Who are the worst child performances in film and television?

Margaret O'Brian in Meet Me in St. Louis.

Eric Shea in The Poseidon Adventure.

The twins who played Carrie Ingalls on Little House!

Kim & Kyle Richards

Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby and Blue Lagoon.

the kid in Burnt Offerings - Lee Montgomery I think his name was

even more so: Pamelyn Ferdin in literally everything she did

Brooke Shields was in Blue Lagoon? All I saw was Christopher Atkins.

On Modern Family, the two older girls could act, but the boys really could not. Forgivable when young and cute, but awful when they got into their gawky teen years.

the kid who played Young Patrick in Lucy's Mame.

The kid who played Ann Newton in Shadow of a Doubt.

The little boy in Fatal Attraction.

Not films but Little Ricky and especially little Stevie Appleby in I love Lucy “ I wanna see superman, I wanna see superman”

"NO, Champ, don't DIIIIIIIIIIIIEEE!"

That fug who played Manny.

Tammi Marihugh, THE LAST VOYAGE. I mentioned her in the best performances by a child actor thread, but I was being sarcastic. She really stunk up the screen.

The girl who played AJ in, "AJ and the Queen".

Bonnie Blue Butler.

The little brother in a christmas story, he was awful.

Donald Trump on The Aprentice

Could not play straight if his life by a crazy murderous dog depended on it.

Matthew Weiner’s son on “Mad Men”...

That Blossom monstrosity.

R20 also equally abhorrent at playing straight as Jonathan Bower.

Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine and everything else I've seen her in. Also her brother is terrible too.

The Olsen twins.

BD Hyman, hands down. Her acting was so bad it is hard to believe who she came out of. Her mother must have really loved her to pull those strings to get her in that movie.

R15 - OMG I forgot about her.

While I like the movie a lot more than I should, I kept wishing something (like that piano) would crash down & land on her head, or she'd fall down that hole in the ship.

Lil Magic, hands down!

That kid from John Cassavetes’ “Gloria”.

What about that annoying bitch named Christina in Now Voyager? She was an attention starved twat waffle.

Quinn Cummings

Thomas Sangster in Love Actually. God, I loathed him in that. Creepy as hell. I did like him as a teenager in that film about the Beatles, though.

The kid who played Beau Wilkes, Melanie's son, at the end of "Gone with the Wind."

Harriet from Small Wonder! Did she really need to ham it up so much?

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Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace

The annoying little boy from Fuller House who is always yelling.

Larry Mathews as Ritchie Petrie on "The Dick Van Dyke Show." How that kid got a job I'll never know.

I’m sorry. We wouldn’t know.

Mara Hobel in Mommie Dearest.

Dakota fanning in war of the worlds. Emma Watson in Harry Potter.

Dee!

I have to disagree with the post mentioning Mara Hobel. I liked her performance.

I LOVED the Witch Mountain movies, but even as a child it was very apparent that Kim Richards had very little talent. Worst of all we’re her constipation faces she would make during her telepathic communications with her brother, which had the flattest voice over readings ever.

Future Oscar winner Helen Hunt was far from her A game portraying Princess Ora who fell out of the sky on The Bionic Woman. Even worse a few years later playing a high schooler she would sniff drugs and immediately fly out the window and try slicing her wrists with shards of glass in one of the most unbelievable drug freak outs ever.

R44 Kim was just drunk and high. Some things never change, that’s sweet.

Lily on Modern Family, hands down.

I'm with R33. The child actor who played Beau Wilkes is Mickey Kuhn, who, along with his screen mother Olivia de Havilland, are the only surviving GWTW cast members (with the possible exception of the infants who played baby Bonnie Blue and baby Beau).

Johnathan Scott Taylor, aka Damien Thorn in the second Omen movie.

Sandra Dee--she needed a tranquilizer or 12.

The two kids from the first Benji movie way back in 1974

Louanne in "Oh, God! Book II" (1980)

I never bought the kid who played Aaron in the Little Drummer Boy for one moment. His “fake” drumming was atrocious and when the lamb came back to life his reaction was way to over the top, where a more naturalistic performance would have been much stronger.

you kid, r28, but Kim Wayans is TRULY terrible in everything she does

^ and that's what makes her so good!

R54 Kim was great in “Pariah”

Cora Sue Collins and Sybil Jason stank up a large number of classic 30s flicks.

They were "cute" to the point of being nauseating.

