Happy 31st Birthday, Sammi Hanratty: From Disney Child Star to Yellowjackets’ Unforgettable Misty
For some viewers, Sammi Hanratty will always be the mischievous young girl who kept appearing across Disney-era television.
For others, she is Kassidi from Shameless—intense, chaotic and almost impossible to predict.
And for a newer generation of television fans, Hanratty is inseparable from one character in particular:
Teenage Misty Quigley.
Born on September 20, 1995, Samantha “Sammi” Hanratty turns 31 on September 20, 2026, marking another birthday in a career that has already stretched across more than two decades.
She began acting as a child, appearing in commercials and family television before accumulating roles across comedy, fantasy, horror, drama and psychological thrillers. By adulthood, she had successfully navigated one of Hollywood's most difficult transitions: moving from recognizable child performer to an actor capable of disappearing into genuinely unsettling adult material.
And the timing of her 31st birthday is particularly fitting.
Hanratty is preparing to return once again as teenage Misty in the fourth and final season of Yellowjackets, scheduled to premiere on November 20, 2026. Paramount's official materials confirm that she remains part of the returning ensemble for the show's final chapter.
It gives this birthday a feeling of both celebration and transition.
One defining television role is approaching its conclusion.
But Hanratty's career has already demonstrated that reinvention is something she knows how to do.
Sammi Hanratty Was Born on September 20, 1995
Samantha Lynne Hanratty was born on September 20, 1995, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
She entered the entertainment business extremely young.
By the time many children are still deciding what they want to be when they grow up, Hanratty was already appearing before cameras.
In a later interview, she explained that her fascination with acting came partly from watching performers such as Shirley Temple and Judy Garland and realizing how strongly actors could make audiences feel emotion.
That attraction to emotional transformation makes her later career particularly interesting.
Her earliest roles frequently leaned toward energetic, comedic or family-friendly characters.
Her later ones increasingly explored instability, obsession, horror and psychological darkness.
Few roles demonstrate that evolution better than Misty Quigley.
Before Disney, There Was the Pringles Commercial
Long before Yellowjackets, Hanratty had already experienced what it felt like to be recognized.
Teen Vogue recalled that she became particularly visible as a child after appearing in a widely aired Pringles commercial around 2004.
Hanratty told the magazine that she could see the commercial while watching Survivor, one of her favorite shows as a child.
That detail became unexpectedly appropriate years later.
A child who loved Survivor would eventually star in a television phenomenon centered on teenagers attempting to survive after a plane crash in a remote wilderness.
Reality television it was not.
But the coincidence is difficult to resist.
The Disney Years Helped Make Sammi Hanratty Familiar
Hanratty became a recurring presence on children's and family television during the 2000s.
One of her most recognizable early television roles was Holly on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
She appeared in six episodes across the show's second and third seasons. IMDb lists the recurring role among her early major television credits.
Holly was not simply a sweet background child.
She could be mischievous and manipulative, fitting neatly into Hanratty's early knack for playing young characters with strong personalities.
Looking back in 2022, Hanratty jokingly described this phase of her career to Teen Vogue as playing the “bratty Disney kid.”
It is an amusing description because traces of that same fearlessness can be found in several characters she would play much later.
They simply became considerably darker.
Imrul
A Small Correction About The Santa Clause 3
Hanratty also appeared in the 2006 Disney film The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause alongside Tim Allen.
Her credited role, however, was Elf #1, not a character named Amber.
The film's cast listing credits Samantha Hanratty—using Sammi Hanratty professionally—as Elf #1.
It was a small role, but one that placed her inside another highly visible family-entertainment franchise at an early stage of her career.
That period also included appearances across a striking number of recognizable television programs.
She Was Young Chuck in Pushing Daisies
One of Hanratty's most memorable early dramatic roles came in Pushing Daisies.
She played the younger version of Charlotte “Chuck” Charles, the character portrayed as an adult by Anna Friel.
Hanratty appeared repeatedly as Young Chuck during the show's run, adding another stylistically distinctive project to a résumé that was already expanding beyond straightforward children's television.
Pushing Daisies mixed:
- fantasy;
- romance;
- comedy;
- death;
- elaborate visual storytelling.
That combination made it very different from a conventional Disney sitcom.
It also hinted at the genre flexibility that would become one of Hanratty's most valuable strengths.
Chrissa Stands Strong Gave Her an Important Leading Role
In 2009, Hanratty starred as Chrissa Maxwell in An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong.
The American Film Institute describes the film as the story of a fourth-grade girl and her friends confronting bullying from a more popular classmate.
The role was significant because it placed Hanratty at the emotional center of the story rather than using her primarily as a recurring supporting performer.
