What makes a child succeed in a show business career? For every Dakota Fanning, Haley Joel Osment, and Jonathan Lipnicki, there is a talented youngster longing to be a star. The formula for success is elusive.
But there are certain undeniable factors that contribute. Some are natural attributes that children and parents have little or no control over: looks, talent, desire and tenacity, luck. Others are more controllable, such as parental attitudes and training.
Training is a particularly sticky issue. Some believe it will ruin the child's natural spontaneity if started too young. Others—parents and children alike—think it's not needed beyond what the parent can offer.
Frankie Muniz, of Malcolm in the Middle, has been quoted as saying, "Acting classes, I guess, are good, and I would like to maybe sometime take one. But I would feel like I was learning someone else's technique. I like mine." In fact, Frankie, who started acting at age 9 in his native North Carolina and did stage work there and elsewhere, has developed his talent on his own, said his agent, Wendy Green of Abrams Artists Agency.
But that doesn't work for all kids. "If it's a deep and emotional role," said Green, "it's better in general for kids to get training." She doesn't think 5 or 6 is too young if the role is tough. A lot of her younger clients don't get coached, but by the time they're teens, they grow more self-conscious, and that's when they really need help. "Coaching lets the true self come out," said Green. "It doesn't change you." She added that she especially likes it when her clients get private coaching for specific auditions; it makes them confident, and they love it. But it can backfire. One of Green's clients, testing for a pilot, keeps getting worse the more he gets coached; he looks increasingly "rehearsed."
Agents say they can easily tell the difference between a trained and untrained child. A sure sign: An untrained or poorly trained child doesn't listen, plays a quality rather than a person, is not in the moment. TV and film directors know that well-trained kids save time and therefore money on the set.
Emotional Transition
New York-based actress Hayden Panettiere, age 12, is an example of a natural talent who so far has not needed more than her mother's help. Hayden recently played Calista Flockhart's 10-year-old daughter on Ally McBeal and also the young Hilary Swank in The Affair of the Necklace. Her mother, Lesley Vogel, a former New York actor, started Hayden modeling at 8 months. At 4, Hayden got a recurring role on One Life to Live and has worked steadily since then.
Vogel began coaching Hayden when she got the first soap gig. "We'd discuss a scene in terms of her objective," said Vogel. "She heard that word very early. Then we'd talk about the different tactics one can use to achieve what one wants, and about relationships, the most important factor in daytime TV. How do you feel about this person you're talking to? I wanted her to develop good acting habits so eventually she'd be able to make her own choices."
As early as age 5, Vogel watched Hayden play a scene in which she had to make an emotional transition. Vogel could see the little girl's mind working as an actor, going from one emotional state to another, and the thought process going along with it. She realized then that her daughter had talent and understood the journey of the actor.
By about 9 or 10, Hayden had her own opinions about the characters she was playing. She always had a lot of passion, said Vogel, so now they worked on access to emotions. When she needed to have tears, Vogel would sit behind the set and talk to her about something that might resurrect a certain emotion, or improvise with her, so she'd be emotionally prepared. In other words, from a very early age Hayden was learning adult lessons about acting.
Vogel's thinking as a coach happens to be right in line with the philosophy of American Conservatory Theater's Young Conservatory, which is to talk to kids just like you would to adults. "Words don't need to be 'kiddified'," affirmed Craig Slaight, longtime Young Conservatory director. "Part of the [teaching job] is to empower them, take them seriously, and establish an environment where they feel heard."
Still, lessons for youngsters are necessarily different than for older kids. Judy Berlin of Kids on Camera TV & Film Acting School in San Francisco noted that younger children (she teaches kids as young as 4) simply don't have the life experience to draw from to play a wide variety of characters. She encourages them to read fiction, novels, plays, biographies.
