- My knees start shaking.
No, I messed up!
And I did it, gosh darn it!
I was on the show!
Hey guys, I'm Joey King
and I'm here with Seventeen
to take a look back at my career.
This is then versus now.
I have been acting since I was four years old.
So I'm gonna tell you all the ways
that my career has changed since then.
My first job was a live cereal commercial.
I remember filming it like it was yesterday, actually.
I was really excited and it's still
my favorite cereal to this day. Cinnamon Life, to be exact.
I was a kid, I was just having so much fun.
I do remember, though,
when I spilled the milk,
I started crying and like everyone on set,
I remember, including my mom,
was like, "No, it's okay."
"that's a good thing. It was really cute."
And I started crying, I was like, "No, I messed up."
So yeah, I remember that very vividly.
Oh man, that's a good one.
How long it took me to memorize my lines then?
It would take me a few hours, probably.
I would beat myself up about it,
I'd have to read over and over again.
I'd be like, "Oh gosh, like, I gotta get this down."
And then now, I'm pretty good about,
like, looking at it maybe once or twice
and it's in there.
I've got great short-term memory.
Long-term memory is crap, though. (laughs)
Oh boy.
Well, like, how long I took in hair and makeup
really depended on the project, of course.
I mean, as a kid, mostly like 10 minutes.
Like, they're not gonna put tons of makeup on a kid.
Although, for the movie Quarantine,
I did have to have a lot of prosthetics
and all this blood on.
So, that was probably the longest.
And now, I guess, well, for press and stuff like this today,
it takes me about, you know, like two hours to get cute.
But on set, they can hopefully do it
in, like, 45, depending on how puffy I wake up that morning.
You know, there's a lot of factors in there.
Ooh, my favorite costumes then.
I loved my costume in White House Down.
I got to wear this, like,
cute little octopus shirt and all this stuff.
And I got to keep some of that stuff, too,
which was really cool.
I still have it in a box somewhere.
Now, I don't know.
It's hard for me to say because with stuff like The Act,
they were so different than what I'm used to wearing
in, you know, a show or a movie,
which is basically dressing like the character
that I'm normally playing
or that I have played before.
This was a bit different.
I got to wear some pretty wild costumes
not just when Dee Dee was making Gypsy dress, like,
you know, in oversized clothes.
But then when Gypsy was doing her video chats
with her boyfriend, she would wear quite the outfits.
So, I got to play a lot on that job
How I choose roles then would be to go in an audition room
and do my best and be like, "Oh, God, I hope I get it."
Which was great.
I mean, I had so much fun doing that
but now I'm very lucky.
I get to be more picky.
I read a lot of scripts and I have some ideas of,
like, what I do want to do.
Sometimes I'll present an idea to a studio
and they'll either like it or not like it.
So I'm a little bit more capable of choosing,
which is so fortunate.
My acting inspiration.
Oh, geez. Then?
It's not that my acting inspirations have changed.
It's more that I've discovered more people.
And I think my inspiration now is Patricia Arquette.
I love her. I love working with her.
She inspires me.
I mean, for different reasons,
before I even worked with her,
she was also really high up there.
in my inspirations then, too.
What kind of roles matter to me then versus now
is actually pretty similar.
I think, like,
if a role speaks to me in any way, shape or form,
it doesn't matter what I have done or what I want to do.
Like, I don't have this, like, map out of my career.
This, like, five year plan or anything.
I just basically do what makes me happy
right then and there.
You know, with this role,
like The In Between,
I loved this character's, just,
journey from being closed off
and then opening herself up to love.
And just, like,
it's a movie that spoke to me and felt right.
And so I wanted to do it.
Then the next several movies I have
are very, very different.
So I wanna keep myself on my toes.
That's a really good one.
My level of stage fright then?
Zero, the no fear of stage.
Like, could talk in front of tons of people. No fear.
Now, I don't know what happened.
My knees start shaking the minute I hear that,
like, if I see more than 12 people
sitting in front of me in an audience.
So, I guess maybe when you get older,
you become less, like, uninhibited or something.
I don't know.
