What Happened To The 1994 Cast Of Miracle On 34th Street?

There are those who say that some films are perfect and simply cannot be remade, and then there are those who work for Hollywood studios and say, "Hold my beer." One might reasonably have thought that the 1947 holiday classic "Miracle on 34th Street" would've fallen into the category of untouchable films, but here's the thing: when John Hughes — yes, the man behind "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," and "Pretty in Pink" — decided that he wanted to take a shot at remaking it, 20th Century Fox decided, okay, sure, why not let him give it a shot? And he did, with an eye toward updating only as much as necessary to make the story match the current times.

"Someone can say, 'I'm going to take you to see this movie that I loved as a young boy or a young woman, and this one speaks to you, that one speaks to me, but they're both saying the same thing,'" Hughes said in an interview to promote the film. "That's rather complicated, but that's what I was trying to do. We went into this knowing that we were remaking a classic, retelling this great story."

Yes, it was a Herculean task, and while the critics were never going to say that it was better than the original, they didn't rip it to shreds, either. And over the years, it's continued to be streamed and replayed during the holiday season. Many of the cast members on the 1994 remake of "Miracle on 34th Street" have continued to pop up in projects in the intervening years, but in case you haven't kept up with all of them, here's what the cast is doing today.

It takes more than white hair and a beard to make a man into Santa Claus; it also takes a perfect blend of jolliness, mischievousness, and kindness. Thankfully, Richard Attenborough delivers all three aspects of the character perfectly in his performance as Kris Kringle in "Miracle on 34th Street." "[Richard] was so fun, and he really did feel like Santa Claus to me," Mara Wilson told EW in 2018.

Attenborough made his film debut during World War II, starting with a few uncredited roles before playing Tommy Draper in 1944's "The Hundred Pound Window," but he'd already begun his career as a thespian in the theater a few years prior. It was on camera, however, where he made his greatest mark, and he worked constantly within the British film industry throughout the next few decades. Arguably his first worldwide success came via the 1963 war film "The Great Escape," in which he co-starred with Steve McQueen and James Garner. This led to a number of other high-profile films, including "The Flight of the Phoenix" with Jimmy Stewart and a re-teaming with McQueen for "The Sand Pebbles." In addition to a prolific acting career, Attenborough was also an accomplished director, helming such films as "A Bridge Too Far," "Gandhi," "Cry Freedom," and "Chaplin," but today's audiences likely know him best for playing industrialist John Hammond in "Jurassic Park."

After "Miracle on 34^th Street," Attenborough directed a few more films ("In Love and War," "Grey Owl," and "Closing the Ring") and appeared in a few more as well, including Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" and 1999's "Elizabeth." He died on August 24, 2014, at age 90.

In the original "Miracle on 34th Street," Maureen O'Hara lights up the screen as department store special events director Doris Walker, so it's perhaps not coincidental that Elizabeth Perkins, who takes on the role (now renamed Dorey Walker) in the remake, is arguably lit better in this film than in anything else that she's ever done. She's positively glowing throughout, from when she first hires Kris Kringle to play Santa at the store all the way through to the film's inevitable happy ending. 

"You never take on an endeavor like this without understanding that there's going to be a comparison made," Perkins told ET during filming. "But I think the story still holds true today. I think there's a lot of what was said in the film back then that really does pertain to today's society in terms of belief and optimism and hope for the future and a lot of other things that people are still interested in hearing."

Perkins — who first found fame with films like "About Last Night" and "Big" — has continued to work regularly over the years, including films with Melanie Griffith ("Crazy in Alabama") and Sandra Bullock ("28 Days"), and even voiced Aunt May in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse." In recent years, however, she's spent much more time on TV, including a series-regular role on the first five seasons of "Weeds" (but not the finale). She's also done an arc on "This is Us" and starred in the Fox series "The Moodys" and the Apple TV+ series "Truth Be Told." She also stars alongside Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried in the feature film "The Housemaid."

Dylan McDermott turned on the charm full blast to play Bryan Bedford, Dorey's neighbor, who successfully helps defend Kris Kringle in court and wins Dorey's heart in the process. At the time, McDermott was still in the process of finding his identity in Hollywood, and given his good looks, it was easy enough for him to get cast as a romantic lead, but it really was his charm that served him best in this role.

Costar Mara Wilson described Wilson to PEOPLE Magazine as "one of the funniest men I've ever met," and in a 2018 interview with EW, she recalled how much fun it was to film the Thanksgiving dinner scene. "Dylan was always making ridiculous jokes, and in one of them he was teasing me about how I always wanted to go to lunch," said Wilson. "He said, 'Let me tell you a story about a little girl who was always asking what time it was because she wanted to go to lunch.'"

Since "Miracle on 34th Street," McDermott has maintained a career that any actor would envy, splitting his time with the big and small screens. Among his notable films have been ""Home for the Holidays," "Three to Tango" with Matthew Perry and Neve Campbell, "Party Monster" with Macauley Culkin, "Wonderland" with Val Kilmer, "The Campaign" with Will Ferrell, and "King Richard" with Will Smith. He's also regularly been a staple of the prime-time line-up, including long runs on such series as "The Practice" (1997-2004) and "FBI: Most Wanted" (2022-2025), not to mention high-profile runs on "American Horror Story" (he's appeared in five incarnations of the series to date) and "Law & Order: Organized Crime." 

