Zachary Gordon
Actor, voice acto, and musician Zachary Adam Gordon was born on 15th February 1998, and is probably best-known for portraying Greg Heffley in the first three “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” films. Other notable projects include his roles as Jason Cohen in “Dead of Summer”, and as Tate Wilson in “Good Trouble”.
Although many feared that Zachary would fade into obscurity after his “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” fame died down, the Californian reinvented himself as a voice actor, with roles in “Genshin Impact”, “Kingdom Hearts 3”, and other videogames. More recently, he has begun to dabble in music with the release of his February 2023 single “Time Bomb”.
Zachary was born in Oak Park, California, USA of Jewish descent, and raised in Southern California by his parents Linda and Kenneth Gordon., with two older brothers and decided not to further his studies after matriculating from a local public high school.
Acting Career
Zachary’s first credited role was playing Richie in two episodes of “All of Us”. Other early TV appearances included minor roles in “How I Met Your Mother”, “Desperate Housewives”, and “24”. In 2007 alone, the actor appeared in five films – “Because I Said So”, “The Chubbchubbs Save Xmas”, “Georgia Rule”, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”, and “Sex and Death 101”. Although not all these roles were credited, he did win a prestigious Young Artist Award for his portrayal of Ethan in “Georgia Rule”.
Notable voiceover roles of Zachary’s include voicing Ricky Garcia in “Project Gilroy” and San San in “Ni Hao, Kai-Lan” and “The Mighty B!”. Zachary was also a series regular in the Nickelodeon series “Bubble Guppies”, lending his talents as the original voice of Gil. As for voice cameo roles, Zachary voiced Baby Melman in “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”, a young Tony Stark in “The Super Hero Squad Show”, and Kotaro in “Afro Samurai: Resurrection”.
In 2010, Zachary shot to fame upon being casted as Greg Heffley in “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. The family-friendly comedy films are based on Jeff Kinney’s book series of the same name; so far, the series consists of four theatrical films and two animated films.
Principal production for the first film began in September 2009 and was completed just under a month later. The film, which was directed by Thor Freudenthal, starred Zachary, Robert Capron, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, and Devon Bostick to name a few. The film, which received mixed reviews from critic, was the only one in the series to be directed by Freudenthal, and raked in $75 million at the box office, five times more than its $15 million budget.
The first film saw an eleven-year-old Greg Heffley settle into middle school while trying to become the most popular student and earn a place in the school yearbook as a class favorite. During the course of the film, Greg and his best friend Rowley have a run-in with a rowdy group of teenage boys, join the Safety Patrol at school, and compete to become the school paper’s new cartoonist.
In June 2010, 20th Century Fox announced the sequel movie: “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules”, which was released in March 2011. Zachary’s last appearance in the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” saga was in its third film, “Dog Days”, which was released in August 2012 and suffered from largely negative reviews. The fourth theatrical movie came out in 2017 and was panned by critics and audience alike, mostly because all the original cast members were replaced.
Moving onto other projects, in late 2013, Zachary was chosen to host “Skylander’s Boomcast”, a YouTube miniseries for Nintendo in which he reviewed and discussed the “Skylanders” videogame series. In the same year, he played roles in “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” and “Pete’s Christmas”.
2014 was a relatively slow year for Zachary workwise, as he did two voice roles in “The Boxcar Children” and “Yellowbird” and appeared in three episodes of “Last Man Standing” in the role of Andrew. Other film roles since then include voicing Young Ravus in “Kingslaive: Final Fantasy XV” in 2016, playing Emmett in the straight-to-video movie “American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules”, and portraying Bradley in the 2021 release “Violet”.
2023
Many of Zachary’s old fans have been wondering what the child star is up to these days. The actor regularly updates his Instagram, which boasts over 415,000 followers, with work-related posts. In June 2023, the musician released his latest single, “Don’t Wanna Waste My Time”; a couple of months after he was present at Comic-Con in Liverpool, where he met and spoke to dozens of fans.
The “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” star, who is notoriously secretive when it comes to his dating life, is believed to be currently single. Despite press intrusions, Zachary has always managed to keep his romantic partners out of the spotlight, with his last rumored relationship being in 2013 when he was linked to “Pete’s Christmas” co-star Bailee Madison. In 2012, the brown-eyed actor was also said to be dating his “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” costar Peyton List, which was possibly a PR stunt to generate interest in the movies.
In February 2023, the musician gave an enlightening interview to The Permanent Rain Press in which he discussed his debut single and upcoming projects. Of the former, Zachary shared that it had taken him two and a half years to release, saying: “I think that, as you know, I always wanted to do music and it was something that I was still getting better at and working through,”, adding: “It always takes time to find your voice and especially what you want to write about, whether that’s music or acting.”
At the time of writing “Time Bomb”, Zachary had just got out of a relationship and wanted to “deal with the pain” instead of distracting himself and pretending not to care. The Californian compared the songwriting process to actors channeling their emotions into their projects, but preferred not to give any details about his ex-girlfriend. The actor added that he’s in a much better place now compared to when he wrote the song.