Or maybe, like, your fear of humiliation
just grows as you get a little bit older.
And I'm fine with humiliating myself.
I've done it plenty of times before.
But for some reason, just being in front of a crowd
versus, like, what it used to be,
no nerves then, lots of nerves now.
My favorite movie to watch then.
Brother Bear, for sure.
Best movie ever. Now, Brother Bear.
(laughing) No.
Actually, though, I really love that movie.
It stayed with me forever.
It's, like, the most nostalgic film to me.
It's my fave.
But now I'm a little bit,
I used to be like a serial repeat watcher.
Like, every movie, I would just watch movies on repeat.
So I wasn't watching tons of new films.
Now, I try to make it a point to watch,
like, something new, unless I'm very, very tired.
Then I'll put on something I've seen already
just so I don't feel bad falling asleep to it.
But I try to open myself up to a lot more new movies now.
Dream co-star then was,
well, if we're talking then-then,
like, little, was Dylan and Cole Sprouse
on the Sweet Life of Zack and Cody.
And I did it, gosh darn it!
I on the show for two episodes and it was amazing.
Now? Well, I got to work with Kyle Allen
on The In Between. I had the best time.
And so when you get to work with someone like that
who's just an amazing scene partner
and an amazing person off screen, too,
that's a dream co-star
'cause you just get to have a blast
doing what you love to do every day.
The advice that I would give myself then
versus now, I think it'd be the same, both.
I think I would tell myself
people are gonna be pretty mean on your journey
up to where you're gonna get to,
but that I have like a huge love of life.
And I have like a very
kind of, like, childlike view of life
where I try to view it in a nice way most of the time.
And I don't wanna lose that.
Sometimes I don't view it like that.
But be nice to myself when not everyone is nice to me.
Then, the very first time I was ever recognized
was at my sister's 13th birthday party
at a bowling alley for the Sweet Life of Zach and Cody
and I signed paper plates.
I didn't have a signature. I was like seven. (laughs)
So I just wrote "Joey" in strained writing.
Now I'm like, "Don't look at me!"
No, I'm just kidding.
Now, it's really still very exciting to me
because it means that people have seen my work
and it either resonated with them
or they thought it was funny
or something about it stuck with them.
And I've had some interesting encounters, too.
Not all of them are nice, which is unique.
But the nice ones I'm very grateful for.
And I'm so appreciative when people
take the time to watch anything that I do.
And then if they want to tell me that they loved it
and they liked it, it's very welcome.
Social media then versus now.
Then I was like, "Oh my God, I want an Instagram!"
Now,
I've got very confusing feelings on social media.
I'm addicted to it, but I'm also a little wary of it.
I feel like it is such a great way to just
directly tell people what I have going on
and, like, what they could seek.
And that's always really fun
'cause I'm very proud of my work.
And so being able to promote it is a big privilege to me.
Meeting other celebrities then versus now,
I'm still very excited when I meet
some celebrities I love, then and now.
Then, it was, you know, Dylan and Cole Sprouse.
And now, I mean, I've got a lot of people
that I want to meet.
I'm a big fan of David Sedaris, the author,
and his sister Amy Sedaris
and that whole Sedaris family, actually.
So I'm big fans of them. Would love to meet them one day.
My biggest goal for myself then versus now.
Then was to, I don't know.
I mean, I guess it's still the same.
Like, I wanted to tell myself,
which I feel like I've done an okay job at doing,
is like, don't ever do something
because you feel like it's the right move.
Do it because you like, like it or love it.
Career-wise, anyway.
For example, like, with Kissing Booth,
a couple people told me that I shouldn't do it.
They were wrong. (laughs)
So I mean, it's just like,
go with your gut and you'll make mistakes
and I've made plenty,
but I don't regret them
'cause it's part of my journey
and I'm not trying to be like anyone else.
I'm trying to have my own path.
So I've really enjoyed
just kind of going with my gut then and now.
Tell me how you think I've changed
over the years in the comments. Bye!
That bye sounded like the monkey from Nickelodeon
where he is like, "Hi, I'm Paul!"