Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Child Stars

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Selena Gomez, Drew Barrymore, and Daniel Radcliffe are all survivors of today's "cult," and so is our guest, Mara Wilson, star of 1990s cinematic classics like Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire. Mara was only five years old when she started appearing in major commercials, and the next ten years of her life were a dream come true—full of glamour and accolades... and intense pressures, isolation, creepy stalkers, and other shocking experiences that make the world of child stars seem VERY culty. This week, with Mara's help, Amanda and Isa attempt to figure out if this secretive wing of the entertainment industry—responsible for what former child star Alyson Stoner once called the "toddler to trainwreck pipeline"—is as cult-like as it seems. To support Sounds Like A Cult on Patreon, keep up with our live show dates, see Isa's live comedy, buy a copy of Amanda's book Cultish, donate to Isa’s fundraiser or visit our website, click here!  Thank you so much to our sponsors! Download SmartNews for free today in the app store! To receive 50% or more off your first month of therapy, go to cerebral.com/cult. 

This episode is sponsored by Smart News. Smart News is here to streamline the way that you consume media. Download Smart News for free today in the app store to get the news that matters most to you. Your news, your way. Discover the all-in-one app that delivers the information you need to live smarter. Cerebral is a 100% online mental health service that offers therapy and medication management for anxiety, depression, insomnia, stress, burnout, and more. Listeners will receive 50% or more off your first month of therapy.

Go to cerebral.com slash cult. That's cerebral.com slash cult for 50% or more off your first month of therapy. Cerebral, quality mental health care, accessible and affordable. The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable facts. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Issa, who was your favorite child star as a kid?

I've been thinking about this because I knew you were going to ask that question. I think Hannah Montana for a really long time, and by Hannah Montana, I mean Miley Literal Cyrus. Oh my God, me too. I love that chaotic bitch. I feel very connected to Miley Cyrus because we were both born in 1992. You're the monkey. Grew up together. But then Selena Gomez quickly took on the role of my favorite child star,

but it was more from a jealousy aspect because she had a relationship with one of the Sprouse brothers or whatever. Oh, one of the Sprouse. You know I went to college with them. Shout out. Yeah. Oh, I know the stories. I know.

Dylan Sprouse and I were in a poetry program in Paris together. Weird flex. Yeah, flex. And we'll talk about this later. But I think child stars do struggle to connect with everyday people who did not grow up under such extraordinary circumstances. I think they really pulled it off, actually. I want to say on the record, Dylan and Cole Sprouse are lovely people.

At least they're not like nepo kids. They're just, I feel like child stars often get mistaken for nepo kids because they started so early that by the time they're like in their early 20s, they've had like a full career. But the problem with nepo kids is they haven't had a career and they're at the same level as child stars who have been working for literal decades. He's a saltiness toward nepo kids is it's next level and it's another topic for another day. But we'll cover that in our long series of The Cult of Hollywood. Yes.

Yes. Who is your favorite child star? Other than my besties, The Sprice, I would have to say, and I'm not sucking up, my favorite child star was our guest today. She meant so much to me. Oh my god. Blush moment. Hardcore.

We did get to talk to the amazing Mara Wilson. I think the reason I don't think of her as a child star is because I usually think middle school, but she was like a child. A little itty bitty baby. She is Matilda for those unfamiliar with her name, Mara Wilson. She was also the youngest sibling in Mrs. Doubtfire. She was in Miracle on 34th Street. She's a freaking icon and Matilda, that character really meant a lot to me.

And so meeting her was not only a blush moment, but it was super insightful. So we can't wait for you all to hear our combo. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book Cultish the Language of Fanaticism. I'm Issa Medina, and I'm a comedian touring all over the country. Every week on our show, we discuss a different zeitgeisty group that puts the cult in culture, from Taylor Swift's stands to Doomsday Preppers, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really?

Today, we are talking about the Cult of Child Stars. Yeah, today we're talking about minors who get sucked into the entertainment industry very young, kid performers from Drew Barrymore to Daniel Radcliffe to all the Disney Channel kids. Actually, Drew Barrymore is a fan of the pod apparently. I did hear that. Love you girl, queen, boss. Okay, so what's culty off the bat is that child stars have a reputation of being super adorable, but also doomed because as soon as they hit like 17, the public expects them to self-destruct.

And we just kind of accept that as the price of pursuing fame, even if you're just a little kid. It's fucked up when you put it that way. I wanted to be a child star when I was a child, did you? Oh, I could so see that. Well, we know that because like you were in theater, you wanted to study theater or whatever, theater people study, and then you were like, this is too much for me. I'm not going to be in a cult. I'm going to start a cult.

Well, I still am trying to be a child star. I'm wearing a My Little Pony pink velour sweatshirt today. Yeah, that is actually child like we're both wearing pink actually. We're both babies wearing pink. On to the topic at Lodge, I think a couple reasons that we wanted to talk about child stars is because they've been just so relevant lately. So deeply relevant. Yes.

No, but it's true. Like there have been some really splashy and tragic child star moments in the zeitgeist over the past year. First of all, Britney Spears finally won the battle to end her conservatorship. There was also the former iCarly star, Jeanette McCurdy, who came out with her extremely buzzy, beautiful memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died, edgy title. And in it, she talks about how she never really wanted to be a child actor and was forced into it and had some extremely exploitative fraud experiences in that quote unquote cult.

