Whilst most of us are happy to leave our acting memories on stage at school, some like me, yearn for the spotlight and even a professional acting career. Of course we want to be ‘discovered’ while we’re still young and fresh. But how hard is it to withstand the transition from child actor to adult sensation and what are the challenges and rewards? Kai Green chats to James Lomas of Billy Elliot the Musical to find out… |
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“The thing about child actors is that you either have the weird personality that can do it, or you just don’t have that make up”. Comments Jodie Foster on how she survived the perils of child acting to become one of the few well known Hollywood actors who has proved that it is possible to have an acclaimed acting career spanning 4 decades and still be in your mid-forties! But for every Jodie Foster there are bound to be a million child actors who disappear after a short spell of success.  Foster’s quote suggests it’s all to do with us as individuals, whether we will sink or swim, but surely while we are young, there are other factors that can make a whole heap of difference. To get some insight into the world of acting from a professional child actor making his transition to adult actor, I caught up with Sheffield’s James Lomas, who at 15 landed the lead role as Billy in Elton John’s Billy Elliot the Musical. The show received rave review, won numerous awards and catapulted James to new found stardom. His talents won him the Variety Club’s Outstanding New Talent Award and the Sir Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. James auditioned for the role of Billy at just 13 having previously only performed as part of the High-Green Operatic Society and Sheffield Youth Theatre. “I wanted to be an actor because I enjoyed it so much. Directors and choreographers like people who can dance, sing and act so I started doing them all. Not too long after I started dancing I landed the role of Billy. My dance teacher said, ‘You might as well go for it’ and I was like ‘It’s my first audition, what have I got to loose? And here I am!” James’s lucky break story is one many of us dream of. Sure we should keep trying if we have the potential, but we won’t necessarily get the break that changes everything. James is realistic about his success. “Just because you’re a child actor and you got one job, doesn’t mean you’re going to get others. Playing Billy Elliot doesn’t mean I’m going to be in every other musical. One role doesn’t guarantee another. They would have to audition me to see if I’m any good for that part”. James is well aware that acting is hard work and a real job. Most auditions require experience and the commitment can be a real strain on a young person’s life. One such strain is often on education. For a musical such as Billy, private tutors are employed for young cast members. Child actors must have 3 hours of tuition a day, rather than the 5 they would get at school. James was half way through his GCSE years while working on Billy. After working with a support tutor he went back to school in Y11 but had to cope with the added demands of Y10 catch-up work. “Thankfully I came out alright. But I could have done better if I was there”. His advice for anyone thinking it’s ok to neglect education when things look rosy is… “You might be doing something you really love and think ‘What does it matter? I’m doing this, I’m not going to need my schoolwork’…but you do. So try and try and try.” |
Not only is it important to be aware of the fickle nature of ‘the business’, and have a backup plan, it’s also important to want to get a role for the ‘right reasons’. James acknowledges how child actors are vulnerable to being shown a glamorous life so young, but he’s learnt that it can all disappear as easily as it comes. “At night I’m going to white tie events at Elton John’s house. The next day I’m back at college. Going from getting paparazzi’d while getting into Elton’s Bentley, back to nobody knowing who I am, is like celebrity one night, Cinderella the next!” James was keen to point out that fame is a dangerous motivation and has his feet firmly on the ground where stardom is concerned. “It’s fun getting paparazzi’d but press can ruin you as well as make you. If you’re successful in what you do, that’s great. And if press happen to come into your life from that successful, that’s great too. But I don’t try and go out to get press because you’re a different story every day. One day you might have done something great, the next you’re old news”. James insists, “If I didn’t enjoy Billy Elliot, no matter what the money or everything else, I wouldn’t do it”. So where should our mindset be if we really want to make it as an actor of stage or screen but we still need to grown up like other kids? “Coming home and seeing family, that’s the best thing. That’s what’s kept me grounded. And because of what they’ve taught me all my life, like being true to people and being normal. I come home and they tell me the same things again”. So no big secret there. Just not loosing touch with real life. Something I’m sure Jodie Foster would agree on. We never see sensational stories about her in the tabloids.  James left Billy in September 2005 after his voice broke, but returned for a short spell to cover illness, finally leaving in January 2006. Now 17, James currently studies at the Millennium Dance Theatre School in London, one of many performers who are pursuing their career with the support of a performing arts education. If you’re serious about performing, be it stage or film, James advises you need to be serious about learning your art. “I think education is the way forward from being a child actor to being an adult actor. Being a child is easier because they tell you ‘you’ve got to do this like that’. When you get older, you’re on your own. So I think education and reading acting books and things like that, teach you quite well”. Film and stage differ tremendously for child actors and James has felt the stress of disciplining himself for live performance many times. “In the West End, I think it’s quite difficult to be a child actor, because people look at you as if you are an adult. There’s no messing about, it’s proper strict! It doesn’t matter if you’re a kid, if you get a script you have to analyse it yourself. That’s why I think I’ve grown up quite a lot. I feel like I’m 20 not 17 sometimes. If you want to be in that business you have to be switched on all the time”. |
Another issue that many child actors in particular face, is typecasting. If we look at the credibility of Macaulay Culkin, (Home Alone, My Girl) when he disappeared from the public eye in 1994, many believed he was getting too old to play the cute-comedy-kid roles he was known for and that he was past developing as an actor. In contract the serious undertones of Haley Joel Osment’s performances (The Sixth Sense, A.I.) suggest a more promising career as an adult actor. So does the stage bring the same typecasting pitfalls as the screen? James believes it depends on the job. “With a big film there’s more to stick in people’s mind. I hope I’m not typecast as Billy. I like being called Billy Eliot sometimes because it was great, but I’d like to be called other things”. James has ambitions to do some film acting and perhaps voice-overs in animation. At the moment he’s enjoying recording his singing and song writing. “I’d like to try everything. Every experience is a new and good one even if it doesn’t work. Then you’ve got a lot of things on your CV showing you’ve tried”. Sounds like some good advice to me. Kai Green
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