Yes, the Rumors Surrounding Child Actors Are True | Brett Cooper

So you enjoyed your time in Los Angeles from 10 to 14. I loved it. There have been a lot of

rumors

about

child

actors

in Hollywood recently. What do you think of all that? All is

true

. So what, ha, what did you escape unscathed? For example, I worked on a

child

ren's television show at a major network and one of the writers, after we finished the show after it was cancelled, had incredibly inappropriate relationships with young women like me. that were on the show young women in my how young 14 is okay and as far as I know this was not sexual um but it was objectively grooming, it was inappropriate relationships between an adult and minors because Hollywood moves on and BL L the lines between what is appropriate between adults and children because you work with adults constantly throughout my life I spent my entire childhood I spent more time with adults than with children my management team were all adults obviously agents managers directors casting directors producers wardrobe assistants who were surrounded by In this case , adults are constantly writing and those lines get very blurred, so if a writer from a TV show you worked on invites you and one of your castmates to lunch to talk about another TV show they Your parents are working, go well.

Yeah, well, you've been working with him for two years, right now we're taking you to lunch, MH, and then you're sitting here with this girl who's a year older than you and he starts talking about the lesbian fantasies he has about you. and your friend says nothing happened, but that's the fact that he thought that was appropriate, the fact that well, that's test behavior, yeah, and then the fact that later we were walking through the restaurant and he put his hand on my friend's back. pocket who is 15 years old and I just know that she would get me out of here completely inappropriate her how many of the young people in Hollywood are sold into that, so to speak, by their parents now you characterized your mother as someone who didn't want to take you, yeah, to Hollywood adventure, but there is no shortage of parents.

Is it more common among mothers? Probably group B mothers who use their children for their own benefit, against all odds. Yes. JZ Jennings, for example, talks to me.

true

, in the most brutal and horrible way possible, true, but you can see a lot of this on social media, yes, you know, parents pimp their children, transform them too, you know, and then proclaim their moral virtue as consequence of the transformation, you know. My son is very, very deviant, but I am a wonderful person, yes, I still love him deeply, right, but or I pushed him in that direction in the first place and then you could say that, yes, and I think another example, did you read?

I'm glad my mom died because of Janette McCartie no I haven't read it fantastic and I mean I think she's the most incredible example of how much Janette MCC is carette you haven't talked to her on your podcast no yeah . no, um, I think she talked to Michaela michaa, okay, okay, it was just an amazing book. I remember sitting there, I read it last year when he came out and I was full, just tears reading it because these are people's stories. that I grew up with, are the things that I saw but that she was protected from.

My mom was very cautious about my involvement in this industry and she was astute, she set firm boundaries, she was always watching, she was always within my reach. Oh, yeah, right, and the other thing that I think was incredibly important that she did was, again, like I said, I had so many other things going on in my life, so my identity wasn't wrapped up in this industry. I never connected it with money. all because my money was put in savings accounts my parents never touched it my mom never touched it the state takes 15% of what a young actor earns and puts it in your puma account so if you are in a situation where that your parents are exploiting you at least at 18 you have some money um I never touched any of that and I never wanted me to connect with Hollywood and make money because I saw that she saw people in my circle, these kids, they would know how to do an episode on the TV show and then her parents would go out and buy, yeah, six American Girl dolls and they would buy a fancy new car for the family and you know, the parents would take a big vacation that the 8 year old paid well for and my mom always wanted.

I made sure I stayed in this industry because I loved it because I couldn't live without it because I loved telling stories and at least once a month she would say to me are you sure you want to do this CU if you ever want to stop doing it ? You will stop. I don't care how much money we invested in your acting classes and your dance classes. If you want to stop, if you want to go home, you'll pack up and move to Tennessee. What made her so down to earth, she's just a brilliant Woman, she's amazing, she's one of the most resilient people I've ever met.

She's been to Helen's a million times. Her first husband died. Her son later died. My older brother in light of my brother's passing. He has serious mental problems. illness he is permanently in a psychiatric facility for schizophrenia a very, very tough marriage to my father a very, very tough upbringing where she was often the black sheep she is very comfortable being non-traditional and doing things that would be considered unconventional in any circumstance you find yourself in. How did you end up with traditional values ​​then? Because she is very traditional, but I realized that when I said I met, she is willing to be unconventional in the given circumstances, so in Hollywood we are she is bold, she is bold and most of the people we .

