child actor

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson rose to prominence as child actors in the Harry Potter movies A child actor or child actress is a child acting on stage, television or in movies. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor or a "former child actor". Closely associated terms include teenage actor or teen actor, which refer to an actor who gained popularity as a teenager.

Many child actors find themselves struggling to adapt as they become adults, mainly due to typecasting. For example, several of the popular Our Gang kids of the 1920s and 1930s, including Mickey Daniels, George "Spanky" McFarland, and Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, struggled as adults and never achieved sustained adult acting careers. Macaulay Culkin and Lindsay Lohan are two more recent child actors who eventually experienced much difficulty with the fame they acquired at an early age.