Chrissa experiences exclusion and bullying before learning the importance of speaking openly about what is happening.
For younger audiences, the film approached a subject that can be genuinely painful:
what happens when social cruelty becomes part of everyday school life?
Hanratty's performance required vulnerability rather than simply comic energy.
It remains one of the defining projects from the child-actor phase of her career.
Growing Up on Screen Is Harder Than It Looks
Child performers face a challenge that adult actors never experience in quite the same way.
Audiences watch them physically grow up.
A performer may become associated with one particular age, image or genre long after they have personally moved beyond it.
The transition becomes especially difficult when a child actor has built a recognizable identity within family entertainment.
Casting directors may continue seeing the child.
Viewers may continue expecting innocence.
Hanratty gradually broke out of that limitation by accepting increasingly varied roles.
Rather than trying to erase her early work, she expanded around it.
That eventually allowed her to move from Disney comedy to supernatural horror, crime drama and some of the strangest psychological territory on modern television.
Imrul
Salem Introduced a Much Darker Sammi Hanratty
From 2014 to 2015, Hanratty appeared as Dollie Trask on the supernatural drama Salem.
The series reimagined the historical Salem witch-trial setting through a much darker fantasy-horror mythology.
Hanratty's Dollie appeared across the first two seasons, with cast listings crediting her in 12 episodes.
It represented a clear move away from her earlier family roles.
Salem involved:
- witchcraft;
- violence;
- religious paranoia;
- supernatural horror;
- morally compromised characters.
Hanratty was no longer simply growing up on screen.
She was beginning to establish herself as a performer comfortable in darker genre material.
That experience would later feel almost like preparation for Yellowjackets.
She Also Appeared in How to Get Away With Murder
Hanratty continued building adult television credits through guest appearances.
Among them was How to Get Away with Murder, where she played Zoe Mitchell.
She also accumulated appearances on series including:
- Mad Men;
- Rizzoli & Isles;
- 2 Broke Girls;
- Perception;
- Stalker;
- NCIS.
Her filmography demonstrates something important about the years between child stardom and Yellowjackets.
There was no single overnight reinvention.
Instead, she kept working.
Role after role gradually expanded the kind of character audiences could imagine her playing.
The Vampire Diaries Added Another Supernatural Role
In 2017, Hanratty joined The Vampire Diaries as Violet Fell.
She appeared across three episodes.
By that point, supernatural and horror-adjacent material had become a recurring strand in her career.
The genres suited her ability to move quickly between apparent innocence and something more unsettling.
But shortly afterward came a character who introduced Hanratty to another large television audience.
Shameless Gave Her One of Her Wildest Roles
Hanratty joined Shameless as Kassidi, appearing across seven episodes during 2017 and 2018.
Kassidi enters Carl Gallagher's life with enormous intensity.
Their relationship quickly becomes obsessive, impulsive and deeply dysfunctional.
She eventually becomes known as Kassidi Gallagher after marrying Carl.
For viewers who remembered Hanratty primarily from children's television, the role could be startling.
Kassidi was:
- possessive;
- unpredictable;
- emotionally extreme;
- darkly funny.
Hanratty committed fully to the instability.
It became another important step toward the kind of character work that would define her next major breakthrough.
Then Came Yellowjackets
In 2021, Yellowjackets premiered.
The premise was immediately compelling.
A high-school girls' soccer team survives a plane crash in the remote wilderness.
The story unfolds across two timelines:
the teenagers attempting to survive after the crash and the adult survivors nearly 25 years later, still carrying the psychological consequences of what happened.
Paramount describes the series as part survival epic, part psychological horror story and part coming-of-age drama.
Within that ensemble, Hanratty plays teenage Misty Quigley.
Christina Ricci plays adult Misty.
And together they created one of the show's strangest, funniest and most disturbing characters.
Who Is Misty Quigley?
Before the crash, Misty is an outsider.
She is the Yellowjackets' equipment manager rather than one of the star players.
She desperately wants to belong.
Then disaster changes her social position.
In the wilderness, Misty's first-aid knowledge suddenly makes her useful.
People need her.
For someone whose greatest emotional hunger is to feel necessary, that discovery becomes dangerously intoxicating.
Paramount's 2026 description of the character calls Misty a school misfit whose usefulness dramatically increases after the crash because of her first-aid skills and intense desire to please.
That need to be valued explains much of what makes her frightening.
Misty does not necessarily seek chaos for chaos's sake.
She wants connection.
She wants purpose.
And she can make horrifying decisions in pursuit of those things.
Misty Is Funny and Terrifying at the Same Time
Many television characters are either comic relief or threatening.