We were surrounded by parents who were pushing their children into this, she was willing to be the one to say no, my son is not doing my son is not doing this kind of project, my son is not going to participate in this project led by right, a production company that we know has a bad track record, she's incredibly involved, so fundamentally I mean the case that you're presenting, it's always useful to look at the situational determinants of unfortunate outcomes, let's say, and you know the first thing she said, well, there are children who work with adults so the lines are blurred and that's okay so that sets the stage and then you can imagine that within those relationships there is no shortage of people always whose ability to obtain intimacy like in a relationship or sexually it's like incredibly committed, and so those people, at the very least, are going to like it, just as a consequence of their inability, they're going to be looking for opportunities and maybe they're not even that good at distinguishing an appropriate opportunity from an inappropriate one, and Then there are those that really are. bent because they are resentful and because they are isolated in reality they are seeking innocence to subvert and destroy those are the people who are most inclined and the Direction explicitly Narcissistic and sadistic and your circumstance was such that you had a mother who was taking care of you and so that instead of a mother who was complicit and exploited you and who turned on Blind, yes, now you said you had a gr SP when you were nine, yes, so how physically mature were you when you were? 14 um relatively, I always looked older for my age, so that's another thing that blurs the lines and if you're around adults and you learn to act like an adult, you'll also present yourself, you know, in a more mature way. way, yes, and if you physically look like one, I mean, yes, yes, well, that is, yes, it makes it very, very complicated, however, it shouldn't either, what did you do, what did you do?

Do you think that very often girls are victims of bullying in general? Girls who are subject to exploitation are not very good at making subtle signals. They don't know how to say no. They don't know when to say no. They don't know how to transmit. No, yes, from the initial interactions. Then how? Do you think you behaved that way? Because I know you said your mother was protecting you, but did you behave in a way that nothing would happen? Yeah, okay, how would she say just intrinsically. I am very self-aware and have been for a long time. time and I think that's because I had to grow up very quickly in terms of my family.

I was very aware of everything that was happening. You also said you didn't want to cause trouble, yeah, um, unnecessary trouble, yeah, unnecessary trouble, but. I don't think that means I wasn't willing to stand up for myself because in situations that were so serious in terms of my safety, my innocence, um anyway, I think I was very self-aware and then it goes back to my mother. Again, when we moved to Los Angeles, she knew everything, all the

rumors

about Hollywood, the casting. She put me in female self-defense classes against sexual assault when she was 10 and I did those classes until I was the most amazing thing I've ever done.

I have ever done it without a doubt they put me in situations. I started doing group classes and you learn to fight a male opponent who is bigger than you because you can do Jiu-Jitsu, you can do karate. I think those disciplines are amazing, it often doesn't translate to real world fighting for women specifically, of course women, we have our strength in different parts of our bodies, um, when you're dealing with aggression, you know that the Situational awareness is very important, your voice is very important, just being able to shout, no. Yeah it was amazing so they put me in situations in these classes where you know a man is coming after you, my instructor is coming after you holding a knife to your throat knowing how to get out of it holding a gun. in your head you were in the situation of at least you at least got impaled, I was impaled, but I think this situation that you described in the restaurant where this writer, I think you said it was, the writer slipped his hand into the back pocket of this about your friend, you said she was a little older than you, yes she was 16, why didn't she do the same to you?

He tried to do it and I walked away and told him that's weird, don't do that, it's okay, she did that, no, it's okay. so that's the perfect example, yeah, well, that's exact, that's exactly my point, those are the micro NOS that keep things from moving forward, yeah, yeah, and so on, and I give a lot of credit to these classes that I did because, as you said and as you brought. again he was not willing to make waves. It was a doormat in my family and yet it's something I'm still working on as an adult.

Now I'm very, very nervous about it in my immediate family just because of the way I RA, are you a nice person? Do you like to please people? I do uhuh, well, well, well, you can also see the complexity because if you are an entertainer and you are on stage, you are obligated as part of your role to be one. magnetically attractive, charismatic and all that and to take advantage of that and so Drawing the Line um Marilyn monr she said she could walk down the street like Norma Ray normae Norma genene Norma genene or like Marilyn right and if she walked down the street like Norma genene Nobody would paid attention, but if she walked down the street like Marilyn Monroe, then she was magnetically attractive, so obviously they're fine, she was a master at that seductress role, she's still iconic for that and it's like 70 years later. really something and it certainly destroyed her, yes, of course, because that went too well, if you are an actor, an actress, then you have this conundrum because you are rewarded for your attractiveness, you are capitalizing on your attractiveness, you are among adults, but you have to limit that so that Don't be exploited, yeah, well, when exactly are you being exploited and when exactly are you exploiting yourself?

It's not that obvious, so it's really good that you had your mother with you, yeah. The courses are also interesting because they at least put you in scary situations and at least alerted you to the fact that those kinds of things existed. How do you think what you learned in the course translates into changes in your daily life? Behavior