Cora Sue Collins was a vile little bitch who had it in for me because I was queen of the lot.

Courtland Mead in The Shining miniseries

I HATE the precocious little gayling from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but worst of all time has to be Alfred Lutter in Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More. The definition of a shrill performance, he mostly just whines, shrieks, and overacts with a blank facial expression (hard to do!) in the general direction of Alice and makes her already difficult life more difficult. A very young Jodie Foster appeared in a small role and they should have just had her play the son.

Ellen Burstyn deserved her Oscar that year just for having to put up with him for the duration of the shoot.

R60 They definitely should have had Jodie Linda Hunt that role, it would have been her first Oscar and way before Hillary Swank!

Thanks, R48. I can still hear his blaring, monotone whine ringing in my ears.

I thought Alfred Lutter was perfect and gave a realistic performance. Philip McKeon, on the other hand, sucked balls.

R63 Well, when you go with the discount Alice of Linda Lavin, you need to go with the discount Alfred Lutter or it shows her up.

Kristen Stewart in Panic Room.

R65 Wrong thread all the way! Between PR and The Safety of Objects Kristen Stewart was the most remarkable child actress since Jodie.

R66,, no.

Aaron Moffatt from The Tortellis, no wonder it was canceled after 13 episodes.

Did Alfred Lutter have BDF?

The kid that gets crushed by falling bricks in Burnt Offerings

The dark haired girl in gimme a break

Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace was Sofia Coppola territory of dreadful.

R64, I think Lutter did the pilot of Alice but he was replaced by McKeon.

R73 Because he showed up Lavin, one does not mess with a hardcore bitch like that, she will cut you out of a show.

I think Jake Lloyd takes the prize since he was the central character in one of the most highly anticipated movies of all time and so many people were disappointed by Jake and Jar-Jar.

Buck would never have appeared in a thread like this.

The weird little boy in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

I took my cousin to see the new Nutcracker Princess movie a while back and I thought the lead actress was pretty wooden and flat. I can't recall her name though. It was the version with Keira Knightly.

George "Foghorn" Winslow wasn't much of an actor, but he was a real scene-stealer. Howard Hawks loved him.

The girl who played Vicki in "Small Wonder"

The girl in Tarsem Singh's "The Fall"

Fucking Melissa Sue Anderson and fucking Quinn Cummings.

I noticed there's no fat kids in that clip at R44.

The first movie Henry Thomas did was with Cissy Spacek and Eric Roberts called "Raggedy Man." His little brother was played by a boy named Carey Hollis, Jr. Full name is Carey Clyde Leebo Hollis. He basically repeated every one of Henry's lines. It was tragic.

In R44's clip the red headed Johnny Whitaker lookalike is Dermott Downs. The long haired green striped shirt boy is Lance Kerwin. IIRC, Lance sent many young DL gayling's heart a flutter.

R84 At 15 and then at 16 too.

[quote]Harriet from Small Wonder! Did she really need to ham it up so much?

It was necessary when my co-star was so robotic.

That charmless little cunt who played the Natalie Wood role in that awful 1990s remake of Miracle on 34th Street.

Trivia: Both Bonnie Butler and Beau Wilkes in GWTW had their voices dubbed by adult actors who specialized in children's voices. That's one reason their performances are so unconvincing.

And yes, Mickey what's his name who played Beau had a bit part as a sailor in Streetcar. And when Vivien found out, she invited him into her trailer, where she "entertained" him for an hour. Go, Viv, go!

[quote]That charmless little cunt who played the Natalie Wood role in that awful 1990s remake of Miracle on 34th Street.

That girl is named Mara Wilson and she wasn't bad in [italic]Mrs. Doubtfire[/italic] and [italic]Matilda[/italic]. Except those weren't remakes of classic movies.

How can anyone say Dee from What's Happenin' was terrible? She was hilarious.

She was Jessica freaking Lange compared to Danny Pintauro, who by all right should own this thread.

r8 Wilson was 6 during shooting for the Miracle remake (Natalie Wood was 8 when she shot the original). Wilson definitely improved by the time she shot Matilda the following year.

The kids on (old) Dallas and (old) Dynasty were terrible. I don't remember any kids on Falcon Crest or Knots Landing.

This character was so forgettable I thought his name was "Six".

It was actually "Seven".

R90 There is an episode of “Who’s the Boss” where Tony Danza picks up Pintauro in his arms and dances with him. Pintauro looked like he was in heaven.

