George R. R. Martin Quotes

Some kids are fine, but often I don't like what I see in child actors. My kids are young and they are already showing an interest, so I have to try to discourage them, squash that in them.

The interesting thing with child actors is that kids are natural actors. They're wonderful actors, and most kids are acting all the time. They're imagining they're out in the yard playing. They're imagining that things happened, and they can get very vivid.

Children are often better actors than adults because they have a greater capacity for believing in a situation.

Kids play pretend. I think that kids can be the best actors.

I think some of the best actors ever were little kids.

'Parenthood' has been the beneficiary of wonderful performances by child actors.

Most aspiring child actors or child stars have a passion for it. But as easy as it is for me to say that I wouldn't put my kids in it, if I saw that they really, really wanted to do and they had the drive, then I would fully support it. As long as there's balance at home, then they could do whatever they wanted to do.

I love working with children and this young boy, Thomas Sangster, is quite a remarkable young actor. He raises your game, you know. He certainly raised mine.

In TV, kid roles are like this: You're either in a couple minutes of an episode playing somebody's kid, or you get in these procedurals where you're crying or you're playing a witness or you're playing a crazy person. Every once in a while you get a big guest star role, but there's a formula to those TV shows.

Young girls of 13 or 12 are great actors.

You can't be bad when you're working with a kid. They have the instincts that all great actors have.

I've been really lucky when it comes to casting kids, and I don't particularly like child actors. Too often, they just show up, and they've had whatever real innocence that's in a child just beaten out of them. They start to perform for you, and you can just see it coming. It's no good.

Kids are baby goats. They're cute and they have redeeming social value. You are definitely not kids.

I was never an actress -- none of us kids at Metro were. We were just good to look at.

I went on to host a kids' program from when I was around 10 until 15. In some ways I'm a child actor.

People who grew up as child stars have the same thing in common. You're cute, they love you; you go through the awkward stage, they don't accept you any more. Very few make the transition to adult star.

The smaller and younger kids are, the more patient you have to be. But if they're gifted, then it's a wonderful present that you're given by having a child like that in your film... more so than in the case of actors because, for example, if you ask them to play a lion, they don't then play a lion, they actually are a lion. So, a gifted child is something very special. On the other hand, if a child has no gifts in that way it's absolutely hopeless and there's nothing you can do!

No matter how you feel about your extended family or family gatherings you will be attending. This is because now the ultimate reason for attending family gatherings is for your children to have the time of their lives with their cousins. Little kids love their cousins. I’m not being cute or exaggerating here. Cousins are like celebrities for little kids. If little kids had a People magazine, cousins would be on the cover. Cousins are the barometers of how fun a family get-together will be. “Are the cousins going to be there? Fun!

You can't be a kid in show business. You will not survive.

Actors today go into TV, which I don't consider has a lot to do with acting. They only think of stardom. If you photograph well, that's enough. I have a terrible time distinguishing one from another. Girls wear their hair the same, and are much too anorexic-looking.

I've always hate child stars, starting from way back when, when I was a child. The first child star I saw was Shirley Temple. She was six years old, two foot six and the biggest star in Hollywood. She wore ribbons in her hair, and frilly little pinafores and shiny patent-leather tap shoes - just like the boys in Glee do.

I try to keep away from being bigheaded. That's what causes people to lose the acting thing. They start being commercial, and then they stink the rest of their life. But there are several respected adult actors who were child actors that started very young. I'm going to try to model myself after Kurt Russell and Jodie Foster. Just keep learning from the role and not just go for the money.

I think what Laura Linney was saying about teaching her all the lessons as a child actor, right, that's a whole ball of wax. That's a really mixed bag of stuff. I look at so many people that I knew personally or didn't know personally but who have ended badly, have died young, have been destitute - there are a lot of bad child-actor-gone-wrong stories, a very high percentage, but I think the thing about it is that a lot of those are Hollywood stories, and you don't have that same kind of a thing in the theater.

Acting is a child's prerogative. Children are born to act. Usually, people grow up and out of it. Actors always seem to me to be people who never quite did grow out of it.

Even when I was really young, I hated doing commercials, because I would say, "That's not real acting." And it's not. It's embarrassing what they make little kids do in commercials.