I'm often reminded of a quote from the movie Van Wilder: "Don't take life too seriously; you'll never get out alive." Well, that goes double for child actors in Hollywood.
Below are 10+ interesting facts about famous child actors. With the lives that some of them have had to live, it's incredible that they're as normal as they are!
Most of her fans would be too young to remember Anna from her Oscar-winning performance in The Piano.
This marks the first and only Oscar nomination/win Anna has had in her career, at least so far!
"It was the scene with the penny. Bruce Willis is saying, 'I can't be your doctor anymore,' and Haley Joel Osment starts crying and slides the penny over to him."
Better luck next time, Cera!
Hopefully, he learned from that strange experience! It happens to everyone!
Susan played the lovable Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch.
The girl's bleach blonde hair became a staple of the character early on. This led to massive amounts of over-bleaching, which caused the young starlet to go bald!
This is a surprisingly common practice in horror movies, believe it or not, and it makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
Otherwise, the subject matter could end up affecting the young actors in a serious way.
“I specifically remember I was banned from the set for the entire time Scatman Crothers was being axed,” Danny said in an interview.
No doubt you'll remember four-eyed, toe-headed Jonathan from films like Jerry Maguire or Stewart Little.
He quit acting and began training in BJJ more than 14 years ago. Now, he trains and instructs.
Mara was only eight when she lost her mother to breast cancer.
"It felt very familial on that set. I was going through a hard time and I know I had hard days, but everyone on the film was so nice."
It's not for any substance-related issues, so don't get ahead of yourself.
Frankie has severe memory loss, which obviously had a huge effect on him.
“Things pop back into my mind [that] I should have remembered. I’ve gotten to do anything that I really wanted to do. But the truth is, I don’t really remember much of that.”
While it may seem incredibly nuts that this happened to her, it's actually not that surprising, considering the context of the show itself.
"We really had to sort of stay in the boundaries of a somewhat religious family and teaching lessons, and when ya know you're 16, 14, 15, 16, you get to a point when you're like oh man, I just want to do something different."
Tatum won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Addie Loggins in Paper Moon. At the time, Tatum was only 10 years old.
It was her first and only Oscar nomination/win of her career (thus far).
It got so bad that Jake had to quit acting altogether.
Let us make something very clear: People were horrible for doing that to a poor child!
He was even held for 10 months without trial in a county detention center.
Bullying can seriously hurt people's mental health, so this is really sad.
You'll most likely remember Jonathan for his work in Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom, and The Goonies.
Jonathan actually worked as a stunt choreographer for the first X-Men film! How cool is that?
Shirley worked closely with the Ford government. She was the U.S. Ambassador for Ghana, as well as Czechoslovakia.
She also worked as the Chief Protocol Officer for Gerald Ford. That is seriously amazing.
Demi has since gone on record, lamenting how much she truly regrets this time in her life.
The young actress/singer was having horrible struggles with drugs and supposedly punched the dancer for fear that she'd reveal her addictions to the tour manager.
"I mean, it was bad. On top of losing a friend, we have seven dates left, it's a big production, people are expecting to see Demi and that's not going to happen," he said.
Although they may appear to be indistinguishable from one another, the girls are actually what's known as sororal twins, meaning that they are non-identical twin sisters.
Mary-Kate is also one inch taller than Ashley. I bet you didn't know that!
"We have had ups and downs," Ashley admitted in an interview. "I don’t know if it’s because of the way we grew up—we just don’t like talking about ourselves or talking about what we’re doing.... It’s not really our approach."
Both Home Alone films have become Christmas classics, but for Macaulay, acting was no laughing matter.
His father was an incredibly unkind person who treated him terribly, which led to Culkin suing both his parents and emancipating himself.
"I even wanted to take a break for a while and eventually I was like ‘I’m done guys, hope you all made your money because there is no more coming from me,'" he said.
