Jonathan Lipnicki is best known as the child actor from hit films like Jerry Maguire, The Little Vampire and the Stuart Little series but now he’s a BJJ black belt as well. He’s confirmed that he started training in his early teens and has stuck with it ever since, even working around filming commitments. Despite starting out his life being known as a cute kid and surprisingly good actor at a young age, he started to seriously reinvent himself as he got older. He quickly got into physical fitness and BJJ and he started to look more like an athlete than an actor, from older social media posts it seems as though he also does, or has done Muay Thai, or some form of striking martial art as well.

This makes Jonathan Lipnicki one of the earliest examples of a celebrity embracing BJJ, even if he’s not the most well-known. It’s thanks in part to early adopters like Lipnicki, and the growing prevalence of BJJ in fight choreography, that the sport has steadily become more mainstream and has drawn bigger celebrities like Russell Brand and most recently Kate Upton which, in turn, only enhances the sport’s visibility again.

Celebrity Submission Only match with Ashton Kutcher, anyone?