A.C.T. instructor David Maier said young children are actors already; they live in their imagination. By the time they are 11 or so, they are not so comfortable being in fantasyland and need to learn actual techniques. "The girls at that age are much more conscious of their physical image and don't want to take as many risks for fear of embarrassment," he said. "Boys are not that far along yet; they're willing to be goofy." He teaches the young adolescents about beats, making choices, putting a character together.
In Hayden's case, young as she was, it's no doubt that she profited from her mother's acting background and coaching skills. In one of Hayden's soaps, Guiding Light, she shot and killed her mother's abuser, was kidnapped, battled leukemia, and more. Naturalness and spontaneity would probably not have sufficed in a role like that. Hayden will be well prepared for the most complex of adult roles.
Hayden's Los Angeles agent, Mitchell Gossett of Cunningham, Escott & Dipene, thinks that in general those of his clients who come from New York, like Hayden, are better trained than Los Angeles children—something about the theatrical ambiance of the Big Apple (although Hayden, unlike many children, has not done stage work).
Still, Gossett believes that in the 8-to-10 age range, good instincts is what it's all about, no matter where you come from—plus nurturing parents and a willingness to work hard. A good parent doesn't have to be one with an acting background, like Vogel, said Gossett—simply one who is smart, creative, and willing to make a deep commitment to the child.
Gossett favors coaching for his clients who don't have actor-parents, to prepare them for auditions, but he says that individual coaching is no substitute for classes.
Communication Skills
One popular coach is Los Angeles' Andrew Magarian, whose clients include I Am Sam's Dakota Fanning, Mae Whitman, and Kyla Pratt. Magarian teaches classes, as well. "I give them 'missions,'" he said. "I get them used to doing things truthfully in sequence—little things that are fun. I make sure they do things honestly and that they're truthful to themselves and the character." He might have a very young child do something simple like carry a glass of water to a certain place without spilling it, then fall into a chair. From that basis he can segue to a scene.
"I teach that acting is communication," he elaborated. "By the time you're 6, you're an expert at communication. Most people learn how to communicate before they have a memory. I don't talk about what their face should be doing and how they should sound. I just make sure they're really listening and their mind's involved. The rest will follow."
He also makes sure they understand the text, know how to make choices, and allow their imagination to come into play, especially when working with computer-generated images. With a little girl who had to get eaten by a T-Rex in the first Jurassic Park, he kept moving a broom around for her until he got a truthful reaction.
Magarian believes that parents should parent and coaches coach. "I won't and can't compete with the parent," he said. "If it comes down to the parent telling the child to do something that's different from what the coach told him, the child will always go with the parent. That way lies the 'miniature adult performance.'"
Of course there are exceptions. Haley Joel Osment works with his father. "Obviously that man's doing a wonderful job," said Magarian.
Mae Whitman, now 13, has been Magarian's student for nine years. Like Hayden's mother, Mae's mom, Pat Whitman, was an actor, but Magarian asked her not to work with Mae, and she has complied.
"Mae has a sense of herself, wonderful access to her emotions, willingness to share, and she's competitive in a really good way," said Magarian. She has appeared in the TV series State of Grace, the films Hope Floats and One Fine Day, in many episodes of JAG and Chicago Hope, and much more.
Pat Whitman took Mae along on an audition when the little girl was 3. The plan was for Mae to play with her dollies and crayons while Mom read. As it turned out, Mae got a job, Mom didn't. Mae, it appeared, was a natural. Still, she must have absorbed some elements of the craft at home. Whitman has studied with improv guru Viola Spolin, and her husband is a techie; both are self-professed "theatre rats." To Mae, acting is the truest form of play. So far she hasn't done any stage work, but it's probably in her blood.
All in the Family
An interesting case of acting in the blood, and of kids doing well without formal acting training or coaching, is the singing/dancing/acting Bowen family, based in New York. All six kids, ages 12 to 21, are in the business. Cameron, who is 13, is "booking everything in sight," said his L.A. agent, Gossett. He recently appeared as a young Kelsey Grammer in Frasier. Their father, Guy Bowen, was a musician and performer, and his wife was a dancer. Guy continues as a guitar player. The children's grandmothers on both sides were singers. When the eldest daughter, Jessica, was 10 or 11, she tried out for a local theatre production, and each of her siblings eventually followed her path.
