In a lot of cases with child actors people and the media call them overnight successes, that they did one thing and it made them successful right away. Even though that’s true in some cases like Natalie Portman who became a recognised actress overnight with the movie Léon it’s not true for a lot of other child actors.

It can be funny sometimes if you look at filmographies and it turns out that you’ve seen them in movies before without even realising it. I’m not counting tiny guest spots on TV shows right now; if I did that I could be going on forever seeing that’s pretty much how every actor gets started.

The first time I really had that was when I was looking at the filmography of Jena Malone. Granted, she’s not really a superstar but she still gets a fair amount of movies done. At some point I did check out her filmography because I didn’t really know her, turns out I have a on DVD with the woman; Contact in this case which she made when she was twelve years old. Her role in that movie is better known for a difficult special effect (It’s extensively mentioned in the extras; Jena is running towards a mirror but you can’t see the camera. In 1997 that was a lot more difficult than it would be these days.). She plays the younger version of Jodie Foster in the movie. (more…)