Where Is Bradley Pierce Now? The Jumanji Star Who Shook Things Up

By CelebPaid Research · Updated October 7, 2026 · 8 min read

Bradley Pierce at a 2025 convention appearance. The Jumanji star now co-runs the Pierce & Luna cocktail company.Image via Wikimedia Commons

He survived the jungle, the stampede, and the monkeys. Bradley Pierce played Peter Shepherd in Jumanji (1995) — the kid who rolls the dice, tries to cheat, and gets turned into a monkey — and lent his voice to Chip the teacup in Beauty and the Beast (1991). Unlike many child stars, he never really left the industry. He just added a second one: cocktails.

For more than fifteen years, Pierce has worked as a bartender in Los Angeles, building a mixology career alongside his entertainment work. In 2017 he formalized it, co-founding the cocktail company Pierce & Luna. This is the verified story of where Bradley Pierce is now — behind the bar, not in front of the camera, and entirely by choice.

The Peak: Jumanji, Chip, and Tails (1991–1997)

Pierce began acting at six and packed a remarkable amount into a few childhood years. His signature roles: Peter Shepherd in Jumanji (1995), opposite Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst, in the film that grossed over $260 million and became a family classic; the original voice of Chip in Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) — the little teacup with the chip in his rim, one of animation's most beloved minor characters; and one of the original voices of Tails in the Sonic the Hedgehog Saturday-morning cartoon.

Around those came Pete Lender in The Borrowers (1997) with John Goodman, Andrew Shawn Donovan IV on Days of Our Lives, guest spots on Roseanne, Mad About You, Lois & Clark, Touched by an Angel, Profiler, and Star Trek: Voyager, plus Nibs in Return to Never Land (2002) and voices in Disney's Kingdom Hearts games. It was a genuine child-star résumé — and then, quietly, the on-camera work thinned out.

The Pivot: Fifteen Years Behind the Bar

Pierce's second career did not start as a fallback; it started as an interest that became a craft. For more than 15 years he has worked as a bartender in Los Angeles, developing serious mixology experience while maintaining his entertainment links. Bartending, for Pierce, was not what you do when acting fails — it was a parallel profession he built deliberately, with the same work ethic he had brought to sets as a kid.

The foundation became a business in 2017, when he co-founded Pierce & Luna with his friend and partner Bella Luna. What began, in the company's own words, as a "boozy blog garnished with a side of business savvy" grew into an official cocktail company: designing signature drinks, providing event staff, and doing bartending education and liquor reviews. Their work has covered festivals (the Hollywood Burlesque Festival, the Hollywood Fringe Festival), bars, fundraisers, and private events — including, per his bio, bartending services and consultations for elite parties.

There is a neat symmetry in it. The child actor who once served audiences now serves guests; the performer who learned timing on sets learned it again behind the bar. And unlike acting, bartending pays every night, on a schedule he controls — a working craftsman's life, which is exactly what Pierce seems to have wanted.

The Other Company: ZFO Entertainment and the Geek Circuit

Pierce never fully left entertainment — he just moved to its edges. With his friend and fellow actor Joey Zimmerman (the Halloweentown star), he started ZFO Entertainment, a production company making short films and geek-culture content, functioning partly as a press/media outlet. Their first short, "Vultures," released in 2016.

He remains a fixture of the convention and nostalgia circuit — GalaxyCon appearances, Beauty and the Beast anniversary events (including the 2016 25th-anniversary screening alongside Angela Lansbury), and active social media where he engages with fans of both his acting and his cocktails. The through-line of his adult life is community: the YMCA, where he works as a counselor and outdoor-skills instructor; cancer-research advocacy; charity work dating back to his "Kids With A Cause" youth-ambassador days and a mayoral commendation from San Diego for "Reading is Fundamental."

The Personal Side: Honesty About the Hard Parts

Pierce has been unusually candid about the parts that weren't easy. He was married to Shari Holmes from 2005 until their divorce in 2017; they have three children. In interviews he has admitted to suffering from depression — a disclosure that, coming from a former child star, carries weight precisely because the industry trains its young to smile through everything.

But the overall picture, by his own account and the evidence of two functioning businesses, is of a man who built a life on his own terms. He has said his shift illustrates something simple: acting was an important foundation, but not his only professional identity. The kid from Jumanji grew up, learned to make a perfect cocktail, and found that the second act could be better than the first — quieter, steadier, and entirely his.

Where Is Bradley Pierce Now?

As of 2026, Bradley Pierce co-runs Pierce & Luna (cocktail company, events, education), produces content via ZFO Entertainment, does convention appearances, works with the YMCA, and remains an active father of three in Los Angeles.

He survived Jumanji. The bar was easy by comparison.

The Convention Circuit: Keeping Chip Alive

There is a specific economy to being Bradley Pierce in 2026, and it runs on nostalgia served neat. The convention circuit — GalaxyCon Richmond, fan expos, anniversary panels — is where the two halves of his life meet: the actor fans remember and the bartender he became. He signs Jumanji stills and Beauty and the Beast memorabilia, poses for photos with grown adults who were children when Chip sang "Be Our Guest," and then, often, talks cocktails with the same easy fluency. It is a strange double act, and he performs it without apparent strain.

The 2016 Beauty and the Beast 25th-anniversary screening was the high-water mark of this second fame: Pierce on a stage alongside Angela Lansbury — Mrs. Potts herself, the woman who sang to his teacup — and producer Don Hahn, celebrating a film that had become part of the cultural bedrock. For a voice actor, this kind of recognition is rare; voice performers are usually invisible, their faces unknown to the audiences who love their characters. Pierce, because he was also a live-action child star, gets both: the voice credit and the face, the teacup and the boy who ran from the stampede.

What makes his convention presence work is the absence of bitterness. The circuit is full of former child stars selling autographs with visible resentment; Pierce sells his with a bartender's warmth, because he has a life outside the table. The signatures are a pleasure, not a lifeline. Fans can tell the difference — it is why his lines are friendly rather than funereal, why the photos show genuine smiles on both sides of the table.

And the social media presence completes the picture: active on Twitter and Instagram, engaging with fans of both careers, posting about cocktails and conventions with equal enthusiasm. He is not curating a comeback; he is documenting a life. The kid who once pretended to be chased by a CGI stampede now posts about amaro and ice programs, and the through-line — showmanship, craft, the pleasure of serving an audience — is unmistakable.

Then vs Now: Two Chapters

Bradley Pierce traded the jungle for the bar — and built a second career as carefully as he built the first.

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