If Jackie Earle Haley had to pinpoint the moment he knew his career was in trouble, he would zero in on shortly after the release of a 1983 sex comedy he starred in with an unknown actor named Tom Cruise. "Sometime after Losin' It, I realized things had slowed down," Haley says. "Tom Cruise and I did the same movie, and it had the opposite effect on our careers. I went into my 20s doing movies, but the stuff I was doing was just kind of…" he pauses, searching for the right word before saying, "lame."
By now, most people know that Haley's story has the happiest of Hollywood endings—despite plot twists that took him out of the scene for years. He went from child star to struggling actor to leaving his dream behind, moving to Texas and starting a new life. But the business wasn't done with him: In 2006 Haley emerged from obscurity, landing two roles in high-profile films. First up was All the King's Men, in which he played Sugar Boy, the stoic bodyguard to Sean Penn's Southern governor. That was followed by his revelatory turn as convicted sex offender Ronald McGorvey in Little Children, a sympathetic but unblinking performance that has already earned him best-supporting-actor citations from critics' groups in Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, New York, Florida, and San Francisco. It's likely Haley will receive an Oscar nomination for his work in the film, capping off a roller-coaster experience that, not unlike his first foray into acting, seemed to come from nowhere.
Haley began his career at age 5, doing voiceovers as Dennis the Menace in a series of cartoons and Dairy Queen commercials. Haley's father, Haven Earle Haley, belonged to a golf group called the Hollywood Hackers, and one of its members, who owned a recording facility, was having a difficult time casting the role. Haley remembers sending in an audio tape and thinking little about it, until one day his sister ran into the backyard screaming, "You got the part!" Today, Haley can recall being excited but unsure what it all meant. "It was just kind of cool and interesting," he notes.
Commercials and TV roles followed, but his biggest break came in 1976 when he solidified himself in the American consciousness with his role in the original The Bad News Bears as Kelly Leak, the supercool bad boy who effortlessly exuded charisma and stole Tatum O'Neal's heart. He followed this star-making turn by reprising the role in two sequels and turning in a sweet, understated performance in 1979's Breaking Away as Moocher, a small-town Indiana boy fresh out of high school. The two '70s films showcased the actor's impressive range: Where Kelly was confident and assured, Moocher was awkward and uneasy in his own skin. It seemed evident Haley's talent was just beginning to be uncovered. He had just turned 18.
Then, as almost always happens with young performers looking to make the transition from child star to adult actor, the jobs dried up. "The parts were getting lame, and the movies were getting lame, and my ability to make a living doing it was getting lame," Haley says. "For a while I could kind of survive at it, but then it started not paying the whole bill. It reached a point where I needed to make a decision. I had to either a) start over as an actor and figure out how to survive while doing that or b) let it go and move in another direction." Haley chose the latter, an experience he describes as "cathartic." He was almost 30. "Most people have this revelation around 21 or 22, but because of the whole child acting thing it took me longer," he explains. "When you have feelings ingrained in you at 14 that you're going to do something for a living and it slows down and starts to drift away, it takes awhile to realize it."
While struggling to break into the world of corporate-video directing, Haley took on a series of odd jobs—driving limousines, delivering pizzas, working as a security guard—things most actors have probably done at one time or another, though probably not after starring in hit movies. After making headway as a video director, Haley also became involved in infomercial production; he remembers doing one for a knockoff of the Titanic necklace he calls "wonderfully cheesy." He moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1998 and was able to open his own business, making commercials, a job he says he enjoyed because it felt like making minimovies. "It went really well," he says. "I fell in love with San Antonio, fell in love with a great gal, and was doing well."
If his acting career had ended there, he still would have been one of the lucky ones. With so many "child stars" ending up in rehab, tabloids, or—worse—reality shows, Haley managed to start a new life for himself in which his identity wasn't tied to his fame. But there was another chapter yet to be written. While honeymooning in France, he received word from his editor that a movie company was looking for him. "He started naming all these people in the movie—Sean Penn, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins—and I was like, 'Oh, my God!'" Haley recalls.
