Child Star

- Hi, Mr. Camera Guy. - Hi!

That's a tiny little seat.

It's fluffy!

This is a small chair.

In a couple of seconds,

- I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions. - Okay.

- And there's no wrong answer. - 'Kay.

Tell me, if you could do anything when you're older,

- what do you wanna do? What's your thing? - I wanna be a famous singer.

Well, it's kind of complicated.

A famous soccer player.

I wanna be an actor.

I really love to act,

but I also really would love to teach little kids.

When I grow up, I would like to be a gamer.

Uh...

a model.

Do you know what being famous is?

Kinda like being, like, popular at school,

but, like, times 1,000.

I think it's, yeah, fun

and sort of in the middle of good and bad.

You get a lot of money.

Yeah, everyone knows you. Everyone likes you.

Everyone wants to be your friend.

You get a bunch of attention.

And you get to travel the world

and do stuff in other places.

Everybody would know you because you don't wanna be a lone wolf!

What's bad about it is that you can get very egotistica...

egotistical, I think?

People would try to take photos of you and post them on Internet.

Lots of people crowd around you,

and sometimes it makes you nervous.

It's, it's kinda hard, if you're famous, having your own life.

Do you like it when people film you?

How does it feel now? You're doing it right now.

I'm a little bit nervous

and a little bit happy.

On a scale of one to 10, how much are you hating me filming you?

- Um... I don't mind. -

Be honest.

I think on a scale of one to 10, it's like an eight.

- Feels like a nine. -

I think I just don't like being on camera.

- - Why?

- - I think that...

like, being on camera

makes a lot of my body image issues come up

and...

I'm constantly like, when I'm...

when I'm on camera, I'm just hyper-aware of that.

And...

yeah, it just makes me a little uncomfortable.

When I was a kid, I was so close with my great-grandparents.

They were my world. I just loved them so much.

They had these two recliner chairs that they would sit in

and we would watch TV together.

I just have this memory of Shirley Temple appearing on their TV .

"I'm going to be the next Shirley Temple.

"I'm gonna be the next child star.

If she can do it, I can do it."

Barney!

I've dreamed about this for so long!

- Thank you! - Demi Lovato.

Some girl screamed and said my name, and I was like...

- -

News about Demi Lovato.

- - How could you?

Sorry. We're gonna need a lot more work.

- - We're not giving up.

- - I'm serious.

- -

I didn't realize that it would

have such a negative impact on my mental health.

And, unfortunately, sometimes that looks explosive,

like an incident where you punch your backup dancer on an airplane

or you overdose from heroin.

I really thought I had all the answers

and I thought I had gone through so much

that I knew everything. And now, I look at other people,

and I'm like, "I know nothing,

and the only way I'm gonna get answers is to listen."

When I'm performing in a show,

and I see an empty seat, like, it really fucks with me.

Even on stage. Like, I'll see an empty seat,

and I'm like, "Ugh, I'm not good enough."

- Really? - You know? Yeah. It's just like,

it's this belief that was instilled in me

as a, as a young performer...

that... I, I...

looked at my success as my self-worth.

- Mm-hmm. - You know?

I had a really hard time differentiating the two.

- Mm-hmm. - And I dealt with...

a lot of need for external validation,

um, because I was equating

- my success to my self-worth. - Mm-hmm.

Um, I was just wondering if you ever experienced any of that

and what that would've been like for you if you did.

Yeah, I mean, that's wild to hear, you know what I mean?

Because you are so, like, beloved. You know what I mean? Like, you have

fanatics, you know what I mean? And, like, those people have those things

because it's earned, you know what I mean? You're a giant ball of talent,

but, like, to see that one inkling of a thing like that

can irk a person like that is...

It's interesting to, like, you know, discuss because...

yeah, I mean, I've had those same kind of experiences where

there's a chip in the armor, you know what I mean?

And it's like, "Shit, everything's not perfect,"

or "I'm not perfect enough."

So, you, you migrate towards those that are going to give you

that, you know, validation, whether that, you know,

it's good for you or not,

- you know what I'm saying? - Yeah.

So, it's not a normal existence to have somebody in your family be famous,

you know what I mean? And, like,

that's just a, a weird thing that, like, you have to know...

You don't have to, but it's good to know what you're signing up for.

When I was 11 months old, I wanted be an actress.

Can I get you a glass of milk, honey?

Milk? I'm a Barrymore!

Get me a drink, and make it a double!

Hi!

- Hi. - Hi.

- Thank you so much for doing this. - We finally get to do this.

- Yes! We finally get to. - I think we've been talking about it for,

- what, a year almost? - Yeah.

I feel lucky that I'm a part of it.

Oh, my God, of course! How could we not have you a part of this?

You were sort of almost born into it, given that you started at 11 months old.

Totally.

It was a Gaines-Burgers puppy chow commercial.

And I've never stopped working since then

except for when I was

institutionalized by my mother.

My mom was a waitress at the Troubadour and The Comedy Store,

- which were coolest of the cool. - Wow.

And then she met my dad

who was so cool, he was lethally, deadly cool.

Toxically cool.

And I think she knew she needed to get away from him.

- Mm-hmm. - Um, he was dangerous.

He was on a lot of drugs.

And then, she's just this single mom ,

raising a baby in 1975 with no money.

There was a, a quietness in our apartment.

A, a loneliness.

And then when I got to ET,

it was like a big bustling environment full of people

and life and creativity and theatrics and play.

What kid doesn't wanna play?

Look what I made for you, Elliott!

I wonder why did my mom think it was a good idea

for me to go into this?

Was it 'cause she wanted to be an actress herself?

Was it the fact that my dad and his family,

the Barrymores, were actors?

I've suddenly become quite important.

I was always studying my family and the old black-and-white movies.

- Mm-hmm. - So Shirley Temple was

- the child star of that era. - Yeah.

Yeah, I also looked up to Shirley Temple

as a young child performer and was just like,

"I wanna be that someday. I wanna be the youngest and the best at what I do."

Children have been part of the workforce

for an incredibly long time.

Half a million children are working as young as 5,

work 14 hours a day for as little as three cents an hour.

But in 1938, the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act

was the first set of comprehensive federal legislation

that had wage, hour, and workplace condition laws

for the whole country.

Child labor is appalling.

And children received special protections ,

except for child actors.

The Shirley Temple Act carved out child entertainers

from the protections that children got in most other occupations.

Congress didn't really seem to think

that child entertainers would be as big of a part

of the nation's workforce as they went on to be.

- Look at these. - Oh, my God!

This is me in the pageants.

- Did you sing? - Yeah, singing was my, my talent.

- Aw! - Oh, my God,

- I love that picture. - You were so cute.

I remember one time, you made a whole CD

of, like, eight songs you sang to tracks.

Yeah.