Quotes & Sayings About Child Actors

'Parenthood' has been the beneficiary of wonderful performances by child actors. — Jason Katims

I think a lot of people who are child actors - it's a weird thing. — Lorelei Linklater

So often when you meet child actors, they're weird - they're freaks. No, I mean it, they're really odd people. — Helen McCrory

As a child, I was just never that interested in the lives of my favourite actors, like Cary Grant. I do wonder whether knowing too much about someone's personal life interrupts an audience's ability to suspend disbelief, to really invest in the characters. My preference would always be that people engage with the work. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

Unlike me, a lot of child actors are very short, which is why they work. So when they're 15 they can play 11 or when they're 18 they can play 14. They look young for so long, they have abilities a much younger kid wouldn't have. — Cynthia Nixon

I used to feel compelled to respond. Once I contacted the author of a list of "Ugliest Former Child Actors" to ask her why, as a woman, she was punishing other women for the way they looked. She wrote back immediately to apologise. "I write stupid things on the internet to pay the bills," she said. "I can't afford integrity. — Mara Wilson

Most aspiring child actors or child stars have a passion for it. But as easy as it is for me to say that I wouldn't put my kids in it, if I saw that they really, really wanted to do and they had the drive, then I would fully support it. As long as there's balance at home, then they could do whatever they wanted to do. — Nick Cannon

If you ever meet an actor who's the child of actors, they'll never tell you that they wanted to be a star. But what I did realise early on was that I just wanted to be in that tribe. — Jack Davenport

It is unfortunate that the poor judgment shown by a small group of young actors has tarnished the reputation of every child who has ever appeared before a camera. — Fred Savage

I had great parents, and they trained me well and instilled great values in me. They also taught me common sense about money and that I couldn't count on the good fortune of doing a show forever. Therefore, I never spent money I didn't have and didn't end up destitute like other child actors. — Ken Osmond

When I was a child actor, I had the fear that I was going to be cast as the tree. — Vin Diesel

I enjoyed meeting Emma [Watson]. I have a soft spot in my heart for child actors growing up. I know how hard that is. Having gone through that experience myself, I have a lot of sensitivity to it. For lack of a better word, I just feel like I love these kids, and I want them all to grow up and love themselves, and not get caught up in the wrong things, and to learn all the different things this profession has to give, and to understand it. — Ethan Hawke

A lot of comic actors derive their main force from childish behavior. Most great comics are doing such silly things; you'd say, 'That's what a child would do.' — Gene Wilder

Child actors going on to become adult actors never really works, apart from a few. Jodie Foster was the exception. — Mark Lester

Most actors are small, anyway - at least compared to me. — Lee Child

Some kids are fine, but often I don't like what I see in child actors. My kids are young and they are already showing an interest, so I have to try to discourage them, squash that in them. — John Leguizamo

Most child actors, once they hit 18, once they hit 21, that's it. Even teenage kids often don't make the transition. — Cynthia Nixon

I didn't realise my upbringing was unusual until my teens. As the child of two actors, I presumed that visiting film sets and being surrounded by colourful characters was normal. — Emilia Fox

My parents are actors as well, so I grew up around that world. It was always a very romantic, mythical world. They did a lot of theater, so to me an actor was getting to come backstage and dressing room mirrors with bulbs around them and trying on people's costumes. It was very exciting to me as a child. — Phoebe Fox

I never dreamed that shooting a film would be so hard. There was less regulation then of child actors' hours. Even the concept of acting confused me. — Tatum O'Neal

The interesting thing with child actors is that kids are natural actors. They're wonderful actors, and most kids are acting all the time. They're imagining they're out in the yard playing. They're imagining that things happened, and they can get very vivid. — Clint Eastwood

When child actors act well they're just reacting to situations, and they're acting very real because their life experience is so short; there's no history to fall back on. — Mariel Hemingway

I had a hard time at school because I worked, so I was quite often out of school, which meant that I didn't make many friends. It can happen to child actors, because you're not in the school environment. And I did miss that school environment and being around people. — Yasmin Paige

A lot of the time with child actors, you get the feeling they're trying to have a kind of poise or presentation that's beyond their years that might be put on, but also might be because they've spent years just hanging out with adults and they don't even have a sense of what it's like to grow up with kids their own age. — Alessandro Nivola

