Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Showbiz Kids’ on HBO, an Insightful Documentary About the Hazards Young Actors Face

HBO documentary Showbiz Kids takes a good, long, hard look at the experiences of child actors in Hollywood, something its director knows a lot about. This in-depth examination is helmed by Alex Winter, who began his career on Broadway before being cast in The Lost Boys and achieving near-immortality as Bill in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure — and then becoming a prolific film and television director. So it almost goes without saying that his angle on a topic near his own experiences would be thoughtful and incisive, right?

SHOWBIZ KIDS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Mickey Rooney. Elizabeth Taylor. Judy Garland. Ron Howard. Jodie Foster. Drew Barrymore. To name a few, these superstars were on screen before they hit double-digits in age, and we were, and in many cases still are, enraptured by them. One such star was especially exceptional: Baby Peggy, later known as Diana Serra Cary. In 1920, at age two, she started appearing in films. She soon was making $1.5 million a year and had a doll modeled after her; she says she “didn’t know a child’s life existed.” (Cary passed away at age 101 after being interviewed for this documentary.)

Next we meet Melanie and Marc Slater, mother and son. He has dreams of being an actor, so they travel from their Florida home to Los Angeles to set up auditions during pilot season. Melanie says she tries not to be a “stage mom,” and has been chastised by “stage moms” for letting her son take karate class — his face is the golden ticket, you see. She photographs him after an audition and posts the pic on Instagram. She plops him down in front of an acting coach, who watches him give a particularly unconvincing line reading, and acts as his de-facto counselor: Do you really want to do this? Because if not, you need to speak up, she asserts.

In between Cary and Slater are stories from a bevy of more recognizable stars: Jada Pinkett-Smith, Henry Thomas, Todd Bridges, Evan Rachel Wood, Wil Wheaton, Cameron Boyce, Milla Jovovich, Mara Wilson. Their collective account of life as a child star might stand as a warning to the 20,000 kids flooding Hollywood to audition like Slater (five percent of them actually succeed): They didn’t have much of a childhood. They didn’t have many, if any, friends. They didn’t go to camp or do much “normal” kid stuff. They were bullied in school; so were their siblings. They were working like adults. They had contentious relationships with their parents. They were physically and psychologically abused. They weren’t allowed to be themselves. They are famous and beloved, and some of their work is timeless. But at what cost?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen, This Film is Not Yet Rated and That Guy… Who Was in That Thing are also peek-behind-the-curtain docs that put Hollywood under a critical microscope.

Performance Worth Watching: It’s tough to highlight who’s the best interview — Wheaton, Bridges, Jovovich, Thomas, Wood and Wilson are all insightful and forthcoming. So let’s just kick back and ruminate on the now very mixed feelings we get while watching vintage footage of Thomas’ heart-crushing E.T. audition, punctuated by Steven Spielberg giving him the job on the spot.

Memorable Dialogue: Thomas, on what it was like being on the set of E.T.: “I felt like I had just robbed a bank or something, and I was gonna get caught.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Winter stops shy of condemning Hollywood for what it does to its young stars, but heavily infers that these are treacherous waters. Child actors need better protections and shouldn’t be career-driven like adults. Parents need to stop projecting their desires upon their offspring. Newcomers to the business need to know the pitfalls. And kids need to be kids — a scene late in the film implies that Marc Slater might be happier splashing in the pool with pals than pursuing stardom. In an interview, young Broadway and Godfather of Harlem actress Demi Singleton says she just wants to go to summer camp, but we learn later that she skipped it to keep auditioning, and after mountains of testimonials from older stars, it feels like a small tragedy.

Bridges says he had opportunities “to be a regular child” despite his Diff’rent Strokes fame, but later shares how his publicist sexually abused him. Others avoided harassment, but felt exploited by their parents, or spent all their time working long hours, or felt isolated, or obligated to make the most of their “gifts” in spite of their true desires. Their stories tend to be heartbreaking: Wheaton says his mother pushed him to do what he didn’t want to do, and he still can’t come to terms with her. Thomas’ mother tried to protect him from abuses, and was labeled “hard to work with.” Cary’s father cheated her of all her earnings. Jovovich was hypersexualized as a minor. Boyce, interviewed before he died of an epileptic seizure in 2019, comes off confident of his ability to handle fame, although he expresses pointed awareness of the hazards of the business.

Their experiences are a mixed bag: Some are grateful for their rewarding careers as adults, but they’re keenly aware that their stories are about innocence lost, and fraught with harrowing adversity. Winter intently presses the Slater family on their goals; Marc didn’t land a job during pilot season, but they’re giving it one more go next time. Here’s hoping they’ll proceed with the awareness that Showbiz Kid offers.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We should all know by now that Hollywood glamour is a phony facade. Showbiz Kids digs deeper into that truism, Winter piecing together a collage of stories adding up to one big cautionary tale.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Showbiz Kids on HBO Max