Flight of the Navigator child star is unrecognisable after ending up wanted for bank robbery after 80s fame

ALMOST 36 years after shooting to childhood fame in the 80s, life for one Flight of the Navigator star couldn’t look more different.

From turning his back on fame to getting caught up in a life of crime it’s been a very interesting three decades for this former actor.

Joe Cramer, now 48, is best remembered as David Freeman in the 1986 film which sees his character abducted by aliens and transported into the future.

He starred alongside a young Sarah Jessica Parker in the cult classic. But, while SJP went on to enjoy A-list fame thanks to Sex and the City, Joe took a very different direction.

After shooting the movie Joe longed to be a “normal kid” again but found that he didn’t quite fit in with other children his age after the huge success of Flight of the Navigator.

He told Daily Star: “I just wanted to be a normal kid again, have fun, skateboard and all that stuff.

“But once I went back to school, I didn’t quite fit in anywhere.

“I was teased because I was the ‘movie star kid’, so I fitted in where I could – and it’s easy to fit in with the misfits who smoke and drink and smoke weed, so that’s what I gravitated towards.

“I got into cocaine at a really young age – 14 or 15.”

After a stint in rehab, Joe relocated to Mexico at 20-years-old where he quit drugs for good and stayed clean for 10 years.

But at 30 he fell of the wagon. Joe said: “I was at a party and people were doing lines. I thought, ‘Maybe I can just do one or two’.

“The thing with addiction and trauma is that if we don’t address the issue, it just stays there underneath, percolating, and at some point it’s going to come out.”

In 2007 he was arrested for possession of drugs before he became hooked on heroin in 2011.

Then in 2016 he was arrested in British Columbia and charged with robbery, disguise with intent to commit an indictable offence, failing to stop for a peace officer and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.

At the time he was homeless and addicted to drugs and insisted he robbed the bank to force himself to get help.

He said: “I was in a really bad place and I knew about this therapeutic community, Guthrie House, inside the prison. It was such a relief when I got arrested.”

Last year it was reported that Disney will reboot Flight of the Navigator.