HBO’s Showbiz Kids: Evan Rachel Wood, Cameron Boyce and More Reveal the Cost of Child Stardom

HBO’s latest documentary, Showbiz Children, examines the darkish actuality of little one stardom by the lens of those that lived it.

Evan Rachel Wooden, Jada Pinkett Smith, Wil Wheaton, Todd Bridges, Mila Jovovich, Henry Thomas, Mara Wilson and the late Cameron Boyce paint a sobering image of the value they paid to pursue their goals (and in some circumstances the goals of their mother and father) in Hollywood. 

“I gave up my childhood for this business, and it wasn’t my alternative,” Wheaton, most notable for his roles in Stand By Me and Star Trek: The Subsequent Era, stated. Equally, Wooden remembered a want to easily play together with her buddies, noting, “…it was obvious early on that you’d get in bother if you happen to needed to play. It will be very disappointing to folks if I did not wish to do that as a result of I used to be proficient.”

The 90-minute documentary, directed by Alex Winter of Invoice & Ted’s Wonderful Adventures, traces these former little one stars’ trajectories to current day and uncovers the reminiscences they nonetheless cannot shake.