New Book ‘Young Hollywood Actors’ Is Brimming With Insights From Your Favorite Disney Stars About Breaking Into the Biz
If you’re a Disney-loving family, chances are you’ve spent many a night huddled around the TV watching popular Disney Channel programs like Liv and Maddie, Jessie or the insanely popular Descendants films. If you’ve ever wondered how actors like Dove Cameron, Cameron Boyce or Booboo Stewart broke into the biz, then we’ve got your first must-read book of 2019 – Young Hollywood Actors by Bonnie J. Wallace.
For those of you that may not know, Bonnie Wallace is the mother of Dove Cameron and runs a successful consultancy business designed to help parents and young actors get their foot in the door in an industry that is as daunting and confusing as it is wonderful and rewarding. Wallace has established a successful career by offering personal consultations, running a successful industry blog and hosting the popular Hometown to Hollywood podcast. It is the latter that serves as the genesis for her newest book Young Hollywood Actors.
The book offers an expertly curated selection of interviews covering a wide range of topics including training, finding an agent, auditioning, coping with rejection and more. The young Hollywood actors interviewed for Wallace’s book is a virtual Who’s Who of leading Disney talent including:
- Cameron Boyce – Descendants, Jessie, Bunk’d
- Dove Cameron – Liv and Maddie, Descendants
- Thomas Doherty – Descendants 2
- Sarah Jeffrey – Descendants
- Jessica Maria Garcia – Liv and Maddie
- BooBoo Stewart – Descendants
- Brenna D’Amico – Descendants
- Garrett Clayton – Teen Beach Movie
- Joey Bragg – Liv and Maddie
- Victoria Moroles – Liv and Maddie
- Dylan Playfair – Descendants 2
- Luke Benward – Cloud 9
For those wondering if Young Hollywood Actors is geared toward parents or kids, the answer is both! For adults, this book skillfully navigates through a wide-range of topics including knowing when it’s time to relocate to the big city, what happens with schooling, the differences between agents and managers, and how to help kids prep for auditions. There’s also a specific chapter about the unique opportunities and challenges that come with working for Disney. One of Young Hollywood Actors greatest strengths is that it covers a myriad of subjects without being pedantic. Wallace never attempts to sell parents on one way of doing things or claims to hold the secrets essential to success. Rather she acknowledges that there are countless paths to achieving these goals and each is as diverse as the actors that pursue them.
For aspiring young actors, the book provides an inside look at the ways that many of your favorite Disney performers broke into acting. The path was different for each of the actors Wallace interviewed, Cameron Boyce started the business young and went to a Studio School on set. Thomas Doherty went to a conservatory in Scotland. Joey Bragg was a successful stand-up comedian while Dylan Playfair was pursuing a career in hockey before making the leap to acting in his late teens. Some were classically trained and others had hardly any training at all. When you’re trying to become a professional actor, it’s helpful to hear things like “Always bring your lines with you to an audition.” or “Have your headshots taken in color.” However, it’s equally important to hear that you don’t have to be training rigorously from the age of 2 to be successful.
As a matter of fact, if there is an underlying message of Young Hollywood Actors it’s one of diversity, kindness, inclusion and motivation. Though each actor came into the entertainment business under different circumstances, they all demonstrate that by sticking to your principals, being kind to those around you, feeling confident in your abilities and learning from your mistakes you have your own unique recipe for success.
For that reason, your child doesn’t even need to be an aspiring actor to appreciate the interviews found in this book. If they are fans of Liv and Maddie or the Descendants films and look up to any of the actors interviewed then there are important messages to be found. One of the most poignant moments in the book is when Dove Cameron talks candidly to her mother about being bullied in school, “The time that I did spend in school, there wasn’t anybody else like me in school, and nobody liked me. Every friend I tried to make didn’t understand me, and they all kind of excluded me because I was very artistic and odd.” Cameron went on to add: “There are so many kids out there that are special and different. They get bullied, they get left out, and they don’t have friends, and they become the most incredible adults.” There’s a real comfort to be found in knowing that your idols experienced many of the same difficulties growing up that you are going through today.
As Wallace repeats several times in Young Hollywood Actors there are several ways up the mountain. Whether you apply this to breaking into acting, being a supportive parent or navigating through childhood and adolescence, this book offers something insightful and meaningful.
Order up your copy of Young Hollywood Actors by visiting Bonnie Wallace’s website here.
As a special treat for our readers, we will be giving away a signed copy of Young Hollywood Actors this Holiday Season. Keep following along with MickeyBlog for further details!