Misty is often both simultaneously.
She can appear:
- enthusiastic;
- awkward;
- cheerful;
- helpful.
Then she makes a decision that reminds the audience how dangerous she can be.
Hanratty understood early that simply playing Misty as a villain would make the character less interesting.
In her Teen Vogue interview, she highlighted the qualities she found genuinely endearing in Misty—particularly her enthusiasm, fearlessness and excitement about belonging—even while acknowledging that the character repeatedly crosses serious boundaries.
That complexity is essential.
Misty does disturbing things.
But she rarely believes she is merely being monstrous.
Teen Misty and Adult Misty Feel Like the Same Person
One of Yellowjackets' central acting challenges is unusual.
Different actors frequently portray the same characters at different ages.
That means the younger and older performers need enough continuity for audiences to believe decades separate them rather than entirely different personalities.
Hanratty and Christina Ricci created an especially convincing pairing.
They share:
- specific expressions;
- emotional intensity;
- awkward enthusiasm;
- sudden shifts in tone;
- a distinctive physical presence.
But Hanratty does not simply perform an impression of Ricci.
Teen Misty is still forming the person adult Misty will become.
That creates room for difference.
Imrul
Hanratty Had to Build Misty From Both Directions
When Yellowjackets began, the younger and older versions of the characters were part of the same narrative architecture.
Hanratty could therefore observe Ricci's performance while developing the teenage version.
The challenge was not:
“How do I imitate Christina Ricci?”
It was closer to:
“What experiences could turn this teenager into the woman Christina is playing?”
That distinction produces a richer performance.
Teen Misty still possesses a kind of excited innocence.
Adult Misty has decades of experience hiding, manipulating and surviving.
The audience can nevertheless recognize the emotional bridge between them.
Some of Misty’s Most Memorable Moments Were Improvised
Hanratty also contributed details beyond the page.
Teen Vogue reported that some memorable Misty moments emerged through improvisation.
One example occurs when Misty quickly puts her hand on Shauna's pregnant stomach and is immediately rebuffed.
Another involved Misty's enthusiastic volunteering when Coach Ben asks who wants to cut open a deer.
Hanratty explained the logic behind those moments as deeply consistent with Misty's personality: she is constantly searching for opportunities to be useful and insert herself into important situations.
That understanding is one reason the character feels coherent even when she behaves unpredictably.
Imrul
Yellowjackets Became Hanratty’s First Major Series-Starring Role
Although Hanratty had worked steadily for years, Yellowjackets represented something different.
Teen Vogue described Misty as Hanratty's first starring television role.
That makes the part particularly significant within her career.
She had already survived the child-actor transition.
She had already proven she could work in adult material.
But Yellowjackets gave her a long-form character with:
- psychological depth;
- major plot importance;
- an established adult counterpart;
- an intensely engaged fanbase.
Misty became a character audiences could study rather than simply encounter.
The Physical Transformation Was Significant Too
Teen Misty's appearance is immediately recognizable.
The curly blonde hair.
The glasses.
The soccer-team gear.
The deliberately unfashionable wardrobe.
The look helps communicate the character's social position before she says much.
Hanratty has discussed how profoundly wearing the complete Misty appearance affected her experience on set.
She told Teen Vogue that hair, makeup and wardrobe could make her feel physically and psychologically unlike herself, and she eventually developed a routine around personally removing the character's appearance at the end of work.
It is a revealing reminder that transformation can affect an actor beyond what audiences see on screen.
Yellowjackets Season 4 Will Be the Final Season
Hanratty's 31st birthday arrives shortly before a major moment in her career.
Paramount announced that Yellowjackets Season 4 will be its final season, premiering on Friday, November 20, 2026 on Paramount+.
Official Season 4 promotional materials confirm Hanratty's return as teenage Misty.
Early-release images also place her alongside the younger ensemble, indicating that the wilderness timeline will remain central as the series moves toward its conclusion.
For Hanratty, that means saying goodbye to a character who changed the scale of her career.
The Final Season Could Be Especially Important for Teen Misty
The central wilderness story has always been moving toward one event:
the survivors eventually returning to civilization.
That means the final season has the opportunity to answer one of the show's most fascinating questions.
How does teenage Misty—the outsider who finally became valuable in the wilderness—respond when the group approaches a world where her old social position may return?
The wilderness gave Misty purpose.
Civilization may threaten to take it away.
That conflict could help explain even more about the adult Misty audiences already know.
Without spoiling where the series ultimately goes, the final season gives Hanratty one last opportunity to close the psychological distance between those two versions of the character.