The movie was All the King's Men, a remake of the 1949 Oscar-winning picture, adapted and directed by Steven Zaillian, the screenwriter of Schindler's List. When Haley returned home, he read four pages of sides—a scene that was eventually cut from the movie—and made an audition tape. The next day Zaillian called and invited him out to Los Angeles. "One of the first things I asked him was, 'What made you think of me?' " Haley recalls. "He said, 'I remembered your parts, I remember liking you. So I wrote your name down.' " Zaillian added that when he called Penn the next day to ask who should play the role of Sugar Boy, Penn immediately responded, "How about Jackie Earle Haley?"
"It just seemed like I was supposed to be part of this movie," Haley notes, though there was one small snag. "I'm sitting there thinking, 'This is amazing, this is going to happen, he's going to offer me the part right now. The angels are singing.' Then he leans over the table and says, 'Listen, man, I'm really sorry but I can't offer you the part right now because I cast it. We couldn't find you, man!'" Zaillian asked for some time to "work it out," and Haley returned to Texas. A week later, Zaillian called to officially offer Haley the role. "I don't know how else to describe it, but to me, it was like the sky opened up, Steve reached his hand down through the clear blue, yanked me up, and said, 'Hey, man, you want to have another go at this?' " Haley recalls. "The feeling of it is just so incredibly validating, exciting, and surreal. I was pinching myself for a long time."
Though the character of Sugar Boy says very little, Haley is nothing short of captivating back on the big screen. It's still a great character face, and Haley's striking blue eyes speak more than pages of dialogue. And while the experience of making a movie was surreal to him after all this time, he found the craft came naturally. "As exciting and scary as all this is, being on set and doing the job, practicing the craft and collaborating with the director, felt wonderfully real," Haley says. "It may be difficult, challenging, and emotionally draining, but it's fun."
Haley found himself signing with new representation—Warren Zavala at the Gersh Agency and Leslie Allan-Rice at Leslie Allan-Rice Management—and he credits the pair with helping him land his next gig, in writer-director Todd Field's Little Children. "This movie went down by the numbers," he notes. "My agent found the script, and even though it was written for a different body type, he recognized something was there and sent it to me. It was so amazingly written, I got really excited reading it. Then I got incredibly bummed out because it was so good I thought, 'There's no chance in hell I have a shot at getting this.'"
Still, an audition tape was sent to casting director Todd Thaler, who then sent it to Field. "I hadn't started any casting whatsoever for this role," Field says. "Had not spoken to or met anyone at all. Upon arriving at my hotel one night, I was met by a package. Inside was a note from Todd Thaler saying I should watch the DVD that accompanied his note as soon as possible. I popped the disc into the machine and for the next 20 minutes saw an actor give it everything they had. When the disc stopped, I watched it again, and again, and again. When I chanced to glance over at the clock, I couldn't believe it—it was 3 o'clock in the morning. I'd been watching Jackie all night."
Haley had the endorsement of the film's leading lady, Kate Winslet, who also starred in All the King's Men. "Todd called and asked me to come to New York," Haley says. "And then he says, 'I mentioned you to Kate, and she was very excited and loved the idea and said if you come in to read, she wants to read with you.' That was such a great, warm feeling." Haley flew to New York and met the pair in Field's office. At one point, when Field left the room, Haley recalls, "Kate grabbed me and whispered, 'He really, really likes you for this part.' It was so cute." When it came time to do the scene, Field took Haley into another room and told him to take all the time he needed and to walk back into the office when he was ready to start. "I took four or five minutes to prep, and then I walked in and did a very emotional scene with Kate," Haley recalls. "We finished, and Todd paused for about five seconds, then says, 'So, you want to do it?' I have to tell you, Kate was just as excited as I was. I will never forget that day, as long as I live."
