Child-acting and consequences

[cindysphynx]

Nicky wrote:
> 
> > Anyway, from what I have seen Elijah Wood seems to have survived
> > being a 
> > child star without too much lasting damage? [Not that I know 
anything
> > about 
> > him] So hopefully Daniel, with his parents supervision, will also.
> > 
> 
> Elijah Wood has been extremely outspoken in regards to child-acting.
> Called it false and dangerous, or something like that. Maybe he 
regrets
> having missed out on all that normalcy. We all know that Michael
> Jackson and McCauley Kulkin *sp* had terrible childhoods, so Elijah 
had
> it pretty easy in comparison.
> 

Another child star was Danny Bonnaducci (sp?), who had a difficult 
time as a young adult and had drug problems.  When asked if being a 
child actor caused his troubles, he said something like, "Well, the 
kids doing drugs with me were sons and daughters of doctors and 
lawyers, so no."  So whether the kid has a happy experience probably 
depends a great deal on whether the parents are bent.

As a parent, though, I'm always astounded that people attempt to have 
their kids get involved in professional acting on that scale.  Now 
that I have kids, I can't imagine the disruption to our lives if one 
kid had to be taken to auditions all the time.  The child would face 
rejection regularly, and most acting and modeling jobs don't pay much 
money anyway.  Then, based on what people like Jennifer Capriati, 
Gary Coleman and McCaulley Culkin say, they had to deal with being 
the family meal ticket, with one or more parents having quit their 
jobs to act as their manager.  

If others want to, good for them.  Now that I understand the 
sacrifices involved, however, it is a non-starter.

To bring this back on-topic, however, I heard that Radcliffe received 
$300,000 for his work in PS/SS.  Given that the film has taken in 
$275,000 million so far, $300,000 sounds like peanuts to me.  Is that 
all Radcliffe is getting?

Cindy