And then of course, there was the death of Aaron Carter, who was an icon and crushed to so many millennials and borderline Gen Z girlies like myself. Well, it's just a shock to the system when someone like that passes away because he's our age or close in age to us. And you know, it's really startling when someone your very own age who you sort of grew up with and came of age worshiping dies of something tragic like a drug overdose or something connected to the fact that he was in the cult of child stars, especially if it's mental health related. You know that it's associated with the cult of child stars, but I do really quickly in

the transitional way want to point out that he is almost 10 years older than me. So I just want to put that out there in the classiest way possible. We need to remind all our listeners that that is a child star currently not trying to be in my mid 30s right now. You know, I am. That's nothing wrong with that. But the rest in peace, King, like you will be remembered. But also in 2022, there was the Selena Gomez documentary that came out, which I had very

high hopes for because it was Apple TV and their documentaries are great, but it was giving Demi Lovato, which I do not see coming for Selena. I know. I felt like I was watching a vlog. I feel like weren't we sort of live texting while we were watching that? My critiques of that documentary are not super fresh, but I feel like it played it a little bit safe. It could have dug deeper.

Loki, I feel like our critiques of the Selena Gomez documentary are along the lines of the critiques that our haters give us. Oh, for sure. I think, okay, I guess also like my overarching analysis of the Selena Gomez documentary wasn't that it was necessarily a bad documentary. It was that it just wasn't an honest documentary and they weren't insightful on how she truly is affected by the cult of child stars. You could so clearly see that her mental health has suffered so many times along her career

because of her career and because of her hours and her work ethic, but it almost doubled down on the cult of child stars because if you watch it, you'll see a lot of her friends and a lot of the people around her are like, this is what you're meant to be doing. Right. This is what you were born for. And it's like, girly, if you are depressed, can't get out of bed and you get crippling anxiety from going outside, maybe it's not what you were meant to do. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I completely agree. I don't think the documentary was truly acknowledging what perspective it was coming from. Are we in third person omniscient or third person limited Selena Gomez documentary? What is going on? But no, I mean, it's absolutely true that like in general, whether you're involved with entertainment or not, I mean, she would talk in the documentary about how her having a public platform was connected to God's purpose for her and that conflation of like the labor that you do and how you make money with how you seek meaning and existential belonging

in life is really insidious. But I think it touches this small contingency of people who start working very, very young, especially, you know, in what other industry other than entertainment is child labor not only accepted but celebrated? Yeah, it really should not be legal. And something I learned from Jeanette McCurdy's book is that in order to get around those laws, child stars have to split their day up between work and school. But something that I found extremely baffling is that school is work for children.

Like that's way too much for a child. And then that creates a horrible work ethic for that child and expectations of what you're supposed to get out of work, whether it's money or validation or love from your parents. There are so many reasons why it's toxic for a child to start working that early. The saddest example that I can think of is Judy Garland, who played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, who just had like a pretty miserable childhood. According to The Guardian, MGM famously fed her amphetamines to keep her up for 72-hour shifts so she could just keep working, working, working, working, even though she was a kid.

Speaking of child labor for a tiny bit of background, there have been measures put in place to attempt to protect child stars. In 1939, the Kugen Act was put in place. This was named after a child star named Jackie Kugen, whose parents took most of his acting money. The Kugen laws basically require 15% of a child actor or child performer's earnings to be put away in a blocked trust. So that's at least an attempt to try to financially protect child stars because of parents literally like stealing these minors money.

There are laws in each state about how many hours a day. Kids of different ages are allowed to work. For example, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations, during the school year, kids aged 9 to 16 are allowed to work for five hours, have to do three hours of school, then have one hour of rest. So nine hours on set, which sounds fucking intense to me for a fourth grader. But if you'll recall, in that Selena Gomez documentary, she identified as only having finished eighth grade.

Remember, she was like, oh, yeah, I have an eighth grade education. And also just hearing you speak about the Kugen laws out loud makes me realize, yeah, you get money put away because you worked as a child. And then in your early 20s, your whole 20s, you don't have to work. But that's kind of fucking weird to me, dude. Like childhood is literally meant to be a child. It reminds me of when you don't take vacation for a whole year and then you finally go on a vacation, like a much needed vacation,

and you rest, LOL me speaking about, like the last two weeks, but you finally rest and then you get back to work because you feel well rested. It almost feels like child stars. They never had that childhood rest. So they're burnt out by the time they get into their early 20s. Yes, it's definitely, it reeks of industrial revolution, like a chimney sweep, except it's under the guise of glamour. You're beloved.

Look at all your fans. And this is not to say that performing as a child isn't fun. I'm sure it's fun. But that's the thing with cults is that if it weren't fun, if it weren't exciting, if it weren't glamorous, nobody would join or stay. And then that creates a horrible work ethic for that child and expectations of what you're supposed to get out of work, whether it's money or validation or love from your parents.

