Kindergarten Cop child star Christian Cousins dies at 43 after illness - The Independent

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Christian Cousins, who shared the role of Dominic alongside his twin brother Joseph in the 1990 comedy Kindergarten Cop, has died aged 43.

The former child actor’s death was announced by his brother Jonas Roeser in an Instagram post last month, in which he revealed that Cousins had been seriously ill with liver disease before his passing.

He captioned a carousel of images of Christian: “It’s hard to share that my brother, Christian Cousins, has passed away.”

Roeser explained that he didn’t meet Christian and his twin brother Joseph ‘Joey’ Cousins until his college years.

He said: “(They) are my brothers through my biological father. They grew up in California while I was in Washington.

“Before that, I grew up watching them on television in Knots Landing and the lead role of Dominic in Kindergarten Cop with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“But those roles are only a small part of how I’ll remember Christian. He was a character, full of passion and energy, with big stories and even bigger dreams.”

Describing how Christian “had been very sick” before his passing, Roeser continued: “It brings me comfort to believe he is now in heaven with his mother, free from the pain he was carrying.

“Rest easy, Christian. I hope your soul is at rest and that you've found peace. You are my brother and you will be missed.”

Christian and Joey were born in 1983 in Orange County, California, and landed their first acting role in the fantasy drama series Highway to Heaven at the age of five.

The pair later went on to appear in almost 60 episodes of the soap opera Knots Landing as Bobby Gibson Ewing between 1987 and 1992.

The siblings also played the role of Dominic in Kindergarten Cop, which starred Schwarzenegger as an LAPD detective posing as a kindergarten teacher.

Their final acting role came in the 1995 movie Twin Sitters.

Although they stepped away from acting, the twins later reunited with the Terminator legend and the cast of Kindergarten Cop in 2020 – where Christian explained how he and his brother ended up sharing the part of Dominic.

He recalled: “On the first interview with my brother, they knew that there was going to be a lot of limitations because of how many kids were involved in the movie.

“And because of child labor rights and whatnot, you can only work so many hours and we were a younger crowd, so to get filming done in anything less than eons for the screen time that was required for the Dominic character, they were likely going to need twins.”