Quote

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.

With acting, you see some of the kids are literally just off the street, untrained, and they are great. And others are off the street, untrained, and kind of horrible.

I hate the stereotype of the pitfalls of the child actor. There are so many amazing examples - Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jodie Foster, Drew Barrymore - of people who have made it through.

Not a lot of people make that transition from child actor to bigger, better roles.

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

After all these years in the business, I really feel that actors are used. People treat actors worse than they treat children. It's always, 'Do me a favor,' it's always, 'Help me out,' it's always, 'You carry the load,' and then they don't want to admit what you've done.

At times, I feel sorry for kids who have succumbed in some kind of way to being a child actor.

Acting is a hard way to make a living, and there's a kind of dark, somewhat seedy side to the whole aspect of fame and celebrity that's not really something I would want for my child - or want him to want, if that makes any sense.

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.

Most young actors, that's all they're trying to do: Get better at acting and be able to keep doing it. And that doesn't work out for most people.