Making a movie isn't child's play — even for a child actor.
Throughout Hollywood history, kids in the industry have been called upon to act in harrowing
roles that push the limits of their abilities, and according to some critics, the boundaries
of good taste.
Here are some of the most famous examples of underage actors in mature roles.
Dakota Fanning, Hounddog
In 2007, 12 year-old Fanning shocked critics and viewing audiences alike by taking the
role of the neglected, abused Lewellen in this coming-of-age drama — which includes
a scene in which her character is taken.
Though the violent act is strictly implied with shots of Fanning's face and hands, the
film was subject to intense backlash from viewers, critics, and activist groups who
felt that the young actress shouldn't have been allowed to join the production.
Fanning responded to the criticism by pushing back, saying, "It's a movie and it's called
acting.
[...] I wanted to do the film because I thought it might help one person that has happened
to and help them overcome adversity in their lives."
Unfortunately, Fanning's hopes of reaching abuse survivors were effectively undermined
by the controversy, which killed the film's buzz.
Hounddog only earned $131,000 against its $3 million budget after a limited release.
Natalie Portman, The Professional
Seventeen years before she danced her way to an Oscar win, Portman made her big-screen
debut in this 1993 thriller as Mathilda, a little girl whose family is taken by a
corrupt DEA agent.
When she takes refuge with a neighbor — who happens to be a hitman — he becomes her
mentor in all things vengeance, a relationship tinged by an uneasy chemistry between the
two.
At twelve years old, Portman was the exact same age as the character she was playing
— and watching her smoke, shoot, and even hold a gun to her own head made for a shocking
spectacle, albeit one that proved she was a star who could handle the most challenging
roles out there.
"One shot, not bad.
Huh?"
Kirsten Dunst, Interview with the Vampire
This list wouldn't be complete without this chilling performance by Dunst, in one of her
very first feature film roles.
In Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Dunst's character Claudia was only five years old
when she was turned into a vampire — but even for Hollywood, that would have been pushing
it.
Instead, the role went to the eleven year-old actress, who went all-out to capture the anger,
violence, and near-insanity of an adult woman who's trapped for eternity in the body of
a little girl.
As disturbing as it was to see Dunst tackle the challenging material, she did do an amazing
job, earning a Golden Globe nomination and a permanent spot on the A-list for her performance.
Christian Bale, Empire of the Sun
Long before he became famous for American Psycho, The Machinist, or The Dark Knight
trilogy, Christian Bale won critical acclaim for playing the role of Jim in the 1987 Steven
Spielberg war film Empire of the Sun.
The movie is essentially a coming-of-age drama set during Japan's occupation of China during
World War II, and Bale was just thirteen when he took on the challenging role of a boy who
goes from living a comfortable life with his family in Shanghai to growing up behind the
barbed wire of a Japanese internment camp.
Spielberg doesn't pull any punches with Empire of the Sun, and despite being just a child
himself, Bale delivers an emotional and commanding performance as a boy faced with the horrors
of war.
Macaulay Culkin, The Good Son
Evil kids have been a staple of thriller and horror movies over the years, but that didn't
stop audiences from being alarmed by the sight of little Kevin McCallister from Home Alone
playing this cold-blooded, pint-sized psychopath in The Good Son.
There's no supernatural element driving Henry's penchant for mayhem.
He's just plain bad.
When his cousin Mark, played by Elijah Wood, comes to visit Henry's family during winter
vacation, things turn decidedly dark.
It's hard to decide what's more disturbing — watching a 12-year-old try to take everyone
that crosses him…
"Don't f--- with me"
...or trying to pretend that it wasn't hilarious to watch this same little kid perpetrate savage
acts of violence against two bumbling criminals in a John Hughes Christmas comedy just three
years earlier.
"Ah"
Because of the obvious Home Alone parallels, The Good Son wasn't really scary enough to
make anyone scream… except maybe Culkin's parents, who had to watch Macaulay very convincingly
attempt to murder his real-life little sister Quinn in scenes like this one.
Jodie Foster, Taxi Driver
Foster stirred up quite a controversy when she appeared as child walker Iris in Martin
Scorsese's 1976 classic Taxi Driver.
"You talkin to me?"
While not the central figure of the film, Iris still plays an important part when her
path crosses with the troubled Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro — and Foster was
just twelve when she played the role.
For that reason, Scorsese took precautions: his young star was subjected to psych evaluations
to make sure she could handle the job, and her older sister Connie was used as a stand-in
for suggestive scenes.
Olivia Hussey and Claire Danes, Romeo & Juliet
Shakespeare's famous play centers on a pair of star-crossed teenage lovers — but it's
also full of sex, violence, and ending.
That means that casting actual teenagers in the lead roles has historically raised some
eyebrows.
First came Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 adaptation, in which actress Olivia Hussey was only 15,
and her Romeo, Leonard Whiting, was 17.
Thirty years later, director Baz Luhrmann went with an older Romeo in the form of Leonardo
DiCaprio, who was 21 at the time.
But Claire Danes, who played Juliet, was just 16 — which made her two years older than
her character, but in some folks' opinions, still much too young to be playing a scene
like this onscreen.
Jacob Reynolds, Gummo
Not many entries on this list can top 1997's experimental dystopian art film Gummo when
it comes to making audiences squirm.