R93: That was partly to make up for Katey Sagal's miscarriage. Either way, season 7 would have added a new kid. At least the path they actually took had an escape clause.

The Little Boy in James in the Giant Peach was pretty mediocre.

[quote]Pintauro looked like he was in heaven.

He's not getting any closer than that.

The son in Unfaithful. Every second of that performance was annoying.

Speaking of annoying little boys named Danny, no one mentioned me yet?

Any small child they bring in to a TV series when all the kids on the show have grown up usually sucks.

Carrie and Grace on Little House were on the Prairie seemed mentally damaged since they never developed speech or seemed to get older.

Little House on the Prairie ^

These three little non-rocket scientists from the Apple Dumplings Gang, barely had a brain cell or an original element of performance between them.

Except constantly having to pee. That was the only bathroom humor Disney would allow then. Now they have fouled up [italic]Artemis Fowl[/italic] with dirt farts, and the kid in the title role didn't look like he brought much to the table in terms of talent.

Wheelchair boy in Mac and Me

Those Apple Dumpling Gang movies sure sucked. The people that gave the green light to those cinematic turds Disney churned out in the 70s should be ashamed.

Compared to now when all they can muster is reboot after reboot and get-off-my-back token gays?

Not a fan of Disney, but a movie about a mule that kicks field goals? Pretty much anything by Disney now beats that.

Even a soulless, sterile, virtually shot-for-shot remake of [italic]The Lion King[/italic]? What a waste of time and money. At least a silly gimmick picture like the one R107 mentioned didn't cost as much as the GDP of a developing nation.

[italic]Gus[/italic] got a 60% audience score and no critical score since no major critics apparently cared.

[italic]Artemis Fowl[/italic] was despised by both critics and audiences. A Facebook friend who read the books said in no uncertain terms that they ruined.

Mary Badham in To Kill a Mockingbird. Wow, terrible!

R94 explains why I could never stand that show. In addition to just plain not being funny at all, it looked like pedo propaganda. Tony seriously had more sexual chemistry with the kids than with Judith Light, whom I was just embarrassed for for going along with this crap for nearly a decade and even more so for poor Katherine Helmond.

And don't kid yourselves: Bitchlyssa couldn't act then either and she never got any better even on that witch show or any of her movies.

Corey Feldman in everything.

I'm sorry he died young, but Matthew Garber was the weak link in the casting of all the Disney movies he was in in the 1960s. Some of his line readings are painfully bad to listen to.

Harmony Cramp, the original Cecily on [italic]Road To Avonlea[/italic], was awful especially when the other actors on that show were good, even the other child actors. At least they eventually (in the post-Sarah Polley years) replaced her with Molly Atkinson who was an improvement. They made the switch by giving her TB and locking her away in a sanitarium.

For fucks sake, Jake Lloyd gets a pass for being a little boy who wasn’t even interested in acting, the director or somebody just wanted him in it.

Him having having mental illness that took over his health and life; is enough on his plate without a bunch of catty gurrrls assaulting his 8 year old self, or however young he was. Get over it already, Karens.

Ahmed Best almost killed himself over all the Jar-Jar hate.

Jake Lloyd worked in TV and in films both before and after his Star Wars role, as well as voiceover work. So I don't know where this 'never wanted to act' story comes from? He apparently is schizophrenic, at least his mother says so, which is indeed very sad.

All that said, he was shockingly bad in Phantom Menace.

Drums (both) and Tambourine in The Partridge Family.

Cindy Brady

Charlie Wade on Dallas

R120, she was good!

I was always annoyed by the little boy in Kubrick's The Shining. I don't know if it was a bad performance, but it was a really annoying one.

R121: She still banged Brad Pitt before he became a simp.

why does everyone think Brad Pitt was on DALLAS?

I've seen those episode.

It was Princess Stephanie of Monaco.

Each and every one of them.

The obnoxious older son in Terms of Endearment. (The younger son was wonderful.)

Film: Sofia Coppola in "Peggy Sue Got Married." I felt embarrassed on her behalf.

TV: Any sitcom featuring the "Lives changed...by One Little Girl!" conceit. Examples of this would be Soleil Moon Frye in "Punky Brewster" or Kaleena Kiff in "Love, Sidney."

(I was very jealous of precocious kids who were materially overindulged/spoiled in these shows, so that's probably why they've stuck in my mind).

