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.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Acting for kids is like playing house, you know? But growing up in Hollywood, it just made it seem possible.
Some people manage to make that transition from child actor to adult actor seamlessly. But I felt that if I spent my whole life on a film set without taking a few years to do something else, all I would ever know about was film sets.
I didn't think I'd ever be able to do movies. That was for serious actors.
Making movies was more a reaction to not being chosen for sports. Other kids were out there playing at whatever; I was off making something blow up and filming it, or making a mould of my sister's head using alginating plaster.
That's one of the things about theater vs. film - with theater, actors have a little more control, and one of the disappointing things about films is that once you're done shooting, anything can happen, you know?
When I emerged from drama school, I had no expectation that I would ever work in film.
I grew up in an acting family. I was heavily discouraged from doing it myself when I was young, which is the only responsible route to take with any child, because it's not necessarily the easiest of lives.
When my friends and I would act out movies as kids, we'd play the guys' roles, since they had the most interesting things to do. Decades later, I can hardly believe my sons and daughter are seeing many of the same limited choices in current films.
Making films is no longer a way of acting, it is a way of life.
It's harder to take care of kids than it is to make a movie.