, a string of critical pans, commercial bombs, terrible pop songs and tabloid tales of arrests, rehab, lesbian relationships, and, just this week, Lohan announced she fears her father may kidnap her and a judge extended her DUI probation. But on the bright side, this year she did launch her own brand of self-tanner.

Jodie Sweetin:
On the opposite of end of the Shia spectrum lies the former middle child on Full House. While the Olson Twins went onto become blasé billionaires and older sis Candance Cameron married NHL vet Valeri Bure, the former Stephanie Tanner became a meth addict. She later attempted a TV comeback as a host of the best-named reality series of all time Pants-Off Dance-Off. Just in case we didn't feel sorry enough for her, she just released a tell-all memoir dubbed UnSweetined which reveals she continued doing drugs even while giving anti-drug speeches at colleges. How rude, indeed.