There's so many reasons why it's toxic for a child to start working that early. But speaking of that pipeline of getting children to start early, hasn't really stopped. If anything, it's kind of sped up. Yeah. So let's give a little bit of background and talk about who is in this cult of child stars and how do they get inducted? So there was a 2020 HBO documentary called Showbiz Kids.

It was written and directed by a former char... char... child. It is a tongue twister. Wait, you know what's funny is like, if you just say former child, that could be like anyone, but it sounds so formal. Former child. It was written and directed by a former child. We are all famously former children. But that, oh my God, the English language is so ugly sometimes.

Like, former child actor. Say that 15 times fast. Everyone listening? As little bane, either. Okay, it was written and directed by a former child actor. And he gave the statistic that over 20,000 child actors audition for roles in Hollywood every year. And that 95% of them don't book a single job.

So in the cult of child stars, similar to the cult of Hollywood or any of these larger than life, extremely aspirational industries, there is this transcendent promise, this sense of hope that you can achieve enlightenment through stardom. And then, of course, not everybody can. 5% success rate honestly seems pretty high. But then think of what that rejection can do to the vulnerable mind of a child. Yeah, that actually makes me feel like that transcendence

and that higher promise actually starts on a micro level with love from their parents. Because as we all know, when you're a child, the one thing that you seek is really validation and love and attention from your parents, from your family figures, from those really close with you. And it's not usually the child's idea to start that early. You know, maybe they want to, like, act in their living room.

But it is the parent who understands the capitalist machine around making money from children. And it is the parent who has to fill out the forms and submit them to auditions. So that initial validation starts off with just validation from the family. Just validation and love from your parent because you want to make them happy and they're excited. So you're excited.

You know, I was like this ham of a child and I was such a drama queen and such a theater kid. And I remember being kind of a mystery to my own parents who are these mild-mannered academics. Sorry, I don't want to totally reduce my appearance to that description. But I clearly wanted to, like, perform as a child. But they didn't encourage me to, like, capitalize upon that. They didn't encourage me to monetize that

or to, like, get really hyper-competitive with it. I think they acknowledge that, like, I'm a kid and I should approach this the way that children do. But I think that puts pressure on parents and on children at the very same time. I completely agree that children don't always have to be taken advantage of by their parents. I mean, I think there are many situations in which the children

had healthy relationships with their parents and they begged their parents to take them to these auditions. Myself included. I literally went to one of those Disney Channel radio auditions, bombed so hard, but it's a story for another day. I think you can have those healthy relationships with your parents, but it is the responsibility of the legal guardian to sit the child down and be like,

hey, do you want to do this? Do you want to keep going? Always have check-ins. And that's why it's so similar to a cult, when they don't do those things, because then you're following this leader with no check-ins, with no boundaries, with no guidelines. And where does that take you?

I mean, oftentimes, and this is really sad and trigger warning, but suicide, dude, like a lot of times, you see that in the child actor space. It's the whole 27 club phenomenon, the whole idea that young performers dying in weirdly high numbers at the age of 27. Actually, we did come across a study published in the British Medical Journal in 2011,

saying that young adult musicians have a higher death rate than young adults in general, though the quote-unquote risk is not limited to the age 27. Who's your favorite member of the 27 club? Fucked up question. Probably Mac Miller. Oh, Mac Miller, fuck. I know.

The first one that comes to mind is Kurt Cobain, but Mac Miller is like- Dude, you grew up with him. He's so talented. Yeah, listening to his music, I still get sad. A nice Jewish boy from Pittsburgh. I think my favorite was Amy Winehouse. Oh, yeah, I forgot.

She was so young. So young. Wow. You know, we talk about exit costs on this podcast all the time, and I feel like there is truly no dignified way to leave the cult of child stars, because even if, say, you voluntarily decide to bow out and pursue something else,

the public will punish you for that. By being like, where is, say, Alison Stoner as an example, like Googling, like, where is Alison Stoner now? Where did she go? Washed up has been. All this language is so judgmental and so culty. Yeah, and that relates a lot to the cult of tabloids. That affects someone's mental health so deeply and significantly

that the only way to escape is to completely disappear. And then, of course, you're going to be seen as a failure, because so many of your fans thought they were your friends, and they're like, oh my gosh, where did my friend go? That parasocial relationship speaks to the idea of, like, these people are worshiped, but how quickly they can fall from that pedestal, and who even is the cult leader in this equation?

I mean, you were mentioning the stage parents can serve as a cult leader rule, but that's what makes the industry culty, in my opinion, as well. It's because it's hard to identify a leader. Is it the executives? Is it entertainment journalists? Is it the parents?

Is it the public? It's hard to tell who is really running this show. I think all of them are, to some degree. I feel like Hollywood execs are running the show because they are the ones who make the decision of having children in movies. Yeah. Greenlighting shows like Euphoria,

where there are teenage people having fucking sex on TV. It's so tough to place blame, though, because it's like, are the executives just pandering to the public? And why does the public demand those things? And then I was thinking, what is really the solution here? Because if we didn't have kids in movies or TV shows at all... I mean, I could play a baby. I could play a toddler.

Because I'm so young. I'm just a baby. Cast me. Pick me. Love me. Pick me. That's a pretty drastic pivot from this Gen Z cusp energy you usually go for to googogaga baby toddler.