Asked if he had any hesitation about casting a former child actor, Field replies, "I was interested in the actor, not his backstory. He came after this part in a meaningful way. That is all that mattered. Once Jackie and Kate read together, it was clear there was no one else but Jackie to play this role."
Following his recent successes, Haley concedes he briefly considered moving back to L.A. "But I like living in Texas," he says. "And as you get older, the world shrinks and technology advances. With the Internet, FedEx, and airplanes to fly you out to L.A., living in San Antonio is great." He admits he's fallen back in love with acting and hopes for more opportunities. "I'm definitely hooked again," he says. "I have no idea where this is going. But if I'm lucky enough to be able to get to do more of this, I'd love to. I've started to do some more auditions and been sending a lot of tapes out. So keep your fingers crossed."
If he had it all to do over again, would Haley have done anything differently? "I think Jodie Foster nailed it," he says. "She left to go to college, and it was during that transition period. I don't know if that works for everyone—she's Jodie Foster. But knowing what I know now, I think I would have tried to occupy myself with college or something and make that transition somewhere else."
That was precisely the strategy Olivia Burnette had in mind when she pursued her dream of attending college at NYU. Born in San Clemente, Calif., Burnette and her younger brother pursued acting at an early age—one of her first auditions was a Kool-Aid commercial at age 6. She booked the gig, and other jobs quickly followed. "I wanted to do it; I didn't have the scary stage parents who wanted us to do it," Burnette says. "We asked to do it, and it was so much fun." She has nothing but fantastic memories of her childhood, which include watching Steve Martin do card tricks on the set of Planes, Trains & Automobiles (she played his daughter) and working with a young actor named Brad Pitt in the TV movie A Stoning in Fulham County. "I was so spoiled. I had always worked with the best of the best," Burnette notes. "I didn't even realize it at the time—to me, it was just normal. Of course today I know I had the most amazing childhood ever."
She racked up impressive credits for any age; long before Dakota Fanning, she was holding her own with lead roles opposite Glenn Ford and Treat Williams (the TV movie Final Verdict) and delivering natural, understated performances. When she was 14, she landed a lead role in the sitcom The Torkelsons, playing sweet Southern girl Dorothy Jane. Though the show lasted only a season, it served as a great showcase for her sharp comedic skills and brought her a strong fan base. She continued to work into her teen years. She had a memorable role alongside Sharon Stone and Russell Crowe in Sam Raimi's Western The Quick and the Dead, as a young girl being forced into prostitution. That was followed by her performance as Sally Field's daughter who is raped and killed by Kiefer Sutherland's character in the 1996 John Schlesinger movie Eye for an Eye.
But Burnette had always intended to go to college. She recalls, "I had reached a point where I was in this middle ground. Casting people wouldn't buy me playing younger anymore, but I still looked really young. Everyone advised me to take some time off and put some distance there so they would buy me playing older. I was like, 'No problem!' It had always been easy for me, so I wasn't worried. But it's not so easy."
While on summer vacation following her first year at NYU, Burnette had "a bit of a tragic child-star thing happen." A stockbroker she had met in New York stole her life savings. "I wanted to learn about investing in the stock market, and I learned, all right," Burnette notes. "Within 10 months it was all gone. It was invested in fraudulent companies that never existed, penny stocks…it was horrible." Unable to go back to school, Burnette was forced to move back in with her parents. She went into further debt trying to get her money back, hiring lawyers and flying back and forth to New York. "I thought I would just start over and get another acting job," she says. "But at that point I had been out of it for two years, and it was kind of like, 'Olivia who?' The whole thing slapped me in the face, and I started realizing it wasn't so simple."
She ended up getting a job at Pottery Barn, working for $6 an hour. "The worst part was, [The Torkelsons] was in reruns on the Disney Channel, and people would come in and recognize me," she recalls. "It was a very humbling experience."