Once they acquired a New York manager, Marianne Leone, Dad sold his business in Columbus, Ohio, and the whole family moved to Manhattan. All the children have had private voice and dance, although not acting, lessons. "When they go through puberty, they need to learn vocal technique to continue to sing as their voices change," explained Bowen.
But as far as acting itself: "They had good instincts and are natural," said Bowen. "Learning techniques might interfere with their spontaneity, depending upon how the teacher approached it." Nor does Bowen coach them per se. He sees his role as chauffeuring them, keeping them emotionally grounded, and making sure they eat healthy foods. He also helps them with scripts and sides to the extent of offering an adult perspective. "I get what the person who's going to be watching the audition will be looking for," he said. But, "You can't make choices for them. You can't say, 'Feel this way.' Sometimes I'll say, 'Have you thought about this or that?,' or I'll say what I think the character is feeling, and sometimes they'll reject it."
When his daughter Andrea was 10, for an episode of Law & Order she played a rape and kidnap victim. "She knew what rape was," said Bowen. "We talked about what the little girl was going through—feeling guilty because she'd broken a rule, afraid her mother would be angry, afraid it would happen again. So we worked on those feelings. Every little child knows what it's like to not want a parent to be mad at them. I didn't even go into specific examples. I just asked her questions like, 'Has there ever been a time you did something you felt really guilty about? You don't have to tell me.' Then she could go there or not, as she chooses." He approaches each child as an individual, and the kids help one another out, casually offering advice on one another's scripts.
Still, in general, manager Leone recommends coaching for her clients when they have an audition, although she does concede that 5 may be too young for that. "A teacher will read the script and know what the character is about," she said. So the Bowen family is probably an exception. Plus, said Bowen, the younger kids have the benefit of watching how their older sibs handle things. Leone said she has about 100 child clients, and that Guy Bowen is the only parent who knows what he's doing in terms of guiding his kids.
Bowen added that another one of his responsibilities is to praise them when they're disappointed and "knock 'em down a few pegs" when they're riding high—remind them that it could all end tomorrow. It's interesting to note that the siblings are supportive about one another's acting (they sometimes compete for the same role, but not often) and competitive about every other aspect of their lives. Like every group of siblings, they fight over who will ride shotgun on the way to an audition.
Nurturing Voices
It makes sense that young children can work in film and TV without training—much can be done with editing to refine their performances, and in any case they're most likely to be playing themselves. But what of children who do major stage work? Ten-year-old Jillian Wheeler, who has been in six movies, 17 commercials, soaps, and 10 musicals, did such a good job playing Holly Hunter's daughter in By the Bog of Cats at San José Repertory Theatre—with a convincing Irish accent, no less—that she was brought back to play the young Lynn Redgrave in The Mandrake Root, this time with an equally convincing English accent. (Both shows had a dialect coach, and Redgrave was able to help her with the English accent.)
Jillian's parents are not performers, but Jillian has a good singing voice, and the music teacher at her school pushed her to audition. She started doing local theatre in New Hampshire at age 7. At an open call for Annie in New York, she was spotted by ABC and hired for All My Children. Since then, her New York agent has been sending her to both stage and screen auditions.
"We've always heard it's better for kids not to get acting training, because then they spend their time thinking about their training rather than being themselves," said Jillian's mother, Mary Wheeler. So Jillian is taking only singing lessons. But she has learned a lot from watching actors like Hunter and Redgrave, who each took her under their wing. "Holly taught her a lot about discipline, because it was such an intense role," said Wheeler. (Jillian's character got murdered by her own mother at play's end.) "Jillian has always been driven and focused in everything she does," added Wheeler. "She has an intensity about her." Despite all her media work, Jillian prefers the stage.