Carolyn, the girl Raj and Nadine were foster parents to in the first season of [italic]What's Happening Now!![/italic], was so bad they let her go after the first season the same time Rerun quit (over money again).

If this blond boy's eyes were any bigger, he'd be a Margaret Keane painting.

R128, same thing happened on 227, season 4. Mary and Lester (kind of) adopt Alexandra (Countess Vaughn) but then the girl is gone after like 10 episodes. LOL.

R130: That show was all over the place once Embassy merged into Columbia and Coke sold it to Sony. They put Alexandra on there partly because Marla Gibbs didn't want to be showed up again by another female co-star on a show who won an Emmy while she didn't. They also tried showing a white teacher and a boyfriend for Rose, but it wasn't the same. It felt less like a closely-knit community than in the earlier seasons produced under Embassy.

[quote]They also tried showing a white teacher and a boyfriend for Rose,

Ah, the Barry Sobel and Stoney Jackson years. And Rose married that actor - Kevin Peter Hall. He died of AIDS.

That little fat queen who played Jamie in "Small Wonder."

I actually heard he married a woman and is no longer homeless, R133. Still fat, though. And the father looks like he gained a pound a year since the show went off the air.

Grayson Chrisley

None of the kids on [italic]Modern Family[/italic] were anything to write home about, honestly. Now that the show is finally dead and buried, we can say it.

The kid who played Andy on “Family Ties” owns this thread.

The Robbie Rist rule: any little boy with a bowl haircut is going to be a show killer.

The (fake) twins on Valerie/Valerie's Family/The Hogan Family. Talk about a shit show. Has there been any other TV series with at least THREE different titles during the show's run???

[quote]Has there been any other TV series with at least THREE different titles during the show's run???

Does [italic]Disneyland[/italic], aka [italic]Walt Disney Presents[/italic], aka [italic]Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color[/italic], aka [italic]The Wonderful World of Disney[/italic], aka [italic]Disney's Wonderful World[/italic] (a grammatical distinction that only matters in English), aka [italic]Walt Disney[/italic], aka [italic]The Disney Sunday Movie[/italic], aka [italic]The Magical World of Disney[/italic] count?

R139, no, try again, Tinky Winky.

[quote] Wheelchair boy in Mac and Me

He was played by Paul Rudd.

[quote] [R139], no, try again, Tinky Winky. —Jason Bateman

Tinky Winky? You're the one who put Ricky Schroder in a dress and made him your date for the evening!

And that show was the one that dressed you up in a "turkey suit" that consisted of nothing but long underwear and pasted-on feathers.

Ricky Seagull on season four of the Partridge Family......ugh......his IMDB page says that he later played HAMLET in a production he directed himself.....

I almost wished I had seen it......

Damn R143. We can only hope it was co-produced by Lavarious Slaughter

R138. Are you talking about the cute one and the Fat Mexican?

I hated that kid on The Partridge Family. Especially when he “sang”

Marigold on Downton Abbey.

Also, the twins who played Lady Mary's son George were cute appearance wise but had creepy little voices.

R145: Mom, I’m Venezuelan! How many times do I have to keep pointing this out? Now someone go after the chomo who made me do a publicity photo spread in short shorts.

The lead performance in Mr Orange Blob Goes To Washington is one of the worst child performances I have ever seen. Atonishing bad it almost makes you feel like you're in danger.

The kid who played Beau Wilkes in the scenes when Melanie died.

Most child actors stink. They usually aren't hired for talent, only for how cute they are or resemble the actors playing their parents.

I think Ricky Segall from "The Partridge Family" was the worst, not only because he couldn't sing and was a terrible actor, but because they ALREADY HAD two "cute" young kids (Jeremy Gelbwaks and Suzanne Crough) but they wouldn't give them any lines.

I'm glad he grew up into a handsome guy, though.

I've always wanted to see the 50s movie "Dondi" with David Janssen and Patti Page, because the child actor who plays the title role, David Kory, is supposed to be the single worst child actor in film history.

R153, I've tried to find a Dondi DVD for years. I've heard the same thing about Kory. LOL.

I've seen Dondi and.....well you know what happened.....

[quote] The kids on (old) Dallas and (old) Dynasty were terrible. I don't remember any kids on Falcon Crest or Knots Landing.

They had kids on KL and most of them could act. Too bad the boy who played Karen's oldest son died in a car accident when the show was still running.

