The kid has no talent whatsoever, but he looks like his famous daddy and if you want daddy in a project someday, it probably doesn’t hurt to toss his kid a role in some film.
I would agree that some kids born into “the Biz” probably have learned quite a bit simply by osmosis; watching mom/dad rehearse, going on the set, seeing what works and doesn’t work - all at an early age. Some famous and very talented people have had that real-life training and have more than proven themselves as good, if not better, than some of their parents.
But having worked at a major film studio, I saw this work in ways that were not all that fair and wonderful -not only kids of famous actors. Sleep with a guy who reads scripts and watch your script make it to the top of the heap; give your demo tape to your cousin who works for the music department and suddenly you are on the soundtrack of that hit movie; have mom call her college roommate Susan, who happens to be a casting agent, and be amazed at the auditions you get to go to; get a temp job for that weird guy who suddenly becomes that hottest director in town and you too shall ride on those coattails.
But that really is part of show business - and any business for that matter. It often comes down to who you know. By nature, people like to work with people they know and trust whenever possible. The trick is to find that back door (so to speak) and learn that sometimes patience and being in the right place at the right time helps a lot. Granted, if you are truly a non-talented train wreck, you will have your one shot and crash and burn - but if you have even a modicum of talent, you were clever enough to find that door and put your foot in in long enough to at least have your shot at fame and fortune.
My advice for aspiring actors in Hollywood - go ahead and take those acting/dancing/singing lessons, but more importantly, network network network. If you don’t know anybody, go through a temp agency that specializes in temps for movie studios - take that crappy low-paying temp job and dress to kill every day and volunteer to hand deliver every scrap of mail around the building. It is not a guarantee - but at least you will know who the players are, and at least you will get some inside dirt on who really makes the decisions, and you will meet people who might someday be in the position to open that door to your familiar face.
Jumping the line happens all over. Take a look at the dust jacket of that mediocre book, and you may find that the author is a former editor or married to a current editor. And I won’t even bring up celebrities - at least there might be a business reason to publish their dreck. I don’t know if it actually works, but I’ve been to a writing conference and they have opportunities for talking to agents and publishers, and mentioning this gets you to the top of their submissions list - supposedly.
Your script may get to the top of the heap, but you’d have to sleep with an awful lot of people to get it green-lighted.
And of course the best way to get an interview for any job is to make connections with those who have the power to interview you. But that might get you rejected faster. Our friend got easy access to the manager thanks to our recommendation, but he got signed because he was talented.
It’s lucky, then, that no-one here has made the argument that nepotism ONLY exists in Hollywood. It exists all over the place; his thread just happens to be about one particular profession.
You are putting up the money for a movie and need to cast someone. Your options are a complete unknown and the child of a known actor. There is no reason not to at least give the one with connections a chance. To the extent that acting ability is an inheritable trait you increase your odds. To the extent that the public might pay to see the child of someone famous you increase your odds. Of course there is always a chance that unknow would be the next big thing. If it is your money/career/reputation on the line, which way are you going to go?
Nepotism might simply be risk reduction. I know if I can hire someone in my company that a know quantity recommends, I’m ahead of just reviewing random applicants.
:dubious: You make that comment and then go on to talk about qualities that agents and managers are looking for in child actors, which has no direct bearing on the post of mine that you were apparently responding to.
Would you mind being more specific about exactly what part of my post you thought was “bull”?
I haven’t read all of the posts, because I’m a trifle tired and lacking sleep.
But my opinion is that American famous people,who have totally no talent what so ever for acting, apart from speaking lines, get their jobs from the Amercan equivalent of the “Old boy network”
And the Brits get their jobs from having a Baritone voice.
I didn’t claim anyone did. But having someone look at your script through contacts is a far cry from having it produced due to contacts. That wasn’t claimed, but it appears getting a song on the soundtrack through contacts was.
BTW, did you know that Heywood Floyd’s daughter in 2001 was played by Stanley Kubrick’s daughter. Oh the nepotism! Oh the horror!
Sorry, I thought it was clear. Your view of what acting is like, and what a kid is likely to think is very odd. I rather doubt the kid of actors is going to be star struck. More likely he or she will consider it very boring unless they have the bug. There is nothing that kills the magic of a scene in a TV show as being on the set when it was filmed.
Second, a parent who is an actor is going to be able to tell if the kid has it or not, and that is not a function of dance or acting lessons. I’d suspect that a kid with no charisma is going to get directed to do something else.
I can certainly see a director throwing a kid standing around into a scene, but that is far from stardom.
I see no problem with a parent who thinks their kid has it setting up auditions. But while blowing lines on the set, like Dustin Hoffman in the beginning of Tootsie, is very funny in the movies, in real life it costs money, lots of money, and no professional actor is going to let a kid embarrass them both by doing it.
The other thing that really pisses me off is when people talk about stage parents. I kind of got this from your post, but I might be misinterpreting it. Maybe there were such things back in the days of Momma Rose, but no more. Kids go into auditions by themselves, and agents and casting directors know when the kid doesn’t want to do it. I have heard mothers screaming at their kids, but it is more the way you’d scream at a kid for being late to school. It is pretty rare.
I reacted to your post because it rang so false, a Hollywood version not real life.
There is one good movie about this subject - Life with Mikey, starring Michael J. Fox as a former child star who is now a not very good kids manager in New York. We loved it - no one else in the theater did - because we could identify all the real agencies they showed in the movie. It bombed no doubt in part because it showed a close to real version, not a Hollywood version.