Okay, this industry is all about being versatile, and I can ultimately make any role work. It's called range. Yeah. But it would be really sad if kids didn't have their representation in movies and TV shows and didn't see themselves reflected. You know, there just needs to be some more policy around it.

There needs to be check-ins with children. There needs to be more updated regulation around child star so that it can continue to happen, but in a way where the child is enjoying it and their mental health isn't as deeply affected. And I think that also takes participation from people like us, the viewer, to not be so judgmental. It's so easy to see a child when they're at their cutest,

most adorable self in their first movie or role ever, and then see them 10 years later and be like, what the fuck? They don't look anything like they did, but it's like, no fucking shit, bro. I mean, I have looked the same my whole life, but it's not been like a cute or- Shut the fuck up.

I will not dignify that self-deprecation with a response other than shut the fuck up. But honestly, like, look in the mirror is sort of like a fundamental lesson of this whole podcast. It's like, it's so easy to judge other quote unquote cult members, but anyone who's ever googled where are they now or judged a former child star is kind of fortifying this cult. Amanda, where do you get your news?

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by going to Cerebral.com slash cult. That's Cerebral.com slash cult for 50% or more off your first month of therapy. We don't know what it's like to be a child star personally, but we wanted to interview someone who experienced it themselves. This is just one perspective, and obviously every former child star

has a different story to tell, but we're so excited for you to hear this one. Yeah, today we're going to be talking to my personal hero. You might know her from projects like Matilda or Mrs. Doubtfire, that little cutie. She is still a performer and a writer today, Mara Wilson. I'm Mara Wilson. I'm a writer, a performer, actor,

and I was a child actor from 1992 to, I believe, about 2000, 2001. Yeah, I mean, famously Matilda. Probably what I'm best known for, yeah. Matilda, Mrs. Doubtfire, Miracle on 34th Street, although at the time that was not a hit, but people are always like, oh, we watch it every Christmas, so.

Sleeper hit, cult classic. Being in a holiday movie is a good investment, honestly. I mean, I'm Jewish and I was in a Christmas movie. And yeah, but being in a holiday movie, they're going to show it every year. Yeah, it's kind of like when pop stars decide to record a holiday album. Oh, of course.

Absolutely. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Do you feel like you're part of the cult of child stars, in a way? When we talk about the cult of child stars, I think that we're talking about a couple of different things. I think that probably what a lot of people are thinking about is they're thinking about what I call the narrative, which is that child stars flame out quickly

and they end up self-destructive. I think that's something that we talk about a lot. And I mean, sometimes I do think that that's true, but I don't think it's necessarily because of the reasons that people would think. But I also think that people think a lot about parents getting their children into the industry or what happens to children in the industry and things like that. And again, I think that a lot of the things

that people think about, a lot of the pitfalls and the problems that child actors have in my personal experience were not necessarily the ones that people would think. They're very different, I think, than what most people imagine. Although that's not to say that there isn't, I mean, there absolutely is sexual harassment and drug abuse and things like that, that happens to children at a very young age.

But I always tell people anecdotally, I was not sexually harassed on film sets. I was sexually harassed by fans, by adult men who were writing me obscene letters or who were putting things about me on websites that I discovered when I was far too young. Those were really the things that I had to deal with with a young age, and I still have to deal with to this day.

But it's less traumatic when somebody puts you on wiki feet and you're a grown adult. It is traumatic when somebody makes, say, a foot fetish website about you and you're 12. Oh my God. Yeah, because you're a child on top of being introduced to that part of the world that exists outside of your knowledge, you're now being introduced to it in a problematic capacity.

Yeah. I mean, you just realized that your life is not your own at a very young age, I think. And that is if you become successful as a child actor. There's been a lot of talk and probably too much, honestly, too much discourse about gifted child burnout. And really what I think is that it doesn't have to do with being gifted because we don't really know what gifted means.

We actually don't know that much about intelligence or giftedness. Totally. And I think that, like, for me, it was just, oh, this is kind of a fun hobby. That's a bit challenging and also a bit fun. I didn't care about being a star. I just wanted to keep acting.

I thought it was fun. And eventually I got kind of burned out on that too when I was tired of doing it. But then it felt like there was this immense pressure because I had to be the best after that. I had already hit these strides. And once I was old enough to know that I had reached these magnitudes, it was really hard.

Another thing that I think that a lot of people don't understand is that they kind of assume that all child actors are spoiled brats. And in my experience, the ones that behave like that don't get cast. The children that don't get cast if they are acting out, if they are misbehaving. We're all people-pleasers, really. That for us, the most important thing is to be good because time is money.

So you want to behave well and you want to get the take done right. And what that does is that encourages an environment where children are afraid to make mistakes. And I personally think the most important thing that kids can learn is to make mistakes because you learn better from making mistakes. But when there's millions of dollars on the line, you're going to be afraid to make mistakes.

Yeah, and it's so important to have that space to make mistakes before you even turn into a teenager. Like when you're a child, you learn so much. And then I can only think of examples from the Disney Channel pipeline. But a lot of times with that Disney Channel pipeline, you see people make mistakes once they turn 18 or once they're a young adult.

