Scrunchies, grunge, slip dresses, Tamagotchis, the Spice Girls, the Internet… the '90s were a time to be alive.
But looking back with fresh adult eyes, perhaps the most defining part of the decade was the sheer number of heartthrobs that graced our screens.
We take a look at what became of this group of hotties…
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Affectionately known as JTT, the cute Home Improvement star was a fixture on magazine covers and pull-out posters, and let’s be honest, the reason we tuned in to Tim the Toolman’s antics. Thomas was easily one of the biggest teen heartthrobs of the ‘90s, featuring in 179 episodes of the show and acting in films such as The Lion King and I’ll Be Home For Christmas.
But being a child star wasn’t for Taylor, and after bit parts on other TV shows, he all but quit acting. “I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old,” he told People in 2013. “I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break.”
During that break, he studied at Harvard, Columbia and St Andrew’s University in Scotland. As an adult, he’s been living in LA, working on his writing and directing but isn’t motivated by a huge desire to be in the spotlight again.
“I never took the fame too seriously. It was a great period in my life, but it doesn’t define me,” Taylor, 41, insists. “When I think back on the time, I look at it with a wink. I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers.”
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She’s All That, I Know What You Did Last Summer … leading man Prinze Jr was synonymous with the squeaky clean, nice guy of the ‘90s. In fact, he was the recipient of Nickelodeon’s Male Hottie of the Year award! And the actor admitted he didn’t mind being appreciated for his looks, saying in 2001, “I enjoy knowing that this specific group supports me and believes in me and wants good things for me.”
While his acting career petered off for a while, he played a sizeable role in hit show 24 and has worked consistently in Hollywood ever since.
Of course, we were a little devastated when he married co-star and fellow 90s babe Sarah Michelle Gellar in 2002, but with two children, Charlotte and Rocky, and over 20 years of marital bliss, who are we to begrudge their happiness?
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He stole our hearts in 1996 in the ultra-romantic Romeo + Juliet, and let’s not get started on his performance as Jack Dawson in Titanic (there was absolutely room on that door, Rose).
And luckily for his female admirers, DiCaprio hasn't left out screens since. In the mid- 90s, you’d struggle to find a teenage girl’s bedroom wall that didn’t contain a Leonardo poster front and centre, but the actor quickly proved he was more than just a pretty face.
From Gangs of New York to The Aviator, to The Wolf of Wall Street and Gatsby, the 48-year-old actor has been in too many critically acclaimed movies to list, but despite his obvious acting chops, he didn’t win an Oscar until his turn in The Revenant in 2015.
“The truth is, I honestly feel just so lucky to make movies,” DiCaprio told Variety in 2014.
Meanwhile, DiCaprio has certainly enjoyed his heartthrob status over the years – famously dating a string of models, never older than 25.
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He played a textbook high school jerk in I Know What You Did Last Summer and a manipulator in Cruel Intentions, but nevertheless, women were drawn to pouty Phillippe and his bad boy blonde looks. In his heyday, he married former co-star, Reese Witherspoon, and he would often get mistaken for another teen crush – Justin Timberlake from ‘NSync.
“There’s a great clip from Jay Leno’s Tonight Show when Reese was on and so were ‘NSync, and Justin talks about how he’s often mistaken for me,” Phillippe told The Guardian. “Then Reese says something like, ‘Well, I think Ryan’s much better looking’.”
For a while he was known mostly for being one half of a Hollywood power couple, but after he and Witherspoon divorced in 2008, he got his career going again with roles in The Lincoln Lawyer and the TV version of Shooter.
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He was only in Casper for 30 odd seconds, but boy, did that half a minute leave an impression on young women everywhere. Baby-faced Sawa played the real-life version of the friendly ghost at the end of the 1995 film, and while the role was a small one, it kick-started his career.
“I’m very fortunate [director] @BSilberling chose me cause I’d be lying if I said it didn’t start a 30 year job that I love,” Sawa tweeted for the film’s 25th anniversary.
It turns out we have his Casper co-star Christina Ricci to thank for giving us the Sawa screen time in not only that movie but the coming-of-age film Now and Then, which Ricci also recommended him for. But in a bid to shed the pretty boy rep, Sawa, now 44, took on grittier roles such as the deranged fan in Eminem’s Stan film clip, telling The Independent in 2022, “I had to smoke pot in movies and I had to be in a hip hop video. That’s what I felt like I had to do to get away from, ‘Can I keep you?’ Everyone wanted to hear, ‘Can I keep you?’ It drove me nuts.”
He managed to shake off the teen idol status in 2000 horror flick Final Destination but wasn’t in another notable project until the series Nikita in 2010. More recently, he’s been sticking to TV, with roles in Chucky and Hacks.
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Guaranteed, no young lady knew the real name of actor Sean Murray from Hocus Pocus, but they did know the handsome face of Thackery Binx. Much like Sawa’s character Casper spent the majority of the film as a cartoon ghost, the character of Thackery Binx spent most of the witch story as a black cat – only coming to life at the beginning and end, when his curse is broken.
Fans of the fleeting character will be happy to know that Murray, 45, continued working as an actor, playing Timothy McGee in NCIS since 2003.
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Never has an eyebrow ring looked so sexy. Mulvey was Heartbreak High’s resident bad boy Bogdan “Draz” Drazic from 1997 to 1999, ensuring that the country’s female population were watching the teen drama religiously.
In 2003, Mulvey was in a horrible head-on collision that left him trapped in the wreckage for over an hour, and later had to undergo multiple surgeries to repair his face and jaw fractures. But despite the changes to his face, the actor, 48, kept the film and TV roles coming, playing Mark Moran in crime series Underbelly and scoring gigs in blockbuster films Zero Dark Thirty, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and Avengers: Endgame.
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Another heartthrob hailing from the fictional Hartley High, Dimitriades’ Nick Poulos was the cool guy to Mulvey’s bad boy character.
But the hunk actually caught the nation’s attention on the big screen in sexy film The Heartbreak Kid, where he played a teenage student who falls in love with his 22-year-old teacher, played by Claudia Karvan.
After roles in Aussie shows such as The Slap and Underbelly, Dimitriades is now focusing on his music career, working the Sydney scene under his stage name, DJ Boogie Monster.
But the actor, 49, looks back fondly on his heartthrob years, saying in 2021, “I was rolling with the punches and I was very, very young and just out there, living the dream I suppose... I knew I was good at it [acting] but it's not something I ever imagined doing. It was pretty wild.”
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