David Mendenhall (General Hospital, Over the Top, a ton of voiceover work) was the kind of child actor who gave child performers a bad name. He was that obnoxious. He even won two Razzies..

I am changing the assignment to point out that Michael Fishman was good as D.J. Conner during the first run of the series. But on the reboot he is awful. He is a piece of wood parroting lines. The writers give him as few lines as possible and he mostly stands around in the background.

I am changing the assignment to point out that Michael Fishman was good as D.J. Conner during the first run of the series. But on the reboot he is awful. He is a piece of wood parroting lines. The writers give him as few lines as possible and he mostly stands around in the background.

The Oleson Twins were awful. They were like a hideous animatron repeating ridiculous catchphrases...

"You're in Trouble, Mister"...."You got it, dude"

The two hysterically overacting kids in Jurassic Park, Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards, were the worst -- I assumed at the time they just had to be the son and daughter of the producer, or a studio executive.

Shirley Temple herself was a perfectly terrible actress, and not a good singer, either. Compare any of the Little Rascals to her, they seem like geniuses.

But she could tap dance like crazy, it was so amazing, everyone forgot her wretched line delivery.

The boy in that Happyish show on Showtime. I wanted to slap him silly.

The kids from "Kids, Incorporated" in the 80s. I mean, they were charming but the performances were pretty bad. Fergie from Black Eyed Peas was the obnoxious ham, Stacy. And Renee, who was her "sister," with whom she started the forgettable 90's era 90210-style R&B group Wild Orchid. But also Martika, who had the hit with "Toy Soldiers," and Rahsaan Patterson, cast as "The Kid" (no name, inexplicably).

The video in r104 s post...I can’t stop laughing. If I weren’t an atheist, I’d be bound for hell, surely. It should not be funny, but here we are.

That blob of wood who played Jim-Bob in The Waltons.

Or that little ginger bitch Elizabeth

Susan Richardson.

I did not like Christina in Now Voyager.

The kid who plays the gay son on The Conners. All the fucking kids in Hollywood and that's who they chose for that role?

Hated the girl who played young Beth in The Queen’s Gambit. They should have cast her in the “Small Wonder” reboot instead.

Little Ricky in I Love Lucy.

I'll tell you who was among the best -- the kid who played Larry Mondello, Rusty Stevens on "Leave It to Beaver" was one of the most natural kid actors ever.

Larry Matthews on "Dick Van Dyke Show" was pretty bad. Pamelyn Ferdin was kind of annoying. LIsa Gerritson I think was ok on "My World and Welcome To It", but she improved a lot on "Mary Tyler Moore Show".

Robbie Rist and Rickey Seagull on "Brady Bunch" and "Partridge Family" were show killers.

The twins from "Seventh Heaven"

The twins from "Everybody Loves Raymond"

Suzanne Crough: Tracey from "The Partridge Family." She was like a black hole on the screen, sucking up all energy into her vortex of affectless misery.

Whoever played little Krystina (that name!) on "Dynasty." The scene where she's supposed to be choking in the nursery because she had some kind of congenital disease is a classic--it's like she's imitating how Carol Burnett would purposefully pretend to choke for comic effect.

[quote] David Mendenhall (General Hospital, Over the Top, a ton of voiceover work) was the kind of child actor who gave child performers a bad name. He was that obnoxious. He even won two Razzies..

He was the boy who sold drugs to Arnold and Dudley on the Nancy Reagan episode of [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic].

That obnoxious bouffant headed Pakistani kid in the recent David Copperfield.

[quote]All the fucking kids in Hollywood

I told you so.

[quote] why else did they have careers if they couldn't act?

Because they are hot sex.

R178 Make sure to save some for me.

UK child actors always seem much more natural and far less annoying.

I wonder if adult UK audiences think just the opposite. Maybe they think the Olsen Twins are brilliant.

They gave us reality TV. Not everything they do is highbrow costume drama and experimental comedy.

The Olsen twins always looked a bit catatonic to me.

As a fellow kid, I hated that Robbie Rist, who was always plugged into some show on its last legs for some kind of 'aaawwwwww' factor. He was NOT a cute little cousin or orphan or anything other than a tiny John Denver doppelganger.

On that note, include any late addition sitcom baby that grew in one year to a kid with a bowl cut and overalls.

[quote] As a fellow kid

Steve Buscemi, ladies and gentlemen!

[quote]I hated that Robbie Rist, who was always plugged into some show on its last legs for some kind of 'aaawwwwww' factor. He was NOT a cute little cousin or orphan or anything other than a tiny John Denver doppelganger.