And of course they're going to be making mistakes then. They didn't have their childhood to do that. And what is the mistake? What defined mistake? Well, there were a lot of things that I felt like I missed out on. And I had to be very, very careful about. I was too afraid to drink or smoke weed or shoplift or do any of the things that kids I knew did.

I knew that I could never smoke cigarettes. And I was kind of a goody two shoes. So I kind of looked down on those things anyway. But I do know that when I first started drinking, I would only do it with people that I knew very well. And I would say, don't ever take pictures of me. I would duck out of the way at parties even when I was over 21. And there were times that people would take pictures of me at parties

or they would do things. And I would have to be like, you need to take that down right now. Even if there wasn't me holding a bottle or anything, even if it was just me acting out or being silly, I would say. Because that was something that happened to me a lot too, was people would post things about me even pre-social media. And that probably takes a toll on your trust with others to build friendships and relationships.

I mean, you were born in Burbank. Can you explain a little bit more about how that initial induction happened into the cult of child star, so to speak? But were you born into a Hollywood family or was it something you asked to do? I wasn't really in a Hollywood family. My mother had acted as a teenager and she was a big cinephile. And Burbank also has a very big aviation history.

So it was kind of nice for both of my parents because my mom was like, oh, she knew what Hollywood was. And she had also sort of experienced the cult of theater kids in college. There was a teacher that was very, a professor that was very unfair to her. And she didn't really want to act. She kind of just wanted to be a mom for a while, have a few jobs, but maybe not really a career. But I think that she did like the idea of being involved in it

and being close to it. And my father was an aviation nerd, so he liked the aviation history. But he was an engineer at a TV station. And I think my grandparents moved out to California too. And I think my grandfather must have done, he was working in PR at one time and they were looking for a toothpaste commercial for like real families.

And so my family was in a toothpaste commercial. And after that, my oldest brother who was very outgoing and charismatic was like, oh, I think I might want to do this a little bit more. So he got casting commercials in a couple of movies. He was in a movie with Tom Hanks. He did a couple of little things. And then I just like came out of the womb with the theater kid. I was just singing and dancing, dancing very terribly

and telling stories. And so I just wanted to perform. And I loved watching like old musicals with my mom and... What's your favorite musical? Oh, okay. Are we talking, are we talking movie musical? Well, I guess if we're talking, I was going to say, because movie musicals and stage musicals are a different thing.

Although Cabaret is right in that Venn diagram. I just watched it on a plane. I don't watch musicals at all. It's okay. It's okay. I completely understand. I like things like Cabaret. I like things like assassins. I grew up loving My Fair Lady in West Side Story. Very romantic, you know?

They are very romantic for kids. Yeah. And I always fell in love with like the queer coded sidekicks like Riff or like Cosmo and Singing in the Rain. Or the Disney villains. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I actually am a Disney villain. I do the voice of a Disney villain. So that's totally tracks.

I have a shirt that says Disney villain. I mean, isn't that what every little queer girl wants to grow up to be? Yeah, seriously. No, but honestly, I wanted to be Captain Hook so badly. Oh, yeah. I mean, I actually got some of my first big crushes on girls and on women working as a child actor. Like, there is no way that I would have developed my first big crush on Lucy Liu.

Or actually, I probably would have been Lucy Liu. But yeah, my first big, big crush was I worked with Lucy Liu when I was nine. And that was very formative for me. Anyway, so I saw what my brother was doing. And I kind of put two and two together and I wanted to go audition. And my parents discouraged me. They even put me through a mock audition because they really didn't want me to do it. And basically, they set up some ground rules.

And my mother, my mother was a very strong, you know, kind of dominant woman. She sort of ran the household while my dad was like the fun one. And he worked all the time and left his job. And she, you know, worked here and there, but was was running the household and was like, you know, PTA president and everything. But she was a very strong-willed woman. And she said, OK, well, what we're going to do is we're going to make sure that we never touch any of the money that you made.

And we are going to put that away for college. And I'm going to be asking you, you know, every, every time, do you want to keep doing this? And she also was very picky about the movies that I auditioned for. She turned a lot of things down and that's a really good. That's crucial. Well, it was, it was. And she also really thought that, like,

I remember getting the script for interview with a vampire. And she was like, my daughter is not even six yet. I think that something, and I remember saying to her, well, I want to be in things that my friends can see. Yeah. So I said, I want to be in things my friends can see. And and so they really tried to find good family films. And at the time, there really weren't that many.

I think good family films came came along later. But they they really I think that they just like never wanted me to be famous. And I never wanted to be famous. And I didn't even really know what being famous meant. And I was an outgoing child. I was an extroverted child. But what I usually say is that what being recognized felt like to me was kind of like what it feels like when they bring out a cake and sing to you

in the restaurant on your birthday. Yeah. Where suddenly everybody is staring at you and you weren't expecting it. Yeah. It's it's disarming, but also kind of enchanting for a short period of time. And then you're just like, I want to live my life, probably. Yes. Exactly.

Exactly. And also by the time that a movie comes out, it's usually like a year later in a child's life. So and that is forever ago. So I mean, I would see kids accept awards for voiceover parts that they had done before their voice before their voice changed. Yeah. And that happened a lot. So yeah.