She got a few small roles but was increasingly frustrated with the business. "I wished I wanted to do something else—be a doctor or something," she says. "But I knew it wasn't right." Having always been interested in producing and writing, she eventually took a job at a production company, in the creative development department. She worked her way up there and soon had her own office. "I was working with writers and had projects, and I loved it," she notes. "I had direct deposit for the first time ever. It was just a little bit more than my unemployment checks."
Still, Burnette knew something was missing. "People would come into the office and recognize me and be like, 'What are you doing here? Why are you behind a desk? This is not where you're supposed to be,' " she recalls. "And they were right." Then she met her husband, and "life took over." Burnette says, "My life completely changed. He has a son, so I kind of turned into instant Mommy. There's no describing it when you have this little face looking up to you, saying, 'I love you.' I love it. That's been my focus for the last four years, raising this little boy."
Several years ago Burnette decided to jump back into acting. "There had definitely been enough time between the child and the adult," she notes. She booked her first adult roles on CSI: NY and NCIS. "There were a lot of casting people who couldn't get the old idea of me out of their mind," she says. "I've been slowly but surely having to prove myself again. You would think it would work to your favor, having experience and a good résumé. Sometimes it hasn't been such a bonus. It's about getting rid of old ideas. It's been a battle, but it's worth it."
She also played a starring role opposite her former roommate Jennifer Morrison, currently starring on Fox's House, in the independent film Flourish from writer-director Kevin Palys. "Kevin used to come over and hang out with us and say, 'You know, I'm going to write you guys a script,'" Burnette recalls. "We were like, 'Yeah, yeah, sure.' One day he showed up with this thing that was quirky and fantastic and had great roles. It was one of the first things I did coming back as an adult, and it was perfect. It was just what I needed at the right time to remind me why I wanted to do this."
Reinvigorated by the experience, she maintains a positive outlook on the future. She says she wouldn't trade her childhood for anything. "I can't think about what might have been because I wouldn't be where I am now," she says. And she looks forward to upcoming opportunities. "It's all about timing; it's about hanging in there long enough and getting an opportunity," she says. "It's all about the one thing; it's one job that's meant for you, you're in the right place at the right time and that's all it takes. In the meanwhile, it's great because the rest of my life is so complete and so full. I have so many things that a lot of people don't have, and I feel so blessed to have that."
Even for actors who never leave the business, the struggle to break in—and stay in—can be a long journey. Though he's worked steadily over the last three decades, Dean Cameron is still probably known best as the horror film–loving Francis "Chainsaw" Gremp from the 1987 comedy Summer School. He began his acting career at age 6 thanks to nepotism. "My parents were acting in a production of Trojan Women. They needed a kid. I got the part. I got better reviews than either of them," Cameron recalls. Years later, he would spend his summers with his father in Santa Barbara, attending a program called Youth Theatre alongside the likes of Anthony Edwards and Eric Stoltz, who were already booking commercials and TV guest spots. "I figured if they could do it, so could I," Cameron notes. "I graduated high school when I was 17 and moved to L.A. a couple of months later."
He admits it was a slow go at first. It took him a year to land his first agent, and another year to book his first commercial. He was fired from a pilot. He was studying acting with Peggy Feury and William Traylor, whose students included Nicolas Cage, Sean Penn, and Meg Ryan. "Horton Foote would sit in and watch, and Lily Tomlin was workshopping her Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe show," Cameron notes. "I was roommates with Eric Stoltz and Ally Sheedy, and they were working as actors a lot and I was working at the Chinese Theatre. There was one day where I had to make a choice on how to feel about my friends' success: I could either be bitter that they were working or look at it like I could be next. I'm a fairly grumpy guy, but I chose to be inspired by their success."
