Honk if You Hate Kid Actors

[gwynplaine]

^ Yeah. There have been some great kid actor's performances in the past and usually there is a great director behind. A few off the top of my head:

Jean Pierre Leaud in 400 Blows
The kids in Night of the Hunter
Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon
Danny Lloyd in The Shining

 

[gwynplaine]

I thought that the kid in Life of Pi was pretty good too.

 

[Eddie Dean]

Danny Lloyd in The Shining is one of my favorite performances on all time. I might be a little prejudice because I saw at a very young age, but I love it anyway. It's amazing that he didn't know that he was making a horror movie until years later.

The little girl who plays Pearl in Night of the Hunter isn't really that good of an actor, but her performance in really endearing in the same way the voices in Charlie Brown specials are.

 

[gwynplaine]

I thought that she was good enough and that Laughton got exactly what he needed out of her (fascinating to see how he directed the kids on the blu ray extras.) Her scenes with Mitchum are pretty scary and awesome.

 

[Mace Dolex]

Mine is a little obscure since I had to look him up but I hated that foul mouthed punk kid who disses John McLane in Die Hard With A vengeance, if he talked like that to me I would've kicked him in the face WITH A VENGEANCE!! heh you see how I worked the title into it?

according to IMDB his name is Patrick Borriello

 

[Quasimod0]

The girl in the new true grit was great. If she counts.

 

[Drizzle]

Judd Apatow's kids were annoying as hell in This Is 40. Particularly the older one.

 

[Donut]

Mine is a little obscure since I had to look him up but I hated that foul mouthed punk kid who disses John McLane in Die Hard With A vengeance, if he talked like that to me I would've kicked him in the face WITH A VENGEANCE!! heh you see how I worked the title into it?

according to IMDB his name is Patrick Borriello

The kid from Cop Out was annoying. But at least he got punched in the nuts

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Apparently a lot of your have either never had kids, never been around kids or don't remember what you were like when you were a kid. A lot of complaining about kids acting like kids. I have never been too much of a fan of the grown up in the kids body, like Dakota Fanning in most of her roles. It rings false. I'll give you Jake Lloyd as Anakin, basically because the character as written and the casting did not fit at all, but that really wasn't Jake's fault.

 

[Quasimod0]

I'm with kids all the time so I don't really have a problem with kids acting like kids. Unless they are completely obnoxious. Which they certainly can be. And are often written that way in movies

 

[gwynplaine]

There have be and there are good kid actors.

Haley Joel Osment - The Sixth Sense
Drew Barrymore -E.T.
Henry Thomas - E.T.
Elle Fanning - Super 8
Dakota Fanning - War of the Worlds
Joseph Mazzello - Jurassic Park
Ariana Richards - Jurassic Park
Anna Paquin - The Piano
Wil Wheaton - Stand By Me
Jerry O’Connell - Stand By Me
River Phoenix - Stand By Me
Cory Feldman - Goonies, Stand By Me
Sean Astin - Goonies
Jonathan Ke Quan - Goonies
Jeff Cohen - Goonies
Charlie Korsmo - Hook, Dick Tracy
Chloe Moretz - Kick-Ass, Hugo
Christian Bale - Empire of the Sun
Natalie Portman - The Professional
Kirsten Dunst - Interview with a Vampire
Jodie Foster - Taxi Driver
Elijah Wood - The Good Son
Linda Blair - The Exorcist
Christina Ricci - The Adams Family
Bobby Driscoll - Treasure Island
Hayley Mills - The Parent Trap, Pollyanna
Natalie Wood - Miracle on 34th Street
Elizabeth Taylor - Life with Father
Debbie Turner - The Sound of Music
Margaret O'Brien - Meet Me in St. Louis
Shirley Temple
The kids from the Little Rascals. (1930's)

He was also great in A.I.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Kid actors are like any other actors. There are bad ones and there are good ones.

 

[Hunter Rider]

The kid in Jerry Maguire was awesome, I think Darthy pretty much nailed it in his post though, well mostly....

Still haven't seen Empire of the Sun but out of those you listed, I only disagree with Portman.

I think he was being sarcastic.

loved the kid from real steel

 

[T"Challa]

The kid in Beast of the Southern Wild was awesome

 

[az824]

Cghulk: that's an awesome list... But yeah I hate kid actors most of the time. Henry on Once Upon a Time is soooo annoying.

 

[Sawyer]

Henry knows how to get **** done. Deal with it.

 

[HighFivingMF]

loved the kid from real steel

He was also Little Thor.

 

[<(o_o)>]

Abigail & Spencer Breslin, I don't really see their appeal but they keep & have kept finding work over the years.

 

[PSYLENTGuardian]

Surprisingly, I've never really found myself annoyed with child actors. I think that's because Edward Furlong in T2 and the kids in Stand By Me left a great impression on me early on. There are probably some child actors who never really caught on -- I just can't name them off the top of my head.

 

[CGHulk]

He was also great in A.I.

No argument here!

 

[chamber-music]

Jason Bateman in Little House in the Prairie
Joseph Gordon-Levitt in A River Runs Through It
Anna Paquin in The Piano
Natalie Portman in Léon
Drew Barrymore in ET
Elijah Wood in Back To The Future II
Christian Bale in Empire Of The Sun

All very annoying and I hope to see them never again.

Elijah Wood had only the video game scene and had one line. I don't think he made a big enough impact to be annoying.

I think kids in alot of 90s movies were annoying as hell. Directors seemed like they wanted kids to be precocious all the time and it was irritating.

 

[lime]

I can't tell you who are bad, but those two were the greates child actors of the past decade: Haley Joel Osment and Freddie Highmore. Brilliant

 

[chamber-music]

Freddie Highmore is great. His working in a bank in the middle east right now.

If he comes back to acting I think he could have a pretty successful international acting career seeing as he speaks French, Spanish and Arabic.

 

[dodgers2213]

Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon

I 100% disagree with this

 

[Destructus86]

I typically can't stand child actors. But I thought ALL the kids in Super 8 were FANTASTIC.