Before he landed a gig on NBC's upcoming Heroes Reborn, Robbie Kay was a child actor. But he didn't take the usual Nickelodeon route. Instead, the now-19-year-old budding star stretched himself in roles ranging from network-TV fairy tales to heavy dramas.

Kay was just an 11-year-old cutie when he played a key role in the 2007 Canadian drama Fugitive Pieces. Kay played the young version of a the main character, Jakob Beer, who was orphaned during World War II. Among his seasoned co-stars: future Game of Thrones actor Stephen Dillane.

Child actors often get big breaks shooting family or holiday films. For Kay, that break was the 2008 British-Italian mini-series Pinocchio.

At 16, most kids are thinking about drivers' licenses and college entrance exams. Kay was busy co-starring as the Cabin Boy alongside Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Depp isn't the only high-level actor in Kay's group of colleagues; Fugitive Pieces co-starred Rosamund Pike, the actress who later scored an Oscar nomination for Gone Girl. In winning the Fugitive Pieces role, Kay beat out 150 other boy hopefuls.

Critics love Kay, too. Entertainment writers have marveled over his "heartbreaking way of looking utterly lost" and "intensity of purpose."

Kay finally got some mainstream American attention during the third season of ABC's Once Upon A Time, playing a jaded Peter Pan who no longer believes in pixie dust.

Speculation is already rampant that Kay will re-team with Johnny Depp for the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, due out in 2017.

NBC's new Heroes Reborn will include Kay in the cast ... but his role, as of now, remains a mystery.