At this point Wheeler has no objection to formal classes—although she is a bit leery of upsetting the winning equation—but Jillian hasn't shown any interest nor have her agents or directors recommended it.
Many children, though, do rely on classes. Are classes better than individual coaching? Magarian, who offers both, says a combination is best, but if you have to pick one method, the one-on-one is the most intensive and can be applied to interviews as well as auditions and jobs.
For one of Magarian's students, 15-year-old Kyla Pratt—who has acted in such films as Doctor Dolittle, Dr. Dolittle 2, Love and Basketball, Mike Figgis' One Night Stand, and Mad City with John Travolta—acting classes are a way of connecting with her peers. The Los Angeles actress has been working ever since her manager, Judy Landis of Judy Landis Production and Talent Management, spotted her among 500 kids at a modeling showcase. "She was this scrawny little 8-year-old that sparkled," recalled Landis.
However, Landis didn't let Kyla start acting classes until she was 10; otherwise, Landis feared, her imagination might have been stifled. Kyla has never been privately coached, although her mother, a former stage actor, gave her a lot of help at the beginning. "At a young age she could take words off the page and develop a character," said Landis. Kyla has gone from playing an urban girl being raised by a single father in the series One on One to "dying and crying on a deathbed" in Walker, Texas Ranger, and is equally adept at comedy and drama. Of Landis' 21 clients, the few serious ones, like Kyla, find time to go to class. Kyla said Magarian teaches her to "keep it simple, keep it clear, but most of all be sincere." She said she learns something new from class every week.
Magarian and others observed that there are plenty of bad teachers out there; anyone can hang out a shingle. Some of Slaight's students at A.C.T. have told him that their high school drama teachers, in the name of teaching professionalism, berate and holler. One drama teacher at a prestigious arts high school in Southern California is known to routinely belittle her students. Others talk down to children, or talk in result terms, or stamp the individuality out of them. "There's nothing less attractive than a kid who has been over-coached into a generic child," observed Slaight. When he taught at a high school for the performing arts in Los Angeles, he had to strip away tricks and habits fortified in "one-dimensional kid-dom." "Kids can be more self-critical than a professional actor," he added. "You've got to keep saying, 'It's going well.'"
Got to Want It
It should be added that, whether a child is trained by a coach, in class, by her parent, or relies on natural talent, other factors do come into play that can make or break a career. A crucial one is the child's own desire. The ones who have made it have a passion for the craft and the career, and that's something even the most zealous parent cannot instill. Agent Gossett can spot a 3- or 4-year-old who really wants it: "The kid sits in a chair and focuses on you rather than running all around the room." He added, "Successful kids don't play ball; they study the script."
Guy Bowen's six kids love auditioning; for them it's a mini-performance. But they're well aware talent doesn't always win out. Pat Whitman said Mae has always loved acting. "I told her, 'If you can learn to love auditions and interviews, then if you get the job, that's the icing on the cake.' I've heard some kids say, 'Please, I have to get this—if I do I'll get a Barbie.' That's scary. Mae never needed any bribes."
Mary Wheeler concurred. "Over the years, we've seen a lot of parents who want it more than the children. We saw a girl at the Annie audition who was crying; she didn't want to go in and audition, and the parents forced her. It was sad to see. If the child doesn't want to be there, it shows through." Jillian misses her sister and father when she and Mom are on the road, but, said Wheeler, "We always ask her, 'Would you rather be at home?' But this is what she wants to do."
Wheeler added, "Whether she's an actor or not as she gets older, the experience she's getting will last a lifetime. Some of us go through a lifetime figuring out what our passion is. At 10, Jillian knows."
Concluded Magarian, "Do it because you love it—the craft, not the business. If it's done for any other reason, it becomes difficult. And that love has to emanate from the child." BSW