Written and directed by Harmony Korine, Gummo chronicles the lives of several residents
of Xenia, Ohio, following the effects of a devastating tornado.
The movie comprises an interconnected series of scenes that offer a glimpse into depravity,
demoralization, and the depths of poverty — with a linchpin performance by thirteen
year-old Jacob Reynolds as Solomon, a kid whose hobbies include taking cats, huffing
glue, and paying a developmentally disabled girl to have relations with him.
Most critics panned Gummo for its pervasive graphic content, but it was lauded by a few
filmmakers, including famed director Werner Herzog —who particularly liked this scene
featuring Solomon chowing down on junk food in a bathtub.
Sue Lyon and Dominique Swain, Lolita
The premise of Vladimir Nabokov's classic novel about a middle-aged man's obsession
with an adolescent girl makes it tough to adapt for the screen — especially when it
comes to casting the title character.
But that hasn't stopped directors from trying.
In 1962, Stanley Kubrick did a more oblique take on the material, with James Mason as
Humbert Humbert and Sue Lyon as Lolita.
At fourteen, Lyon was two years older than her character, and Kubrick was careful to
skirt the content of Nabokov's novel.
"Have you told her anything about us?"
"No, have you?"
But the film and Lyon's role in it still proved controversial.
And this is one topic that hasn't become less of a hot potato with the passage of time:
when director Adrian Lyne made his own Lolita more than thirty years later, with 15-year-old
Dominique Swain in the title role, the movie was forced to premiere on cable when it couldn't
find an American distributor — and critics in England even tried to get the film banned.
The entire cast of Kids
This film centers on the lives of several teenagers — and their lives — during
the height of the AIDS epidemic, and it doesn't shy away from showing teenagers in some seriously
disturbing situations.
The characters in Kids engage in a lot of risky behaviors, from doing drugs to having
unprotected with folks, and the cast was made up entirely of teenagers,
which made for plenty of controversy when the film premiered with an NC-17 rating.
All these years later, it's still a polarizing work of art.
Brooke Shields, Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon
As a girl, actress Brooke Shields appeared in two different movies that placed her front-and-center
in the debate about children and on-screen stuff.
At age 12, she starred in Pretty Baby as a child prostitute living with her mother in
a New Orleans brothel at the turn of the 20th century.
The film — and Shields' in it — was criticized by many, and the movie was even
banned in two Canadian provinces.
"Well you certainly did it, didn't you?"
However, the backlash didn't put the actress off controversial material; just two years
later, Shields appeared in The Blue Lagoon as a shipwrecked girl growing up on an island
with only her cousin, played Christopher Atkins, for company.
As they reach puberty, they eventually fall in love, and even have a child — a plot
point which raised eyebrows, as did several scenes involving the fourteen year-old
Shields.
Linda Blair, The Exorcist
Widely recognized as one of the greatest horror movies of the 20th century, The Exorcist was
also extremely controversial, with famed critic Roger Ebert even suggesting it deserved an
"X" rating instead of the "R" it was given by the MPAA — even though he loved it.
That's partly because of its horrifying subject matter, but the presence of an actual thirteen
year-old girl in the role of the possessed Regan MacNeil was also considered problematic.
Linda Blair's performance was central to some of the most disturbing, disgusting, obscene,
and vulgar sequences in the film, although she pushed back against rumors that being
in the movie had psychologically scarred her.
She explained: "A lot of untruthful stories were made up about me being mentally disturbed
by the movie.
I never was because I never bought into the whole Devil thing."
Instead, it was the physical demands of The Exorcist that had a prolonged impact; Blair
fractured her spine while filming this levitation scene, an injury that would later develop
into scoliosis and cause the actress ongoing health problems well into adulthood.
Tatum O'Neal, Paper Moon
This 1973 comedy-drama is a lot more tame than some of the other entries on this list,
but it definitely has its moments — like this one, where its nine year-old star casually
enjoys a cigarette before bedtime.
Tatum O'Neal and real-life father, Ryan O'Neal, play characters named Addie and Mose, a pair
of unlikely partners in crime on a cross-country road trip.
Throughout the film, we watch the absolutely tiny Tatum smoke, drink, and con people out
of their money like an old pro.
And when Mose starts to neglect Addie in favor of an "exotic dancer" named Trixie, played
by Madeline Kahn, the jealous girl even devises her own con to get Trixie dumped.
The movie might have been more controversial if Tatum hadn't been so talented in the role;
her performance earned widespread acclaim, and she ultimately won an Academy Award for
the part, making her the youngest competitive Oscar winner in history.
Chloe Moretz: Kick-Ass
At the age of 11, Moretz landed her most controversial role: vigilante superhero Hit-Girl in the
2010 movie Kick-Ass.
Compared to most little girls — and also to most grown men and women — Hit-Girl is
a hardened and nihilistic figure, punctuating her frequent murders with obscenity-laden
one-liners.
Kick-Ass met with backlash for its violence and language, with many critics especially
horrified by Moretz's character, and it received a well-deserved "R" rating from the MPAA...
which meant that its most hardcore tween-aged hero wasn't able to watch herself drop f-bombs
in Kick-Ass without adult supervision.
"Ohhhhkay, geez!"
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