Meet 14-Year-Old Momona Tamada, Who Plays Young Lara Jean in 'To All the Boys' (2024)

Raise your hand if you're still emotional after watching the newest To All the Boys I've Ever Loved Before movie, To All the Boys: Always and Forever! We feel you! Lana Condor and Noah Centineo's performances as Lara Jean Covey and Peter Kavinsky snatched our hearts yet again, and their high school love story is truly one that... hits different.

One part of the movie though (spoiler warning!) that was just so precious and darling was the flashback scene where viewers got to encounter the first time Lara Jean and Peter met in the sixth grade. She had gotten her hair stuck in her seat before receiving an award during a ceremony and he had helped her get it out. The moment was adorable! And the younger version of the characters were the cutest. If you're wondering who played the young Lara Jean in that scene, we've got the deets!

Who is the young Lara Jean actor in 'To All the Boys I've Loved Before'?

The brief peek that we got to see of Lara Jean and Peter as kids in middle school was absolutely everything because it was the first time they ever had any type of interaction. The characters have known each other for years and years, but only got to know one another once they entered high school.

Young actress Momona Tamada is the person who plays Lara Jean in that beautiful clip and in the other flashback scene in To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You. Yup, she's low-key been a consistent part of the movie, if you didn't notice already!

Being a part of the cast was meaningful to her because she "loved the first movie" and it was one of her favorites, she revealed to ELLE. But working with Lana was the icing on the cake. "I looked up to Lana Condor a lot, even before I auditioned for the role. Meeting her was super inspiring to me,” Momona said.

Momona is no stranger to Netflix.

It's shocking to think that Momona is only 14 years old and she is already so accomplished in her field. But when it comes to Netflix, she's already kind of a veteran within the streaming service and its network. She has been in the last two To All the Boys films as young Lara Jean, but she also plays Claudia Kishi in another Netflix original series called The Baby-Sitters Club.

Playing the role of Claudia really meant a lot to her. She told ELLE what it was like playing The Baby-Sitters Club character: “She is a huge inspiration to me because she broke a lot of stereotypes with Asian characters. A lot of people are probably not good at school and they felt like they didn’t fit in because they didn’t fit that certain stereotype. Claudia breaking that was something a lot of people loved because they heard and saw themselves in her story."

Even though working in those two productions is already enough to show how talented she is, she also has other works under her belt. She has starred in other movies and shows like The Main Event, Gabby Duran & The Unsittables, The Terror, and The Boys. Imagine what her résumé is going to look like five years from now?! Yeah, it's going to be stacked.

Momona Tamada was 11 years old when she started her career.

Before acting, she was a dancer and was pursuing that. “I got into the industry two years ago, when I was 11, by auditioning for an agency. I started by going to dance auditions, but then they started sending me to acting auditions, too," she continued, "In dance, you express yourself through your movement. Acting is very different, but it came natural to me because I’ve always been into expressing my emotions in different ways—that’s why I fell in love with acting right away," she told ELLE.

As for the rest of her life in acting, she's hoping for a Season 2 of The Baby-Sitters Club and to expand her skillset. "It's hard to tell the future, especially in this industry, because there's so much stuff going on. But I'm so excited to, hopefully, continue my career in acting because I love it so much. And I'm always up for a challenge, so I'd love to like venture out in different genres of acting. Something I haven't done before would be lots of fun,” she added in her ELLE interview.