Her Career Is a Strong Example of Surviving Child Stardom
Hollywood history is filled with actors who became famous young and struggled to create an adult career.
The reasons are complicated.
Some simply choose other lives.
Others become trapped by audience expectations.
Hanratty's trajectory is notable because it never relied on pretending the childhood years did not happen.
She moved gradually through them.
Disney sitcoms.
Family movies.
Fantasy television.
Horror.
Prestige drama.
Dark comedy.
Psychological thriller.
The genres changed as she did.
That continuity helped make the transition feel natural.
She Has Built a Career Around Characters Who Are Hard to Ignore
Look across some of Hanratty's best-known roles and a pattern appears.
Holly.
Kassidi.
Dollie.
Misty.
They are not interchangeable characters.
But many possess strong emotional energy.
They enter a scene and change its temperature.
Teen Vogue observed that Hanratty had developed a tendency toward chaotic characters long before Yellowjackets.
Misty may be the ultimate expression of that talent.
She can make a scene funny without telling a joke.
She can make it uncomfortable without raising her voice.
And the audience is never entirely sure which version of Misty is about to appear.
Her Film and Television Résumé Is Larger Than Many Viewers Realize
Because Yellowjackets has become so prominent, it is easy to assume Hanratty disappeared between her Disney years and Misty.
She did not.
Her credits include projects such as:
- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody;
- Pushing Daisies;
- An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong;
- Salem;
- Mad Men;
- How to Get Away with Murder;
- The Vampire Diaries;
- Shameless;
- Daybreak;
- Grand Hotel;
- Brilliant Minds;
- Atlas;
- Yellowjackets.
IMDb lists more than 60 acting credits across her career.
That breadth helps explain why Misty feels like the culmination of years of experience rather than a sudden discovery.
She Has Already Spent Most of Her Life Acting
Hanratty turns 31 in 2026.
Her professional career began when she was still a child.
That means she has already spent most of her life working in an industry known for instability.
There is something remarkable about that longevity.
Audiences who encountered her as children may now be adults watching her portray a teenage character inside a disturbing prestige drama.
Meanwhile, younger Yellowjackets fans may have no idea that Misty once appeared in the same performer who spent part of her childhood career on Disney Channel.
It is almost like two different careers connected by one face.
Happy 31st Birthday, Sammi Hanratty
September 20, 2026, offers a fitting moment to look back.
At 31, Sammi Hanratty is no longer simply an example of a former child actor who continued working.
She has developed a distinct adult screen identity.
She can be:
funny without becoming harmless;
disturbing without becoming one-dimensional;
vulnerable without making a character passive;
and strange without losing the human motivation beneath the behavior.
That combination is exactly why Misty Quigley works.
And it is why Hanratty's career after Yellowjackets will be worth watching.
The Bottom Line
Sammi Hanratty turns 31 on September 20, 2026.
Born in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1995, she began acting as a child and spent the next two decades steadily broadening the kinds of roles she could play.
Her early career included Holly on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, where she appeared in six episodes.
She also appeared in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause—credited as Elf #1—and later took the leading role of Chrissa Maxwell in An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong.
As she grew older, her work shifted dramatically.
She played Dollie Trask in Salem, Violet Fell in The Vampire Diaries and the intensely unpredictable Kassidi in Shameless.
Then came Yellowjackets.
As teenage Misty Quigley, Hanratty found a role capable of using nearly everything her previous career had developed:
comic timing;
emotional vulnerability;
genre instincts;
fearlessness;
and an ability to make unsettling characters strangely compelling.
Christina Ricci's adult Misty may show viewers where the character eventually ends up.
Hanratty shows us how she gets there.
Now, as Sammi celebrates her 31st birthday, that story is approaching its conclusion.
Paramount has confirmed that Yellowjackets will return for its fourth and final season on November 20, 2026, with Samantha Hanratty once again part of the ensemble.
It makes this birthday more than an anniversary.
It arrives at the end of one major chapter and, potentially, the beginning of another.
From Disney Channel hotel rooms to the frozen wilderness of Yellowjackets, Sammi Hanratty has spent more than two decades proving that growing up on screen does not have to mean being trapped by the characters audiences first knew.
Happy 31st birthday, Sammi Hanratty.
And after Misty finally leaves the wilderness, it will be fascinating to see where her career goes next.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is Sammi Hanratty's birthday?
Sammi Hanratty was born on September 20, 1995.
How old is Sammi Hanratty in 2026?
She turns 31 years old on September 20, 2026.
What is Sammi Hanratty's full name?
Her full name is Samantha Lynne Hanratty.
Where was Sammi Hanratty born?
She was born in Scottsdale, Arizona, United States.
