Dylan Sprouse has taken an unexpected professional turn since his Disney Channel days with twin brother Cole, revealing that he “faked being 21” as he began building the business in 2018.
Like many former child actors, Sprouse eventually pursued something far removed from the spotlight after spending his early teens on screen. But unlike a lot of his peers, he did not leave entertainment behind altogether. In the years after The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and its spin-off Suite Life on Deck, Sprouse split his time between acting, entrepreneurship and a long-running interest in craft brewing.
He was only 12 when The Suite Life of Zack and Cody debuted on Disney Channel in March 2005, with Cole starring beside him.
The brothers remained central to the franchise through the later spin-off, Suite Life on Deck, which launched in 2008.
Years after those sitcom successes, Sprouse moved into the drinks industry by launching his own brewery, All-Wise Meadery.
Discussing that career shift with the Hollywood Reporter in 2018, Sprouse explained how the interest first began while he was still young.
“I was a pretty piss poor student in high school. I had ADHD and brewing was a way for me to pace myself. I picked mead because a lot of home-brewing books I read said that if you wanted to try something easy, start with mead.
“Obviously my first batches were terrible. But we were 16, 17, so all of us drank the shit out of it anyway.”
Even though he was below the legal drinking age during those early experiments, Sprouse said that did not stop him from getting involved in home-brewing circles.
“I went to some home-brewing meetups, faking that I was 21. I don’t even know how I got away with that because I don’t even look 21 now.
“When I could finally go to the store and buy it legally, I just hated what was being sold.”
Sprouse’s meadery became one of the more surprising post-Disney career pivots, but it also fit a broader pattern in his adult life: he has often gravitated toward independent projects and business ventures outside the usual child-star path. All-Wise Meadery was established in Brooklyn and became a key part of that identity, with Sprouse presenting himself not just as a celebrity backer but as someone genuinely interested in the craft.
Alongside his business work, Sprouse has continued acting, and his recent filmography shows that he has not disappeared from the screen at all. In 2023 and 2024, he appeared in the Beautiful Disaster romance franchise, returning opposite Virginia Gardner in Beautiful Wedding. He also took on a more action-heavy lane with Aftermath in 2024, a sign that he has been broadening his range beyond the teen-comedy image that made him famous.
That shift has continued into 2025, with Sprouse appearing in the action comedy Under Fire. For a performer who first became famous as a sitcom kid, the move into indie thrillers and genre films is a very different trajectory from what fans might have expected at the height of his Disney Channel fame.
Sprouse has said the two worlds are not as different as they may seem.
“Brewers are entertainers whether they like it or not, because they are creating an experience for people. Oftentimes the alcohol is the entertainment at any party you go to,” he noted.
For those unfamiliar with it, mead is one of the oldest fermented alcoholic drinks and is often linked with Norse mythology as well as fantasy worlds such as The Lord of the Rings.
Speaking with Vanity Fair, he added:
“I think that if you are an actor, or you are an entertainer, and you don’t invest money in something that is more stable than the commission job that is acting, then you are a fool.”
In recent years, Sprouse has also become more comfortable talking about the realities of growing up in the business, the pressures of child stardom and the importance of building a life beyond one defining role. That perspective has helped make his career feel unusually grounded: instead of chasing another Disney-style spotlight, he has built a portfolio that includes acting, brewing and other business interests.
So while Dylan Sprouse’s post-Suite Life career may not look anything like a traditional child-star comeback, it has arguably made him more interesting. He has gone from one of Disney Channel’s most recognizable faces to a multi-hyphenate who seems just as comfortable in a brewery as he does on a film set.