If any child of mine becomes an actor I will turn in my grave. — Clark Gable

I have had the occasion to meet child actors from the '60s and '70s at various functions, and everyone's gone on to various different lives - they're real-estate agents or surfers. — Mike Lookinland

It's like, to me, acting is like a child walking in the park, the better the actor, the greater the playground he has. — Logan Lerman

A lot of child actors keep acting for the wrong reasons. — Nicholas Hoult

Just as actors are afraid of child audiences because they're so honest, I would be scared stiff of going before the big folks. — Bob Keeshan

It's very hard to find a good child actor. There are a lot of child actors out there, especially in America, and they're cute kids, but most child actors appear on sitcoms where their main role is to be cute and make funny little remarks. — George R R Martin

I felt a gravitational pull to the material so that there's a certain element of acting that's not really necessary. I've really liked this in foreign movies before or I've observed others working with them and I've noticed that there's a method that goes on where the actors try and get the children, like the child actor, to interact with them in a real way. It seems like you're the adult trying to get the kid to fall in love with him. — Brendan Fraser

I've never fancied that footballer lifestyle. I suppose I could live that kind of flash life. People stereotype child actors and kind of expect you to go off the rails a bit, be a bit crazy, but that's not really happened yet. I've got a big family so that helps, and they live really close to the studios so it's just so much easier. — Rupert Grint

Child actors come off as work being their life and doing it 24/7, but I still have those days where it's totally, like, whatever: shopping, movies, adventures. — Hailee Steinfeld

You should be able to tell your child, "This is an actor. And she's older than Mommy!" — Rosie O'Donnell

I suppose actors crave attention of some kind or they have suffered some form of arrested development and are still living in a sort of child's fantasy existence at some level in their psyche. — Hugh Laurie

I don't know if child actors are necessarily more screwed up than most people. — Rider Strong

In the case of two actors connecting with each other and trusting each other, our bodies have memories without us having to consciously think about it, so rather than think, "Oh, I must think about my daughter dying," you just let that go and trust that you have all the emotions you need in there, and by losing yourself in the scene, that stuff kicks in without having to spend the day thinking about horrific things happening to your own child. — Michael Sheen

I'm sure it's not great fun for them, or for any parent, when their child says they want to be an actor, 'cos it's quite an uncertain business and it can be terribly hard for most actors. — Ewan McGregor

As a child, I always remember our home, which was a flat just on the Barnes side of Hammersmith Bridge in London, buzzing with actors such as Patrick McGee and Peter Bowles. We were a family who were always on the go. — Samantha Bond

Acting is a child's prerogative. Children are born to act. Usually, people grow up and out of it. Actors always seem to me to be people who never quite did grow out of it. — Joanne Woodward

The child has a primary need to be regarded and respected as the person he really is at any given time, and as the center - the central actor - in his own activity. — Alice Miller

There was not an industry for child actors. I never really made any money. It was all about fun for me. — Michiel Huisman

In the movies, the child actors were doing real homework to make the scene more realistic. — Mariah Caitlyn

I know you hear horror stories about child actors, but I think in my family when I did start acting it was never a big deal. — Ashley Johnson

I had to take a moment to wonder who else fell into this category of default enemy. I went through a mental list of people who, in theory, I'd want to hit in the face with a meat tenderizer. My coworker from ten years ago who owes me like three grand? It was ten years ago! You were addicted to OxyContin! Go! Be free! My seventh-grade teacher, who told me that most child actors don't succeed as adult actors? You just wanted to scare me into having a backup plan! Farewell! Good luck! Tori from fourth grade, who accused me of writing mean stuff about all our friends on the playground wall? BURN IN HELL, TORI. I KNOW IT WAS YOU!!! I'm still working on it. — Anna Kendrick

Considering all the legal hassle child stars can be, I won't be surprised when they are phased out by CGI children voiced by adult actors. — Mara Wilson

I could have gone the route of a lot of these former child actors, but I didn't want that for myself. Like I said, when I was 14 years old, I decided to quit. I didn't ever want to do it again. — Macaulay Culkin

People often say that you should never work with child actors. I think that's all wrong. Children have not had the imagination kicked out of them by life experience and adulthood. So, they still are very much alive with that kind of magical thinking which enables an actor to believe they're in these circumstances and make them real to you. — Nicolas Cage

