Where Is Ilan Mitchell-Smith Now? From Weird Science to Medieval Literature Professor

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

Ilan Mitchell-Smith in 2017. The former Weird Science star is now an associate professor of medieval literature at Cal State Long Beach.Image via Wikimedia Commons

If you grew up in the 1980s, you know the face: the slightly anxious teenager who, with his best friend Gary, builds a dream woman out of a Barbie doll, a modem, and a government computer. That was Wyatt Donnelly, and the actor behind him was Ilan Mitchell-Smith, a 15-year-old New Yorker who became one of the most recognizable teen stars of the John Hughes era. Then, almost without anyone noticing, he vanished.

Unlike so many child stars who flame out publicly, Mitchell-Smith staged one of the quietest and most successful second acts in Hollywood history. He didn't fade into obscurity — he walked into a lecture hall. Today, the kid who once wished Kelly LeBrock into existence spends his days teaching Beowulf and Chaucer to college students in Southern California. This is the full story of how Wyatt Donnelly became Professor Ilan Mitchell-Smith.

The Peak: Wyatt Donnelly in Weird Science

Mitchell-Smith's road to stardom began before most kids get their driver's licenses. Born in New York City in 1969, he started acting as a child, appearing in the drama Daniel (1983) and The Wild Life (1984) before landing the role that would define his public image: Wyatt Donnelly in John Hughes's Weird Science (1985).

The premise was pure Hughes-era fantasy. Two socially awkward best friends — Wyatt (Mitchell-Smith) and Gary Wallace (Anthony Michael Hall) — use Gary's computer to design the perfect woman, played by Kelly LeBrock as the impossibly confident Lisa. What follows is a chaos of mutant bikers, bratty older brothers (Bill Paxton in a career-making turn as Chet), and the two boys learning to stand up for themselves. Wyatt was the sweeter, more sensitive half of the duo, and Mitchell-Smith's earnest performance made him a teen idol overnight.

His career after Weird Science looked promising on paper. He played the lead in The Chocolate War (1988) as Jerry Renault, a role that would later become a family legend — when he and his future wife Susannah were dating, he never told her about his acting past. He confessed only after discovering, to his astonishment, that her favorite movie happened to be The Chocolate War, a film he had starred in. He also took on the role of Andy McAlister in the syndicated TV series Superboy (1989–1991), appearing in 27 episodes, and his last on-screen acting credit was a 1991 episode of Silk Stalkings. But by then, Mitchell-Smith was already looking toward the exit.

Why He Walked Away From Acting

Mitchell-Smith's departure from Hollywood was deliberate, not dramatic. In a 2017 interview with ABC, he described reaching a point where he had to weigh two futures against each other: a life as a working actor, or a life pursuing what he called "this very nerdy thing that I'm into, and I've always been into — which is medieval history and stories." As he put it, "I think I'm just super nerdy — armor is really shiny — and that's what I study all the time now."

His résumé line on IMDb sums up his philosophy: "Choosing to do something I love, even if it's about knights and chivalry, is a valid choice. I'm happy doing what I'm doing." It was a remarkable pivot for someone who never even finished high school — he earned his GED instead, joking that he's "proud to be one of the alumni of the fictional John Hughesian Shermer High School."

From there, his academic climb was steep and fast: an A.B. in Medieval Studies from the University of California, Davis; an M.A. in Medieval Studies from Fordham University; and finally a doctoral degree from Texas A&M University in 2005. Before landing at Cal State Long Beach, he taught at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. He was diagnosed in 2014 with retinitis pigmentosa and is legally blind, a condition he has continued to work through in his teaching and writing career.

The Gamer Professor: Dungeons & Dragons and Tabletop Culture

What makes Mitchell-Smith's story especially fun is how completely his two "nerdy" worlds overlap. Long before academia, he was a gamer — and he never stopped. He has published on Dungeons & Dragons as a subject of scholarly and cultural interest, served as a staff writer for Talk Wargaming, and wrote a regular column called "Playing the Nerd" for Forces of Geek. He also works as a technical writer and editor for smaller independent game producers, and he has written for British tabletop wargaming magazines including Slingshot and Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy.

He remains an active tabletop gamer and an organizer of tabletop game events in Southern California. In a way, the kid who played Wyatt Donnelly — the teenager who quite literally rolled the dice on a fantasy with his best friend — grew up to study the real history of knights and then spend his weekends rolling dice with fellow enthusiasts. His scholarship on medievalism in video games closes the loop: the screen fantasy he once acted in became something he analyzes, teaches, and plays.

The Second Act: Professor of Medieval Literature

As of recent years, Mitchell-Smith is an associate professor in the English department at California State University, Long Beach, where he specializes in medieval literature and culture. He describes his teaching as covering "stories in the English language before the renaissance," roughly from the 8th century to the 16th century — works like Beowulf and Chaucer — with a particular interest in "the roles that men fill and roles that women fill and how they're presented as being either sanctioned or not sanctioned, or encouraged or not encouraged."

He is also the co-director of the university's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and sponsors the Medieval and Renaissance Student Association, helping organize campus panels and lectures on everything from "Confronting White Supremacy and Decolonizing the Middle Ages" to his personal favorite topic: monsters.

His scholarship focuses on chivalry in the later Middle Ages, but in a twist worthy of his biography, he also publishes on cinematic, television, and video-game versions of medieval culture — in other words, how the Middle Ages get imagined on screen. And then there's the other writing career: Mitchell-Smith has published on Dungeons & Dragons, served as a staff writer for Talk Wargaming, wrote a column called "Playing the Nerd" for Forces of Geek, and works as a technical writer and editor for smaller independent game producers. He remains an active tabletop gamer and organizes tabletop gaming events in Southern California.

He hasn't entirely cut ties with his acting past. In 2017, he made a cameo in a Weird Science-themed episode of The Goldbergs, delighting fans who recognized Wyatt Donnelly all grown up. He is married to Susannah Demaree, a Southern California psychotherapist he met at Santa Monica College; the couple married in 1995 and have two children.

Then vs Now: Two Lives in One Lifetime

Mitchell-Smith's story is the rarest kind of Hollywood ending: one where the star gets exactly what he wanted, just far from the cameras. He never publicly crashed, never staged a comeback tour — he simply traded scripts for manuscripts, and found a second career where being "super nerdy" is the whole point.

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