Who does Sammi Hanratty play in Yellowjackets?
She plays teenage Misty Quigley. Christina Ricci portrays the adult version of Misty.
Is Sammi Hanratty returning for Yellowjackets Season 4?
Yes. Paramount's official Season 4 materials list Samantha Hanratty among the returning cast.
Is Yellowjackets Season 4 the final season?
Yes. Paramount has announced that the fourth season will be the show's final season.
When does Yellowjackets Season 4 premiere?
The final season is scheduled to premiere on November 20, 2026.
Who plays adult Misty Quigley?
Christina Ricci plays the adult Misty, while Sammi Hanratty plays her teenage counterpart.
Was Sammi Hanratty on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody?
Yes. She played Holly in a recurring role and appeared in six episodes.
Was Sammi Hanratty in The Santa Clause 3?
Yes. She appeared in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause and was credited as Elf #1.
Did Sammi Hanratty play Amber in The Santa Clause 3?
No. Her credited role was Elf #1, not Amber.
Who did Sammi Hanratty play in An American Girl?
She played Chrissa Maxwell in the 2009 film An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong.
What is Chrissa Stands Strong about?
The film follows a fourth-grade girl confronting bullying at school and learning to speak up about what is happening.
Was Sammi Hanratty in Pushing Daisies?
Yes. She played Young Charlotte “Chuck” Charles in a recurring role.
Who did Sammi Hanratty play in Salem?
She played Dollie Trask, appearing across the first two seasons.
Was Sammi Hanratty in The Vampire Diaries?
Yes. She appeared as Violet Fell in three episodes in 2017.
Who is Kassidi in Shameless?
Kassidi is Carl Gallagher's intensely possessive girlfriend and eventual wife. Sammi Hanratty played the character across seven episodes.
Why is Misty Quigley such an unusual character?
Misty combines social awkwardness, enthusiasm, intelligence, a desperate need to feel useful and a capacity for disturbing behavior. Those contradictions allow her to shift between comedy and menace extremely quickly.
Did Sammi Hanratty improvise scenes in Yellowjackets?
Yes. Hanratty has discussed several unscripted Misty moments, including enthusiastically volunteering to butcher a deer and touching Shauna's pregnant stomach.
Was Misty Hanratty's first starring television role?
Teen Vogue described teenage Misty in Yellowjackets as Hanratty's first starring television role.
Did Sammi Hanratty act as a child?
Yes. She began working professionally as a young child and appeared in commercials and television long before her adult roles.
Was Sammi Hanratty in a Pringles commercial?
Yes. Teen Vogue reported that a widely aired Pringles commercial made her recognizable when she was still a child.
What other TV shows has Sammi Hanratty appeared in?
Her credits include Mad Men, How to Get Away with Murder, Rizzoli & Isles, 2 Broke Girls, NCIS, Daybreak, Grand Hotel and Brilliant Minds, among many others.
Was Sammi Hanratty in Atlas?
Yes. IMDb lists her in the 2024 science-fiction film Atlas as a communications officer.
Why was Yellowjackets important for Sammi Hanratty's career?
The series gave her a sustained leading character with significant psychological complexity and placed her within one of television's most prominent ensemble thrillers after years of recurring and guest roles.
What makes Sammi Hanratty and Christina Ricci convincing as Misty?
Their performances share recognizable mannerisms and emotional rhythms without becoming simple impersonations. Hanratty portrays the younger Misty while Ricci shows how decades of experience shape the same underlying personality.
What genre is Yellowjackets?
Paramount describes Yellowjackets as a combination of survival epic, psychological horror and coming-of-age drama.
How long has Sammi Hanratty been acting?
Her career began during childhood in the mid-2000s, meaning she has worked professionally for more than two decades by her 31st birthday.
What is Sammi Hanratty best known for today?
Her most prominent current role is teenage Misty Quigley in Yellowjackets.
Why is Sammi Hanratty's 31st birthday notable?
Her September 20, 2026 birthday comes just two months before Yellowjackets begins its fourth and final season, closing the most prominent television chapter of her adult career so far.
What is the biggest takeaway from Sammi Hanratty's career?
Her career shows an unusually successful transition from childhood entertainment into challenging adult roles.
She did not escape her early identity by abandoning it.
She simply kept expanding.
Holly in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
Chrissa Maxwell.
Dollie Trask.
Kassidi.
And finally, Misty Quigley.
The roles became stranger, darker and more psychologically demanding as Hanratty grew up.
At 31, she has already spent most of her life in front of cameras.
Yet with Yellowjackets approaching its final season, the most interesting part of her career may be what comes after the role that made an entirely new audience notice her.