And then the problem is and I always tell people this when people ask me, do you want, you know, should I get my kid into acting? What I always say is, well, first of all, your child will probably not become famous. Yeah. Very likely. And there are people, I mean, you want to talk Colty, there are people who would stand in the mall around where we lived and would say, oh, yeah. Do you think because I remember like I would go there with my little sister

and my little sister was like twice as cute as I was as a kid. She was beautiful and they would always be like, she's so beautiful. Does she act? And she knew she knew to stay away from that. Oh my God. It's like Mormon missionaries. It is. They're trying to recruit.

Often they would be like right, you know, down the mall, like a couple stores down from where like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons set up. They all stick together. It did feel like a bit a bit like religious. And a lot of these places would would charge you. But what I say is you're not setting your child up to be a star. You are probably setting them up to be a has been. And that's really the hard thing.

And I think that right now, you know, at this point, we've kind of reckoned with that. But I think that for a long time there was sort of this assumption that like as soon as a child grows up, as soon as they hit puberty and they're like, quote, not cute anymore, it's totally fine to either completely sexualize them, which you can see happened with people like Emma Watson and the Olsen twins or to be really cruel to them, which you can see happen to, you know, like I'm on the Stenberg. And I know like Haley Jalosman got this and a lot of girls got this. I got a lot of, well, you're ugly now.

You're ugly now. You're not pretty anymore. You're not pretty anymore. That's so horrible. And it's really hard to be like, or a lot of times you hear your fat now. And you can't, it's a sin to be not conventionally beautiful. And it's a sin to be, you know, fat. And it's a sin to be all of these things.

And it leads to, you know, I think a lot of dysmorphia. That's another reason why, I mean, I still do love acting, but I think to myself all the time, like I would rather do an audio book, be in, be doing voiceover, you know, maybe be on the stage than be in film because the idea of having a camera in my face again gives me anxiety. Cults in general, obviously, like are very controlling and they make it hard for their recruits to ask questions or talk back. And I'm wondering how much agency or saying power you had or didn't have as a kid in the entertainment business.

You know, it varied. I do think that my parents biggest thing was don't ever be a brat. Don't be a brat. But children are often only as good as who they're with. So if I was with my mother, she was very much in control. If I was with my father, I knew that I loved him and didn't want to disappoint him. I do think, though, that my father wasn't the cinephile my mother was. So some of the movies that I was in after my mother died were, you know, maybe not as good

because my father was a pragmatist. He was like, yeah, just keep working. It doesn't matter what movie you ran as long as you're acting. It's going to be fun and you're going to, you know, make money for college either way. So what does it matter if the movie is a classic or not? Yeah. Yeah, I think also a lot of people talk a lot about stage parents. And what I have seen is that there is not one kind of stage parent.

There are a million different kinds of stage parents. One thing I saw a lot were religious stage parents. I mean, Jeanette McCurdy's mom was like super religious. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, a lot of, you know, what they call Jack Mormons. A lot of people who say, oh, well, we're doing this. We're only going to be doing movies that we feel honor God. We're only going to be doing this kind of thing or that they want to,

like they come in saying, like, we're going to change Hollywood. They see Hollywood as corrupt, but they think, well, we're going to change it, which is a bit. Wow. What's the word, um, quixotic, quixotic, quixotic. Or culty. Or culty, to be like, we're going to change this. But, but also what I always tell people is that Hollywood isn't immoral, it's amoral. Totally.

I've said that literal same thing. Thank you. I think I texted it to you, Issa. I was like, this is amoral. Yeah, exactly. It's capitalist above all. And so it's completely amoral. There are people in it, of course, that are absolutely immoral.

But a lot of the times it's, it's you are a product and it's giving people what they want. And that also is something that frustrates me because people don't look at their role in what they're consuming. I know people who will go on and on about how terrible reality TV shows are, but then they'll talk about how much they also love to watch it. And it's like, okay, well, Hollywood, it's about supply and demand. They're giving it to you because you watch it. Exactly.

And I think that's something we try and say a lot on this podcast, is that like you as a consumer are listeners, like we're talking to you. You guys have the power, you know? I mean, like the Kardashians, for example, everyone says that they are like very capitalist and predatory with like their businesses. And it's like, unfollow them on Instagram. It's as simple as that. I also think that we tend to, and I think this happens a lot these days,

we like to have strong feelings about people. And we also like to put them up on pedestals and we like to take them down. And I think that there is almost like a bell curve of like, if you don't know anything about somebody, you might not really relate to them. If you know enough about somebody, you might like really relate to them. But if you know too much about somebody and you don't actually have a real social connection with them, you probably hate them because we love the people. And here I am getting all sociology minor on you.

Your book is brilliant, by the way. Yeah, I was reading it while getting over COVID. So thank you. Thanks for getting me through COVID. But yeah, it's very much like social connections are the most important things ever. And it's the same reason why like having, you know, the boss that's like mean to you, but also nice to you, those things hurt because they feel like we have a social connection, but we actually don't.