A lot of times what happens is, not even just with child actors, but people in general, is they get so caught up in the now. The hot song, the hot TV show, the hot movie. You're not saying 'OK, this is cool, but where am I trying to be 20 years from now?' That's always been in the forefront of my mind. — Malcolm-Jamal Warner

The smaller and younger kids are, the more patient you have to be. But if they're gifted, then it's a wonderful present that you're given by having a child like that in your film ... more so than in the case of actors because, for example, if you ask them to play a lion, they don't then play a lion, they actually are a lion. So, a gifted child is something very special. On the other hand, if a child has no gifts in that way it's absolutely hopeless and there's nothing you can do! — Michael Haneke

Most child actors go through that. Unless you can transition into an adult star, your career is over. — Morgan Brittany

A film director is not a creator, but a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him. — Jean Renoir

As a child, I always liked dressing up and getting into character, and actors are lucky in being able to retain that playfulness, though we do seem to find it hard to grow up. — Felicity Jones

I got into radio when I was eight, and I was one of the busiest child dramatic actors in America. — Mel Torme

There's a constant flow of child actors. It's kind of funny to watch the new crew come through. I think, You poor little things. You're going to have to struggle for a long time. — Tina Yothers

I'd see child actors and I'd get so jealous, because they're just completely wide open. — Joaquin Phoenix

I don't perform well in private. Socially, I mean. And I didn't as a child. Actors aren't necessarily outgoing, are they? — Lindsay Duncan

I went on to host a kids' program from when I was around 10 until 15. In some ways I'm a child actor. — Michiel Huisman

In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children. — Abbas Kiarostami

For me, it's just acting. It's pretending. The best actors are children, and children don't do research. You never see a child going, 'I'm wondering about my motivation here. How can I do this toy? How can I do this train? I don't feel train.' — Brian Cox

Like a heartbeat. Something inside me. Some dream. I think it's being a dreamer as a child. Dreamy kids become actors, don't they? — Michael Gambon

I've always been quite mature because of the way my parents brought me up. They were very good at talking to me like a person rather than a baby, and I was around so many actors and directors from such a young age because my dad is an actor. I was more comfortable with adults rather than actually being an adult child. — Saoirse Ronan

And I was a Child again, watching the bright World. But the Spell broke when at this Juncture some Gallants jumped from the Pitt onto the Stage and behaved as so many Merry-Andrews among the Actors, which reduced all to Confusion. I laugh'd with them also, for I like to make Merry among the Fallen and there is pleasure to be had in the Observation of the Deformity of Things. Thus when the Play resumed after the Disturbance, it was only to excite my Ridicule with its painted Fictions, wicked Hypocrisies and villainous Customs, all depicted with a little pert Jingle of Words and a rambling kind of Mirth to make the Insipidnesse and Sterility pass. There was no pleasure in seeing it, and nothing to burden the Memory after: like a voluntarie before a Lesson it was absolutely forgotten, nothing to be remembered or repeated. — Peter Ackroyd

Most child actors were lucky enough to get the part in the first place. — Danny Bonaduce

I credit my mom Debbie for creating a solid family base, ... She gave me a strong sense of reality so I could avoid falling into the normal pitfalls of child actors. — Elijah Wood

I always say that comedians and actors were all kind of shy when they were young. I was very, believe it or not, kind of embarrassed as a child. But my mother was a very strong lady and she was the one that kept it going when I thought it would be over for me as a performer. She was always my inspiration and she was a big influence on me. — Don Rickles

I think that most actors, and they're a very strange lot actors, very strange people, but I think that they attempt to keep in touch with the child. — Ben Kingsley

If I can make a career for myself after Potter, and it goes well, and is varied and with longevity, then that puts to bed the 'child actors argument'. — Daniel Radcliffe

I think it's important that when people are struggling, that you not run away from them if you love them. Kristen, I mean, I look at the room tonight, you know, Kristen Stewart and Claire Danes, Jennifer Lawrence, all these young women that I worked with who basically were child actors like I was a child actor. And then I feel very protective of them, because even though I think I have managed to get through the process relatively sanely, I have my scars, and I hope to be in some ways a member of their family that's out there protecting them. — Jodie Foster

Child actors don't have great track records. — Leslie Mann

All the history of the stage is a struggle, the gasping of a beautiful child born at the point of death. The moralists, censorship and oppression, technology, and now poverty have all tried to destroy her. Only we, the actors and audiences, have kept her alive. — Gene Wolfe