Everybody gives him heat for being Cousin Oliver on [italic]The Brady Bunch[/italic], but him being Ted and Georgette's son on [italic]The Mary Tyler Moore Show[/italic] is casually overlooked in such discourse. That even a higher-quality show like MTM felt obligated to hire him speaks volumes.

Whoever those kids were in that 90s Little Rascals movie.

Worst kid actors ever.

Even the ones who grew up to give us legal-age nude selfies?

Pamelyn Ferdin. She had a mutant accent.

Most child actors stink. More often than not, they are hired for their cuteness or because they resemble the actors playing their parents over what acting ability they might have.

Lizzie McGuire as Hilary Duff. Awful.

Hannah Montana as Miley Cyrus. Even worse!

Kid actors are the worst. That Danny Cooksey kid from Different Strokes and his hammy backwoods accent was horrible.t

R191: That nasal twang is common for a lot of country/western singers. I get what they were trying to do: take a family that was a union of Black and white and make it a union of North and South. But the already inconsistent writing took a dive, and his little-boy misogyny, which wasn't remotely cute or funny, rarely going unchallenged outside the Soleil Moon Frye episode was one of the reasons why. Everyone I ever talked to who watched that show hated him except for one person who turned out to be French. The show was dubbed in France.

Ironically, he worked more as an adult than the three main kids did. So did Robbie Rist compared to the six Brady kids. They paid the bills with cartoon voices after they hit puberty. At least with Cooksey's other major TV role as Montana Max on [italic]Tiny Toon Adventures[/italic], the character is supposed to be unsympathetic.

The kid who played Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch and with the exception of David Cassidy, all of the kids on the Partridge Family.

Mason Reese.

Jaden Smith and Jonathan Lipnicki

Barron Trump

Kiernan Shipka in Mad Men. I don't understand why she's considered talented; she just cute girl who got lucky in casting but she's not talented.

Derek singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” on Full House.

Stockard Channing as Rizzo.

What does DL feel about Joan Fontaine playing a 14-year-old in "The Constant Nymph"? I like Ginger Rogers trying to pass as a 12-year old in 'The Major and the Minor".

Second for Jonathan Lipnicki. NOT cute, horrible lisp, seemed like he was being fed every single line at a time and he'd just repeat it. I have no idea why Tom Cruise's character fell for the kid--there was no chemistry there and the child was annoying and homely. He's now an even uglier fatso now.

Tatum O'Neill. Has always been a lousy actress (her episode of SATC was bite-my-nails awful) and she didn't deserve an award for stunt casting. She was adequate. but any ragamuffin child would've been able to do this role. You can vaguely see her mouth Ryan O'Neal's lines in some parts as she waits to deliver her own.

That kid in that movie Simon Birch. My friend went to school with him, everyone hated him.

Give me those shoes back.

Aw, Rhoda is pretty great at being awful.

JHO's untalented fug daughter.

R161 What, you think children wouldn't really scream if they were being chased by dinosaurs? I think they were good. The boy is annoying at first because he's a total know-it-all and looks far too young to have read any of the books he's jabbering about, but once the dinosaurs break out his performance becomes quite convincing.

Those two little trolls on Full House and the two youngest Partridge kids who basically stood there with a dazed look on their faces most of the time.

The kid who played Ellie in the first "Pet Sematary" movie. Actually, ALL the acting in that movie was atrocious, with the exception of Fred Gwynne.

I don't really notice bad child acting most of the time because children in real life aren't as intelligent or complex as adults. And I haven't seen all these corny old American shows with regular child cast members. It seems like when they make quality drama films featuring a child as a main character, they put a lot of effort into finding the best kid for the part (they audition thousands) so usually they deliver a pretty impressive, or least competent performance.

But I agree with all the people who said Jake Lloyd was bad in The Phantom Menace. But then everyone else was bad in it because the script was bad.

I noticed someone saying the kid in The Shining was bad, I don't agree at all. I think he adds to the film and it's one of my favourite child performances.

Fred Savage in THE WONDER YEARS. The hammy, arched eyebrow whenever he ‘got’ something. He delivered most of his lines not like a preteen boy, but a fifty something divorce’ trying to pick up women at a tiki lounge.

R202 They hated that poor dwarf child? You must have gone to a horrible school.

