When a child actor under 10 years and 4 feet, ages and grows into moneyed adulthood, there begins a long crisis of purpose. If you’re not starring in zany comedies and big budget dramas, it can, for some, be a real chore to gather up an authentic sense of self.
What was cute one day, is acne-riddled, drug-addled the next. What’s precocious at 6 is painfully obvious at 26. Without a line reading, some people don’t know what to say. Therein lies the predicaments these avatars of adolescence face when the curtain close and the stage lights go out one last time.
Being a child actor teaches a person a great deal of practical things. Like where to stand still on little pieces of tape before a man in a chair yells at you to move already. How your dominant hand will thank you after signing your initials during an unexpected autograph barrage. No one needs your full signature – not even the IRS. Learning how to spell words like “junket” and “accolade” before any of your peers is a privilege.
So when these tikes of theatrical tribulations enter the real world, they possess an inordinate amount of solid experiences stay grounded. Even if they’ve never gone to school, they surely starred in a movie on the subject. Being a kid is one thing, but playing a kid in a movie is quite another. In real life you might repeat yourself a couple times on a rough day. For child actors, all you do is repeat yourself, rehearsing your lines again and again to get into character. They understand the motivations of all those around them.
This gives them the authority to tell the well-adjusted masses exactly how to live, especially once their career has sputtered from the silver screen into social media obscurity.
Like many a maniacal messiah before them, they sacrificed for the good of the whole. Think of what they wouldn’t have given for a normal childhood? Instead, they were learning what percentage a manager takes home after a box office bomb. Based on their current need for clicks, it was an awful lot.
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