There's little question that the role of Kris Kringle is an important one to "Miracle on 34th Street," but it's arguable that the role that's just as key to the story is that of Susan Walker, the little girl who doesn't believe in the existence of everyone's favorite jolly old elf. Thankfully, the filmmakers found just the right young actor in Mara Wilson, who was just coming off the success of the Robin Williams crossdressing comedy "Mrs. Doubtfire." "When [my mom] said it's about a little girl who doesn't believe in Santa Claus, I said, 'Oh, is she Jewish, like us?'" Wilson recalled to PEOPLE Magazine in 2024. "And my mom said something like, 'I'll look into that...'"

Wilson was only five when she first got a hankering to be an actor, thanks to her older brother Danny having appeared in some TV commercials. She was cast in "Mrs. Doubtfire" the following year, after which came a recurring role on "Melrose Place," the TV movie "A Time to Heal," and, of course, "Miracle on 34^th Street." From there, Wilson scored the titular role in 1996's "Matilda," which she followed with "A Simple Wish," the 1999 TV movie "Balloon Farm," and 2000's "Thomas and the Magic Railroad."

And what came after that? Retirement, believe it or not. "I realized, 'I don't fit their idea of what a Hollywood actress looks like, so there's no room for me here,' " Wilson wrote in her memoir, "Where Am I Now? True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame" (via Yahoo!). "It's hard to come out of that sane and without some serious doubts about yourself." She has since become well-known for her writing, and she has also ventured out of acting retirement on occasion, mostly notably for an episode of "Broad City."

By the time he played attorney Ed Collins in "Miracle on 34th Street," J.T. Walsh had already cemented himself as one of Hollywood's definitive "that guy" actors, having carved himself a very specific niche as a guy you love to hate. As such, he was the perfect person to play someone trying to put Santa Claus into a mental institution. Walsh didn't even make his film debut until 1983, playing a bar patron in the John Schneider/Kirk Douglas film "Eddie Macon's Run," but thanks to his role as Sgt. Maj. Philip Dickerson in 1987's "Good Morning Vietnam," he was one of Hollywood's favorite go-to a-holes. Other key roles from the years leading up to "Miracle on 34^th Street" include Alderman Marty Swayzak in "Backdraft," Lt. Col. Matthew Andrew Markinson in "A Few Good Men," and Danford "Buster" Keeton III in the adaptation of Stephen King's "Needful Things."

As the '90s progressed, Walsh continued to rack up high-profile jobs, including playing John Erlichman in Oliver Stone's "Nixon" and Senator Jason Mavros in "Executive Decision," not to mention playing Frank Bach in the short-lived but fondly remembered sci-fi TV series "Dark Skies." Sadly, on February 27, 1998, Walsh died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 54. In death, however, he received one of the greatest honors an actor can receive from another actor: when Jack Nicholson won the Best Actor Oscar for "As Good As It Gets," he dedicated the award to Walsh, among several other deceased friends.

As Victor Lunberg's right-hand man, James Remar delivers a particularly despicable performance in "Miracle on 34^th Street," but it's not an outlier in Remar's filmography. He got his start in the 1978 prison drama "On the Yard," was one of the titular gang members in "The Warriors," played cop killer Albert Ganz in "48 Hours," and followed that by portraying gangster Dutch Schultz in "The Cotton Club." Indeed, Remar has repeatedly proven that he has a gift for playing shady types ... to the point where, in the 1993 Carl Reiner film "Fatal Instinct," he literally played a character named Max Shady.

Since "Miracle on 34th Street," Remar has been in everything from superhero movies ("X-Men: First Class") to westerns ("Wild Bill") to action ("2 Fast 2 Furious") to the occasional stoner comedy ("Pineapple Express"), and that's not even bringing his TV work into consideration. He's done episodes of "Walker, Texas Ranger," "Battlestar Galactica," and "CSI: Miami," was a series regular on "Black Lightning," and perhaps most famously, he played Dexter Morgan's adopted father on "Dexter." In addition to reprising that role in 2025's "Dexter: Resurrection," he can also be seen playing General Francis Shaw in "It: Welcome to Derry."

"All of my scenes were with Michael [C. Hall], and to go back into the ring, so to speak, with my acting buddy is a very, very formidable and special kind of reunion," Remar told Telltale TV. "It was like no time had passed, but both of us had a lot of time in between our last episodes and this new one, and it was still fresh and new and very, very loving. [It was] really, really, really wonderful to be reunited with my TV son."