Appropriately enough it's R69 who explains for me my attraction to women who look like Alfred Lutter.

The worst of all, bar none,w as Dawn Lynn as Dodi on "My Three Sons." Apparently the directors never told her to stop breathing through her mouth,

The blond girl in Jurassic Park.

[quote]his IMDB page says that he later played HAMLET in a production he directed himself.....

🎼 Say, Hey, Gertrude will ya hit one out here?!

The bitch who played Tina in Now Voyager. I’m the fake Now Voyager dialogue troll who posts hilarious dialogue in the Now Voyager thread.

I was the best voice for Lucy Van Pelt you Cunts!

DJ on Roseanne.

Recall "Chubby" from Our Gang?

Norman Myers Chaney

He was funny.

Danny Pintauro was awful on "Who's The Boss", but he was actually VERY good as the child Paul Ryan on As The World Turns. The worst have to be Larry Matthews on DVD and Dawn Lynn on MTS.

The best I've ever seen for child TV actors were Ronny Howard on "Andy Griffith" and Jerry Mathers as The Beaver. They sucked when they grew up, but as kids they were naturals.

"I noticed someone saying the kid in The Shining was bad, I don't agree at all. I think he adds to the film and it's one of my favourite child performances."

The kid who played Danny in the tv version of "The Shining" was REALLY bad. He talked like he had marbles in his mouth and for some reason had a Moe Howard sugar bowl haircut.

R222, better than Larry Fine or Curly Howard hair...

She’s gross now but Chloe Mireya was good as a child in “Let Me In”, the boy as well.

Lol *chloe moretz

That teenager whose voice never changed. Younger nephew in Auntie Mame movie and in Twilight Zone’s The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.

R222 Because it was made in the 90s and that Godawful pudding bowl haircut was inexplicably popular among young boys. Or maybe their mothers liked it and chose it for them. I didn't have it, I never liked it and fortunately neither did my mother.

THe girl who plays Lily in Modern Family. She was bad when she was a youngster, but we could overlook that due to her age. She still sucked as a teenager. They should have recast that role when anyone with eyes and ears realized she was awful.

Jonathan Lipniki an ugly fatso? I think not.

Jonathan Lipniki was on a recent season of Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition, and he was cute, funny, and well-built.

[quote] the kid in Burnt Offerings - Lee Montgomery I think his name was

Her grew into the hottie who romances Sarah Jessica Parker in the 80s flick Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

Too many to name, but so many child actors on soaps before they are SORASed to bring on summer teen drama. There main job is to run and hug their Mom when she is feeling bad over her recent romantic troubles, or even worse need to speak dialogue if they are part of a child custody or child illness storyline.

No mention of Marigold from Downton Abbey? She was played by twins who had to have been related to a producer or something...no way they'd have gotten on tv any other way. The scenes where she's a bit more animated is one twin, the other is the goggle eyed, slack jawed "special" one seen in scenes where she's staring off into space with her mouth open. They also always looked exhausted with dark circles under their eyes. Not sure what was going on there.

The twins that trump everything offered here:

Lindsay and Sydney Greenbush from Little House On The Prairie.

Pick any season. It’s just a blank idiotic low-IQ stare into space.

The lights were never turned on in their world.

/end thread.

The blonde boy who played Nathan's on One Tree Hill.

Most recently, this kid in, "Wonder Woman: 1984". This is not even his worst scene:

The Olsens. What a plague they turned out to be.

Dawn Lyn from "My Three Sons" is Leif Garrett's little sister, in more than one way: she is 4'10"

The idiotic and perpetually open-mouthed twins from "Seventh Heaven."

[quote] The Olsens. What a plague they turned out to be.

All the [italic]Full House[/italic] kids were terrible but even they wanted nothing to do with the reboot. That spoke volumes.

[quote]Danny Pintauro was awful on "Who's The Boss", but he was actually VERY good as the child Paul Ryan on As The World Turns.

No, he sucked in both of them if ATWT's ratings went up after he left, and [italic]Cujo[/italic] is one of the worst Stephen King adaptations.

Too lazy to look upthread for Quinn Cummings. Hated that obnoxious little bitch. She was the bane of my existence whenever she was on talk shows.

Quinn Cummings has a cult following on the DL

Cousin Oliver, 2020:

Edward Furlong

the Kars for Kids morons. Hideous.

I find most child actors to be painful to watch. But I have to say: the twins from 7th Heaven, the Olsen twins in most things and the kid that played Franklin in My Wife and Kids.

