10 Child Actors who played Shockingly mature roles
Being a child actor can be pretty rough.
From domineering parents to exploring the darker side of Hollywood, to being held responsible
in part for the success of movies with huge budgets, it can be a scary world being a child
in Hollywood.
It’s also not uncommon to see directors pushing the boundaries of what young actors
could and should be allowed to do in the movies.
This can be to make the audience uncomfortable, or for a variety of other reasons.
Here are our 10 Child Actors who are known for dark roles.
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Natalie Portman - Leon Nowadays Natalie Portman is probably best
known for her appearances in the Star Wars prequels and her Oscar winning role in “The
Black Swan”, but way back in 1994 she was known for a French movie called “Leon: The
Professional”.
Starring alongside Jean Reno and Gary Oldman (in a role frequently cited as one of the
best movie villains ever), Natalie Portman plays a young girl with a very uncomfortable
relationship with Reno, who begins to teach her how to be an assassin.
The role stirred up a lot of controversy at the time for depicting a young girl wielding
guns.
Safety was paramount however as Natalie Portman was taught how to correctly handle and load
a gun to ensure that there were no accidents on set.
It was also controversial for Portman’s portrayal of a preternatural adult/child,
a young kid pretending the role of wife and daughter in a family of assassins.
The theatrical cut of the movie also removed around 20 minutes of footage, some of which
contained Portman’s character attempting to get a kiss out of Jean Reno, and other
uncomfortable scenes that American audiences apparently weren’t ready for.
Hayley Joel Osment – The Sixth Sense/A.I.
Artificial Intelligence In the role that to this day is his most iconic,
Hayley Joel Osment saw dead people in the sixth sense.
While Hayley Joel Osment now largely does smaller budget independent films such as Tusk
and Me Him Her, there was a time when you would regularly see him in big Hollywood productions.
Hayley Joel Osment’s role in the Sixth Sense and his role in A.I. had him dealing with
a lot of dark themes, such as loss and abandonment.
While the Sixth Sense is his most iconic in terms of the macabre concept of a child seeing
ghosts all the time, A.I. had him rolling around with a robotic sex worker by the name
of Gigolo Joe.
What set Hayley out from other child actors at the time, was that he could turn in a stellar
performance in spite of his age.
Especially when working with a director like Steven Spielberg who specialises in getting
great performances out of children.
Video Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fltUauX6FKk
Dakota Fanning – Hounddog The roles that Dakota Fanning has taken on
make Chloe Grace Moretz in Equaliser look tame.
When your role in the apocalyptic Spielberg disaster movie War of the Worlds is one of
your tamer ones, you know you’ve done some dark material.
Dakota Fanning’s role in Hounddog is now infamous for the scene in which 12 year old
Dakota Fanning is raped.
The scene was so shocking that despite critics like Roger Ebert giving the movie praise,
Hound dog still stands at only 15% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Despite the viscious violence of the scene, Fanning does not seem to regret it, nor have
been negatively affected by it.
In fact she was pretty angry at the response that the scene got, particularly because most
of the criticisms were being aimed not at the director or screenwriter, but to her mother
for allowing her to appear in the scene.
Jodie Foster – Taxi Driver Without Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver we probably
would have never seen Chloe Grace Moretz in the Equaliser.
The Martin Scorsese classic starred Jodie Foster opposite Robert De Niro, as Iris Steensma,
child sex worker who the ever unpredictable Travis Bickle is trying to protect.
Despite her being iconic in the role, Jodie Foster was not the first choice, the role
was original considered for girls such as Linda Blair, Bo Derrick and Carrie Fisher
but ultimately they all turned it down.
Only Jodie Foster was willing to take on such a risky role.
The role of Iris, alongside her bizarre role as Tallulah in the “kids with guns” mafia
movie Bugsy Malone, launched the actress into super- stardom.
Jodie Foster was nominated for an academy award for best actress, alongside Robert De
Niro, who was nominated for best actor.
6.
Ryan Gosling – Are You Afraid of the Dark We need to lighten the tone a bit after so
many scenes linked to child abuse.
Ryan Gosling may not have had the dark roles that Dakota Fanning or Hayley Joel Osment
have had, but he did appear in episodes of both Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the
Dark.
While not exactly horror, when you’re a kid watching these shows they were surprisingly
scary.
Ryan Gosling first appeared in “The Tale of Station 109.1” a story about a creepy
radio station.
It was one of Ryan Gosling’s earliest roles and is the darkest thing he ever did as a
child.
While not scary by any adult standard, it was a cool role for a kid to take.