Yes. So true. Anyway, getting back to the stage parent thing though, one thing that I've been thinking a lot about is there are the people who live vicariously through their children. There are the people who use their children as a paycheck. There are people who think like, well, we're going to go there and we're going to convert Hollywood. There are also, I think, I mean, my mom never would have considered herself a stage mother, but I think that my mom was naturally like she was a very good producer.

She would have been a fantastic producer. And I know that if she'd lived longer, that was what she wanted to do. She wanted to get more into production. And that's the thing though, is she would have been really good at it. And I do think that I, you know, she would ask me, she would say, are you happy doing this? And I would say yes. But I do think there was kind of a, you know, and we would pretend to be immune, but like,

you know, Sir Anthony Hopkins was her favorite actor and he was filming at the soundstage next to us. Of course she was going to get into it. Yeah. And also some people do just have that like natural ability to produce. And if she enjoyed it, then that did make sense for like a next step in her career. I think also a lot of times, I started thinking recently that a lot of the times people get, you know, people be like, oh, that person was such a stage mother.

Probably what was happening was they were arguing for their child's rights. They were saying, I don't want my child working overtime. I don't want my child to be doing this on set. Oh, so it's almost like villainized when parents set boundaries. Both scenarios have to exist. Especially since a lot of the times it's a mother on set. Yeah, right. So it's a bitchy woman not knowing her place.

And I didn't know this until I read Jeanette's book halfway. Sorry, I famously do not finish books. I'm working on it. But I learned from her book that you have to split your time between work and acting. I mean, sorry, not work. School, school and acting, but I said work even just now without realizing it because for children, school is work. Yeah, there's kind of a double duty.

There's kind of a double shift. And there's even more. And that actually gets into something that I want to talk about, which is, you know, the definition of emotional labor, the original definition was it was not taking care of someone holding space for someone listening to somebody, which is what we say today. And like gaslight, I think we kind of weaponize it. Like, you know, I don't want to perform emotional labor for you,

somebody that I love and have promised to take care of, you know, which is like, well, maybe you kind of should. You know, not all the time, but sometimes. But emotional labor actually meant like having to, like one of the original examples was flight attendants. Flight attendants were told that, you know, they had to be cheerful and happy all the time, even though they were very likely getting sexually harassed,

that they were working this incredibly exhausting shift, you know, the toll that like being at 35,000 feet with recycled air can take on your body didn't matter. It was all about that. So they called it like, well, this is, this is what emotional labor is. It's having to change your emotions because of your job. And that is what being an actor can be like when you're recognized,

because you have to be happy all the time. And you have to be pleasant all the time. So we've talked a lot about the bad, but there are obviously positive aspects about being an occult. We talk about that all the time on the podcast, community and, you know, community. Or else like no one would join or want to stay. But do you remember having any super meaningful positive experiences

as a kid that made you want to continue in the business, even when other unfortunate things would happen? I mean, there were so many opportunities that I had. I got to meet people that were wonderful. And I have, I mean, I have stories about working with Robin Williams and Danny DeVito and them being incredibly kind to me. And like one of my first serious crushes being Lucy Liu,

who I worked on a pilot with and was, you know, so kind to me and so beautiful and so smart. And I wouldn't have gotten to travel to London and, you know, Madrid and Tokyo with the siblings that I had where we couldn't even afford to go to a motel, you know, where we were a camping family. That was the kind of, you know, extravagant cool thing that we got to do.

And we would basically treat it as a family vacation. So those things I think were wonderful and the people that I met were really wonderful. And I think that for a long time, I was really frustrated to be Matilda. But now I look at that and I think, okay, well, I've always liked kids and now I have little girls coming up to me at conventions

dressed like Matilda. I dress like Matilda. Did you? Oh my gosh. And I love pancakes. I mean, like, literally. It was like the movie that, like, developed my relationship with pancakes. For Amanda, it was books.

For me, it was pancakes. Well, listen, I relate to Matilda and, like, take a lot of inspiration from Matilda to this day. Like, I repeat in my mind like a mantra, I am a tiny brunette girl who loves books, who will destroy people who are mean to me with only my mind. Well, exactly.

I mean, how many characters are there like that? Like, this was, like, pre Hermione and pre, like, I'm trying to think of, like, what other, like, bookish girls there are out there. And the hero who, like, saves you is also another woman. Like, it was really, like, new for its time. Well, Ann, you saved her with your mind, with your mind. And it's about chosen family and finding a family

and it also being okay if, you know, you're born into a family that doesn't understand you. And this is something that I think, I think that Danny really understood and Robin and Nick, who wrote the script, really understood. And also, like, I had that community where my mother was dying of cancer.

And I also know, I mean, I'm pragmatic about it, too. I know that I wouldn't have gotten into the college that I got into or been able to pay for it without it. I wouldn't have been able to spend my 20s writing for comedy sites and, you know, babysitting and working for, like, nonprofit jobs. I wouldn't have been able to do those things, you know, in New York City without the money that I'd made.

I wouldn't have been able to live the life that I've liked to live. And I do think that, you know, while it gave me, it gave me a lot of baggage, a lot of angst, you know, a lot of trust issues, it also gave me some really wonderful experiences. So now we're going to play a classic Sounds Like a Cult game. It's just a simple, what's cultier?