Looking back, Fred Savage was really obnoxious. I heard the fame went to his head..

I thought the kid in "Problem Child" was just about the worst thing I'd ever seen, in one of the worst movies ever made. To this day, I can't believe there are people that enjoy this movie.

If we want to include movies not many people have seen, there is a Chilean movie called "Gringuito", about an American-born kid whose Chilean parents decide to move back to their homeland with him. The kid's performance is soooooo awful. It's painfully obvious that he's reading his lines off cue cards in just about every scene...and that he can barely read. The movie isn't terrible, but the kid single-handedly ruins it completely.

The little girl who plays Jennifer Lopez's daughter in Enough.

How many of these poor performances were in fact poor direction? Kids in general don't know how to act like someone else and do what the director tells them (demands). Of course there are some kid actors that are naturals, but that is not common.

R245 “Edward Furlong”

He was hot for sure, but not Furlong 😜

Jeremy Miller (Ben on Growing Pains).

The kids who played Franklin and Kady on My Wife and Kids. Annoying and bratty.

The sons on Home Improvement besides JTT.

Olsen Twins in everything from Full House to the tween/teen movies. They're so robotic.

Lil Romeo, Selena Gomez, the Jonas Brothers, Wolff Brothers, Jamie Lynn Spears and Miley Cyrus in their shows.

Taylor Momsen in How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

The kid who played Seven on Married... with Children was one of the worst up there with The Olsens. Even more noticeable since Christina Applegate and David Faustino were such natural actors when they started the show as kids and got better with each season.

I disagree r253.

Jonathan Lipnicki.

The Sprouse Twins.

Lisa Bonet.

The girl that played Carmen on The George Lopez Show.

The two youngest Brady Bunch kids.

The two youngest Partridge Family kids.

The little girl who plays Mary in The Children’s Hour. Dreadful. Veronica Cartwright steals all of their scenes together.

JTT in Man of the House (1995)

The kid in Minari, Alan Kim, is up for a BAFTA for his blank, weird performance.

Angela Cartwright (younger sister of Veronica) learned how to act as she got older and was fine in "Lost in Space" and "The Sound of Music," but she was truly terrible as a young child on "Make Room for Daddy." She couldn't deliver a line without smirking, even when she was supposedly upset and announcing that she was running away from home.

"Dennis the Menace" star Jay North was one of the worst child actors in the history of television. His line delivery was overly emphatic and totally artificial.

No contest: Young Sheldon.

[quote]The girl that played Carmen on The George Lopez Show.

Masiela Lusha was later on an episode of L&O: SVU as a Eastern European prostitute, she was very good.

btw, she's Albanian, not Hispanic.

[quote]The twins from "Everybody Loves Raymond"

One down. One to go.

Ruh Roh, R146

[quote] Jeremy Miller (Ben on Growing Pains).

R253, you need to beg Jesus for forgiveness for that one.

R111 and she got the Oscar nom that should have gone to Joan

The little girl who plays Newt in ":Aliens."

Because of idiot troll 5843, half this thread is grayed out.

Obsessed with kids much, troll?

[...]

[...]

We had this little shit during the pandemic. Non-stop.

Idk.. Lacey Chabert sucked

My all time worst is the actress who played Bonnie Blue Butler in GWtW. I was happy when she fell off that horse!

M.'s spawn.

[...]

R271 is the troll, they're one of the anti-Meghan loons who also posts racist, homophobic, and anti-trans stuff, the "you gays are all misogynist" kind of troll. Read their posts in "Caitlyn Jenner speaks against trans women playing female sports" and "Russian Misinformation Trolls," hell, even in the "Poor Brian Wilson" thread and see for yourself.

The trolls we have who troll all day long in threads on a certain set of topics (trans, immigration, racebait, Meghan, Biden, Muslims) have lately been doing this thing where they randomly accuse others of being trolls. One troll started it and the others picked up on it and have been doing it, too.

Did Willow smith ever do a movie?

All of them, especially the ones who also sing.

With the exception of Christina Ricci in “The Adams Family.”

The craziest thing about the dubbing of Cammie King in GWTW is that she went on to be the voice of Faline as a girl in "Bambi." Clearly, her voice was just fine. The adult dubbing her made the Bonnie Blue character almost intolerable.

Either of the Fannings, Elle or Dakota.

yo mamma

[...]

[...]

Dee.

[...]