As Judge Henry Harper, Robert Prosky delivers a poignant performance as a judge who is torn between what he feels and what he knows the law to be, struggling to find an interpretation of the law that will allow Kris Kringle to continue his role as Santa Claus and keep him out of a mental institution. Prosky was almost 50 when he made his (uncredited) film debut in the 1978 William Friedkin film "The Brinks Job," but he made up for lost time throughout the '80s and '90s, appearing in such films as "Thief," "Christine," "The Natural," "Broadcast News," "The Great Outdoors," "Gremlins 2: The New Batch," "Last Action Hero," "Rudy," and "Mrs. Doubtfire," which, as movie fans may recall, was his first film with Mara Wilson. 

After "Miracle on 34^th Street," he appeared in "The Scarlet Letter" with Demi Moore, "Dead Man Walking" with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, "Mad City" with Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta, and — lest we forget — "Dudley Do-Right" with Brendan Fraser and Sarah Jessica Parker. In addition, he played Kirstie Alley's father on the sitcom "Veronica's Closet," which was only appropriate, as he'd also played Alley's father on an episode of "Cheers." But Prosky's true love was the theater, and over the course of his career, Prosky either won or was nominated for two Tony awards, two Helen Hayes awards, an Emmy, and a Drama Desk award.

Prosky died on December 8, 2008, at the age of 77, and he acted until the very end: his final theater role was Solomon in "The Price," which was produced that same year.

As Jack Duff's somewhat slimy cohort Alberta Leonard, Jane Leeves doesn't get a huge amount of screen time, but between the scene where Jack and Alberta try to sway Kris Kringle to breach his contract with Cole's and come over to the dark side (i.e., Shopper's Express), and their subsequent attempt to put him out of a job, it's plenty enough to make an impression. In a 1996 interview for The Official Frasier Companion, Leeves summed up the experience of working on "Miracle on 34th Street" with three simple words: "Fun but grueling."

Perhaps one of the reasons that the production proved so grueling was that it was filmed in the spring of 1994, which means that Leeves would've been coming immediately off finishing the first season of "Frasier," where she played Frasier and Martin Crane's housekeeper (and Niles Crane's' eventual wife) Daphne Moon. 

Leeves remained a stalwart of "Frasier" throughout its 11-season run, after which she bounced between projects for a while before landing on another sitcom that provided her with long-term employment: "Hot in Cleveland," in which she co-starred with Betty White, Valerie Bertinelli, and Wendie Malick from 2010 to 2015. In 2018, she shifted from comedy to drama, co-starring in the Fox medical drama "The Resident" as Dr. Kitt Voss. Since that series wrapped in 2023, Leeves has been absent from the screen, but after that many long-running series, she's probably earned a bit of a break.

Jack McGee is a character actor's character actor, having appeared in 225 different projects as of this writing, acting alongside everyone from Bill Murray to Vanilla Ice, and being directed by such luminaries as Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, and the Coen brothers. In "Miracle on 34th Street," he plays Tony Falacchi, better known to moviegoers as the drunk Santa who gets fired and is ultimately replaced by Kris Kringle. "My claim to fame on that one was that I took Richard Attenborough to a strip club," McGee recalled to AV Club in 2012. "He played the good Santa Claus, I played the bad. He didn't know it was a strip joint. I only made him walk in the door, and then we got out of there, 'cause I don't like those joints, either! But that was the highlight of that."

Given his ability to pop up for a single scene and make an impression before departing by the start of the next scene, McGee has managed to pull in a plethora of gigs since "Miracle on 34th Street," but by far the most high-profile has been his work on FX's "Rescue Me," where he played Chief Jerry Reilly for the show's first four seasons. It was his departure, however, that made headlines, with McGee loudly expressing his dissatisfaction with his character's exit and grousing about how series star/co-creator Denis Leary never even talked to him about it. "He's a bully, is what he is," McGee told Television Without Pity in 2007. "Bullies most of the time don't have the guts to do things themselves."

In recent years, McGee has slowed down his workload, but he most recently appeared in the 2024 film "Road to Terzetto."

London-born actor Joss Ackland had many credits to his name by the time he appeared as Victor Lundberg, the owner of Shopper's Express who attempts a hostile takeover of Cole's department store, but for reasons that have seemingly never been revealed, he isn't actually credited in "Miracle on 34^th Street." With that said, it also wasn't the only time in Ackland's career that he opted to go uncredited in a film: he went the same route in 1979's "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" as well as in the 1998 Billy Crystal film "My Giant."

"I do an awful lot of crap, but if it's not immoral, I don't mind," Ackland admitted to the BBC in 2001. "I'm a workaholic." And his filmography bears out this claim: whether as an actor or a narrator, Ackland did 23 more films after "Miracle on 34^th Street," not to mention a handful of TV episodes and TV movies, including HBO's "Citizen X," an ITV adaptation of "Othello," and the CBC miniseries "Above and Beyond," in which he played Winston Churchill.

Ackland died on November 19, 2023, at the age of 95, but even when he was 92, he was still performing: during the COVID-19 pandemic, he participated in the #ReadALetter campaign. "There's no doubt that this disease will cause much suffering and devastation," he said, reading from his letter. "I do believe that disadvantage can always turn into advantage. Over the years in times of trouble, I have seen adversity breathe strength, connection and humour in this country. I have seen it over and over again. And I hope you, the young, will look back on this decade and be able to say it too."