Child stars edition. We're going to read two scenarios, and you'll just rapid fire respond. Which do you think is cultier? All right. The first one. Which do you think is cultier? Entertainment executives or entertainment reporters? Oh. Oh. I've known some very good ones of both,

but there are also some bad ones of both. So I might actually say reporters. Reporters. I agree. Okay. Slightly more. Slightly more. Which do you think is cultier? Stage parents or rabid fans? Rabid fans. Rabid fans, I think, a little bit more

because there's more of them. And also because I think they tend to attack people who don't like what they like. And they don't know you. Your parents know you. Exactly. Okay. Which is cultier? Onset tutoring or long press days? Long press days, definitely.

Onset tutoring actually isn't that bad. In fact, usually when I got the best grades in school, it was because I had good studio teachers who paid individual attention to me when I couldn't really be paid that much attention to in a class of 30 students. Right. So long press days, junkets are exhausting. Oh, horrible.

Which is cultier, the life of a child actor or the life of a child musician? Oh, probably actor because there's more attention to child actors. I do think, though, that the sort of gifted kid burnout thing is more likely to happen with child musicians, but also not everybody knows child musicians.

Everybody knows child actors. Yeah. Which is cultier? Having a doll made out of you or receiving a stalkery letter from an adult fan? Stalkery letters, definitely. I've had dolls made out of me. And actually, it was weird at first, but it was kind of nice.

In fact, I actually have one right here that a fan made for me, which is adorable. And I love it. And it's completely, it's a completely knitted doll. And even her little, it's Matilda, and even her little book is knitted. And it's so cute. Yeah. I would say like having a doll made out of you

is definitely culty, but it's kind of a live your life thing to do. Exactly. Whereas the stalkery letter is like, get the fuck out. Okay. Last one. Which is cultier, the pressure on a child's star or the pressure on an adult who used to be a child's star? Oh, probably on a child's star,

but that's not to say that there isn't pressure on us too. Yeah. Well, because I think that's probably cultier because the pressure on the child's star then affects the pressure on. So it's like a two in one. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking with us about everything. Yes.

Cult of child's stars. If folks want to keep up with you and your work, how can they do that respectfully in a live your life kind of way? I'm at Mara Wilson on pretty much everything. And I also have a sub stack that I haven't updated in a while, but I will, which is mara.substack.com. M-A-R-A. And yeah, and it's called,

Shouldn't We Tell the Vicar because I always come up with a fake BBC show title. Amazing. So, Issa, out of the three cult categories, live your life. Watch your back. And get the fuck out. What do you think about the cult of child's stars? My instinct is to say it's a get the fuck out. But then as someone who does watch TV,

I'm like, what the fuck would we do without them? And then, I mean, we heard from Mara, she had some very positive experiences, as long as you have like a good guardian. And so in my professional and personal opinion, it is a heavy, heavy watch your back. Especially the younger that you start, the more you have to watch your back,

not alone, but have multiple parties watching your back for you. Yes, yes. As child's stars ourselves, we know how many people you need protecting you in this industry. Lawyers, no. Oh my God, yeah. Lawyers, I mean. Parents.

Yeah, your parents honestly support people to ground you. Anyway. There should be like entertainment lawyers just for children. Maybe there are. I bet there are. Like us. I know, we are such a baby, somebody protect us. But yeah, I was trying to think of like,

if this is truly a get the fuck out, what would the alternative be? Would it be that like kids just have to watch animated shows and movies where the kids are voiced by adults? I mean, that is an option. But I wouldn't want to have had to give up my experience watching Mara Wilson. I have to also just say,

it touched my heart so much to have Matilda say that she read and liked my book. I'll never forget it. As long as I live, I'll never forget it. But yeah, I think it is a hardcore watch your back. And you know, I think it is the responsibility of all of us consumers of the media to not make the cult worse than it is.

I completely agree. We are on the same page girly. So for everyone out there listening and thinking, you know, these two girls, they sound so young and so baby-like. We are full adults, if you can believe it. We are above the age of 18. And we're just regular stars.

We're not child's friends. Oh my God. I have kind of stopped getting carded. No, I got carded last night. I'm still getting carded. She's still got it. Yeah, that's because you wear baby clothes. Not because of what you look like.

It's because I wear baby clothes. I am also very short. Anyway, that is our show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. Sounds like a cult is created, hosted,

and produced by Issa Medina and Amanda Montell. Our research and social media assistant is Naomi Griffin. Our theme music is by Casey Kolb. Our editor for this episode was Ariana Giles. It was finalized and mixed by Jordan Moore of the podcast. To follow the podcast on socials, you can find us at Sounds Like a Cult Pod. And Issa here to follow me on socials

and see you where I perform and get tickets to all of my live shows. You can follow me on Instagram at Issa Medina, ISAA, M-E-D-I-N-A-A. And Amanda here. You can feel free to find me on Instagram at Amanda underscore Montell and check out my books. Cultish the language of fanaticism and wordslet,

a feminist guide to taking back the English language. We also have a Patreon and we'd appreciate your support there. If you'd like, it's patreon.com slash sounds like a cult. And if you like our show, feel free to leave a rating on Spotify or Apple podcasts. And if you don't like our show, feel free to rate other podcasts the way you'd rate us.