Boy, I wouldn’t select him as the most egregious example. Not that I’m trying to argue that he’s an unappreciated genius or anything, but he seems like one of the many actors falling under the “reasonably acceptable” heading. Besides, if nepotism were really that powerful a force, why isn’t Tom’s idiot rapping son Chet Haze getting a little more traction?
If you don’t thing Richard Burton could act, well, you are welcome to your opinion. But he was nominated for seven Academy awards, (six as lead actor) although he didn’t win any. But he did win a BAFTA, a Tony and a Golden Globe so a whole lot of someones thought he could. Not bad for the son of a Welsh coal miner subject to frequent drinking binges (which Dickie certainly had also).
I trust you consider that the critics are in on this scam also. And the theater going public, since both Burton and Patrick Stewart do (did) Shakespeare.
But Hollywood isn’t about the best actors, Hollywood is also about selling tickets. If someone is a crappy actor and still sells tickets, casting that person is perfectly reasonable.
Jeff Bridges, Angelina Jolie, Charlie Sheen, Nicolas Cage. 3 Oscar winners. And all 4 are either more successful than their parent/uncle or at least as so.
In other fields. US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Al Gore and Douglas MacArthur had famous fathers in the profession and they each have outshone them to an extent that nowadays the progenitor is remembered more as the father of the later then in their own right. As is the case with Hannibal Barca of Carthage fame and his great opponent Scipio Africanus. The Duke of Wellington got his start because he was the son and younger brother of famous politicians and Robert E Lee was the son of a Revolutionary War hero.
My point is simply that nepotism is not necessarily a bad thing. Remember when its you who benefit “its connections”. When its someone else its nepotism.
I think you misunderstood my post, because I didn’t in fact offer an opinion on “what acting is like” for professionals, even for professional child actors. For ordinary kids who have no professional entertainment-industry connections, “what acting is like” is exactly the sort of thing I said: namely, drama club productions, dance club recitals, and so forth.
A parent, even a professional actor, who doesn’t want their child to get into professional child acting is probably going to recommend that they stick to ordinary kid performance venues of that sort, just as I suggested.
How much the average kid of a Hollywood actor really wants to be a star is something else that I have no idea about and didn’t offer an opinion on. I was just pointing out that if an actor’s kid happens to be starstruck with the idea of being in the movies, it might well be rather emotionally difficult for their parent(s) to tell them to stick to the ordinary kid performance venues rather than encouraging them to try to break into professional child acting.
Nepotism can be found in every profession–& even in many a decent job that happens to have good union benefits, as mentioned above. It’s just more obvious in the cases of actors, rather than the guys who pick up your garbage every week. Because you don’t know those guys but you think you know the actors.
There’s also the fact that children of actors don’t grow up thinking that acting is some impossible dream–they know it’s a job & they know what’s involved. In most cases, nepotism might give the young actor a chance–but they won’t get a career unless they can attract audiences. No, it’s not fair.
Suggestions for those offended by the Hollywood nepotism: Watch only independent films with obscure actors. Attend local theater productions.
If a parent doesn’t want a kid to do professional acting, the kid won’t do it.
I was saying that I doubt many kids of professional actors are starstruck, since they’ve probably been on sets, which make standing in line at the DMV seem tremendously exciting.
I think the real answer to the so-called nepotism issue is the distance from the studio. Acting means auditioning, auditioning means not getting a part 95% of the time, and each on of those times requires a trip to a casting director’s office. It is a lot easier if you are close to New York or LA. I’m sure there are tons of people in theater in Iowa who could act professionally in the big time, but they never have the chance to try.
There is also no reason a kid can’t both act professionally and be in ordinary performance programs. My kid did this. Unless you are in a series, very rare, you have plenty of time. A kid is likely to get better parts in school productions anyway - if they want to.
A professional parent is much better able to tell a kid the real pluses and minuses of the business than a non-professional parent. Kids of professional parents are more likely to be realistic about what they would be getting in to. Professional parents are less likely to push their kids, I’d suspect. I also doubt that anyone with the focus you need as an actor is going to get run over by a kid - who is guaranteed not to think that what dad or mom does is glamorous.
For TV, movies and commercials, anyhow, what acting is like is not at all what acting is like for your usual drama productions. Acting in one minute snippets, over and over, is very different from a play. Talent that works well on stage may not work well in front of a camera and vice versa. The projection needed is totally different.
I’d say it is more that they are close to the studio than anything else. Look at the number of actors from LA and New York who are not related to anyone - same thing.
IIRC, a lot of the crappy films MST3K did which were filmed in Wisconsin had a lot of the same last names on the credits. That’s a slightly different type of independent film.
I watched Spencer Grammer on her show Greek, and I once saw her at a press conference where nobody seemed to be aware she was Kelsey’s daughter. Her magazine articles/interviews sometimes mentioned Kelsey and some did not. I read fans who watched her for her four seasons having no clue of her pedigree or they cared as it was a younger crowd. After watching commentaries on how she was casted for Greek, no producer admitted? or stated they knew of her family tree.
On the caveat, Spencer had a costar on As The World Turns, Jennifer Landon, who was THE star of As The World Turns, and maybe folks knew here and there she was Michael’s daughter. After leaving ATWT, Jennifer struggled to find work, even with her pedigree and three Daytime Emmys to boot. She does have a role in a Jenn Aniston upcoming film, so that’s a start.
I think the question we must ask is how much does “acting ability” affect the bottom line.
Could it be that the name recognition the new actor gets from their relatives helps boost returns?