He had a series of "almost" big breaks, including the lead in a low-budget horror film about a bunch of kids at summer camp who are attacked by hawks. "Yes, hawks," Cameron iterates. "It turns out one of the producers had made a career of raising money for movies and then running off with it. He was actually going to make this movie, but the FBI had caught up with him, and the movie was shut down." Cameron scored the lead in the pilot High School U.S.A., playing the role Crispin Glover originated in the TV movie. "Three days into the shoot, the producer took me and the guy playing my friend aside and told us that NBC had told them that if they didn't get Crispin in the show, there was no way it was going to be picked up," Cameron recalls. "It was crushing."
Things looked up when he was cast in the series Spencer, playing "one of Chad Lowe's funny friends." Notes Cameron, "After that, I worked as an actor enough to make a living for about 10 years." Another short-lived show that put him on the map was the TV adaptation of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. "Everyone wanted to know who the poor slob trying to fill Sean Penn's Spicoli shoes was going to be," Cameron recalls. "The show only lasted seven episodes, but I actually survived the critics and wasn't too horrible."
The next year brought Summer School, and Cameron earned himself a place in the pop-culture vernacular for his delightfully goofy turn. He landed a development deal at Paramount, where he intended to develop a movie and TV show, but the writers' strike stalled new productions for more than a year. "I was working, but it wasn't really the kind of things I wanted to do," he notes. "David Lee Roth said this great thing, 'I don't get all the women I want; I get all the women who want me.' It was like that with me and movies." The early '90s brought lead roles in the films Rockula and Ski School, but Cameron had hoped for a career along the lines of John Cusack's and Robert Downey Jr.'s. "The last time I was No. 1 on the call sheet was a real piece of crap called Miracle Beach," Cameron notes. "The script was really sweet, but the movie was turning out to be completely awful. I remember sitting on the boardwalk in Venice with my head in my hands, thinking, 'It's now officially over for you, Dean.'"
Following what he calls "The Great Career Crash of '96," he found himself broke without any prospects. He spent six months in Las Vegas working as a magician, which he calls "brutal and horrific." When he returned to L.A., his friend Stoltz helped him get parts in Sleep With Me and Kicking and Screaming—the types of roles Cameron had been wanting to do. "But it was too little, too late," he says. "I was dropped by my last agency in the middle of 1998."
He was able to get himself out of debt by working at an Internet company producing and coding email. He took matters into his own hands by co-writing the 2001 film Hollywood Palms with Patrick Labyorteaux, another actor who started young, with Little House on the Prairie. Cameron was able to travel the world as the author and star of Dean Cameron's Nigerian Spam Scam Scam, a hilarious two-man show detailing his yearlong email correspondence with a Nigerian con artist. The actor found himself welcome onstage, earning an L.A. Weekly Award nomination for the lead performance in the world premiere of Love Tapes, written by Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) and Steven Banks, and reprised the role in the fall of 2006 in Minneapolis. He began booking TV guest spots and commercials and had a recurring role on the NBC drama Mister Sterling. In addition, "Now I do what all the other film and television castoffs do: voiceovers," Cameron notes. "It's an excellent way to make a living; I wish I'd known about it sooner."
Cameron is still recognized frequently for his early roles and has learned to embrace the past rather than fight it. It's a trait he shares with Haley and Burnette, along with a realistic but positive outlook on the future. "Occasionally someone will remember me and offer me a part on their TV show or movie," Cameron notes. "But I'm certainly not holding my breath."
Though Burnette was often depressed and discouraged, she admits, she believes everything has happened for a reason. "That was my path," she says. "And that's what's going to make it that much more rewarding and gratifying when it does happen again, because I went through all that. I know what it's like on both sides, and I'm a better person for it."
Haley, who is enjoying success for the second time, has learned to be cautiously optimistic. "I'm still at that point where we need to see if I'm lucky enough to move on," he demurs. "But I'm very fortunate to have a whole other career going and I don't have to count on acting to pay the bills. Jobs like Little Children are few and far between. I probably can't be that picky; I have to deal with reality. So I'll try to balance the two."