Since then Ryan Gosling has matured greatly as an actor, appearing in largely crime and
detective movies such as “The Nice Guys”, “Only God Forgives”, “Drive” and Blade
Runner 2049.
Being one of the better actors around today, it all started with one role on a kids TV
show years ago.
Linda Blair – The Exorcist Frequently cited as one of the greatest movies
of all time, William Friedkin’s horror classic revolves around the demonic possession and
exorcism of a 12 year old girl, and the story of the troubled priest who performs the exorcism.
Linda Blair’s performance in the movie was as captivating as it was horrifying, causing
some audience members to faint and others to leave outright.
It was shocking to see such a young girl using such foul language and doing such disturbing
things.
Blair comes across as both tortured and scared as Regan, as well as being downright terrifying
as the demon Pazuzu.
While Mercedes McCambridge performed the voice of Pazuzu, the physical acting is all Blair,
and she is very intimidating.
Friedkin wanted to get smaller actors in the role so that the audience wouldn’t be distrated
by the stars.
Friedkin famously rejected Marlon Brando in the role of Father Merrin to prevent the movie
from becoming a Brando movie, and picked Linda Blair not only for her great performance but
because she was an unknown who could disappear in the role.
Having been banned and re-cut for theatrical releases many times, The Exorcist has by far
the greatest, and darkest child performance of all.
7.
Drew Barrymore – Poison Ivy Drew Barrymore is an actress that had trouble
with alcohol and drugs throughout her youth.
So it’s not surprising that the god daughter of Stephen Spielberg would try to shed her
good girl persona in the 1992 movie, Poison Ivy.
Barrymore played Ivy, a dark, violent and sexually promiscuous teenage girl willing
to murder to get her way.
Barrymore, who was only 17 at the time had also appeared in new photo shoots around the
same time and was making quite the uproar.
This proved to be only the first of many raunchier roles that Drew Barrymore played at a relatively
young age.
While she was far from a child, she was not legal in most states in America which led
to a predictable parental outcry about decency.
Some claimed that she used a body double, which has never been confirmed.
What we do know is that the movie caused enough of a stir to have both an R rated cut and
an unrated cut.
The R rated cut removed scenes such as the kiss between the two lead women as well as
multiple, admittedly tame sex scenes.
Millie Bobby Brown – Stranger Things One of the main praises of the Netflix TV
series Stranger Things, was that in addition to capturing the feel and cinematography of
80s movies, it’s child actors were actually able to turn in stellar performances that
are very rare in modern cinema and TV.
Millie Bobby Brown’s role as the gifted child, Eleven, was definitely the stand out
role of the series.
The young actress played a powerful, complex but ultimate emotionally vulnerable character
that captured the hearts of millions of watchers around the globe.
Brown had to be able to play a character that was not only mentally tortured, but also mentally
scared from actions that she performed in rage.
This was not the only dark show that Brown performed in.
She also garnered acclaim for her role in Intruders, a crime TV show in which she turned
in a performance so good that it even attracted the attention of Stephen King himself.
Chloe Grace Moretz – The Equalizer Moretz is one of a few young actors that have
largely avoided the more childish roles that you’d expect them to take.
While she has appeared in a Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Moretz has largely been known for her
more serious roles.
It started with Kick Ass, in which she played a foul mouthed murderous child in the form
of Hit Girl, but despite it being her most famous, it’s probably not her darkest role.
Outside of appearing in the unpopular remake of Carrie, Moretz’ darkest role to date
was probably her part in The Equaliser starring Denzel Washington.
The Neo-Noir crime movie put her in the role of a young teenage sex worker.
While she was certainly not a “child” actor at this point, Moretz was certainly
young enough to make the audience feel uncomfortable with her character.
Christian Bale – Empire of the Sun Christian Bale isn’t someone that usually
comes to mind when you think of child actors.
It’s a lot more likely you’ll think of him as Batman or even American Psycho.
Despite this Bale was in movies as far back as the 80s, appearing in both the musical
Newsies and Empire of the Sun, the 1987 Steven Spielberg picture based on the book of the
same name.
Empire of the Sun follows Bale as a schoolboy who winds up in a Japanese internment camp
during World War 2.
Spielberg, who as we’ve mentioned is well known for his work with children cast a 12
year old Christian Bale who knocked it out of the park.
Even at a young age Bale was a very dedicated actor and while he, thankfully, didn’t quite
go to “kill yourself” extremes like he did in The Machinist and The Fighter- he was
praised greatly for having such empathy for an extreme situation.
Is there any we missed out?
If so leave a comment and let us know!
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