Demi Lovato brought their life experience full circle by co-directing the new Hulu documentary “Child Star.”
The former Disney Channel kid turned teen pop sensation looks beyond their own career journey to analyze the rise of the entire child performer industry — from the Shirley Temple era to the TikTok and YouTube generation.
Lovato recruited fellow child stars Drew Barrymore, Kenan Thompson, Christina Ricci, Raven-Symoné, Alyson Stoner and JoJo Siwa to share their stories on camera; Raven-Symoné, Siwa and Stoner also joined Lovato on Sept. 12 at a special screening of the documentary, held at Neuehouse Hollywood. “Getting to talk to them so candidly about our experiences was so meaningful to me,” Lovato told Variety.
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Because of that shared experience, Lovato’s conversations were markedly different than sitting down with someone who hasn’t been there. “There was a connectedness that was really important to all of us,” Lovato said. “That’s a part of the reason why I decided to co-direct this film, because it’s such a huge part of my story, and I knew that being able to connect with the participants would be so important. And I wanted to do it myself.”
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Of course, Lovato (who uses they/them and she/her pronouns) knows a thing or two about documentaries. They’ve been the subject of three —2012’s “Stay Strong,” 2017’s “Simply Complicated” and 2021’s “Dancing With the Devil” — which chronicled the highs and lows of their life and career, including struggles with mental health and substance abuse. Lovato pitched the idea for “Child Star” to producer Michael D. Ratner after working together on “Dancing With the Devil”; he immediately hopped on board, followed by co-director Nicola Marsh (“The 12th Victim,” “Omnivore”).
“It’s very easy for Demi to share her story — she’s been very public about it,” Marsh said about working with Lovato. “She’s a very serious person, so she’s not interested in having a shallow conversation, like ‘Let’s talk about who we had a crush on.’ She wants to get deep.”
Lovato’s instincts played out from the first interview, when Raven-Symoné reflected on her experience guest starring on Lovato’s Disney Channel sitcom “Sonny With a Chance,” which Lovato didn’t initially remember. In the documentary, the two discuss Lovato’s difficult demeanor on set. “You weren’t the nicest person,” Raven-Symoné says. “But being the type of person I am and that I’ve been in the industry as long as you, and I understand the glaze over the eyes, I didn’t hold it against you. I just was like, ‘Something’s going on there.’”
That was a striking moment for Ratner. “I was pretty amazed by the disassociation that went on when [Demi] was growing up,” he said. “We’ve talked about that lightly, but to really see it and imagine what that’s like to be so overworked that you can’t remember meeting people and collaborating with them, it’s intense.”
Raven-Symoné quickly agreed to participate in the documentary. “I thought it was very needed and necessary,” she said. “There’s different points of view when it comes to child stars, and what I like about this one is that we are all successful at the end of the day in our own way. Yes, we go through challenges, but we’re all moving forward. And we are standing on the shoulders of some child stars that haven’t even made it to live in this year.”
Siwa was also eager to sign on. “When Demi calls you answer and you say, ‘Yes.’ It’s cool that I got the chance to bring the social media side of things,” she said. “I’m so grateful that this happened when it did because if it would have happened three years ago, I would have still technically been a child, so it feels like just the perfect timing.”
Because it was her first time seeing the finished film, Siwa was anticipating an emotional experience. “I’m preparing for a little bit of trauma that I don’t know exists to kind of unlock,” she said. “Because I think there is something that I maybe have sheltered my brain from realizing, growing up in the limelight as a child star. I have kept it all positive, but I think hearing other people’s experiences, I might kind of sit there and be like, ‘Oh shoot, I feel that too.’”
Stoner’s decision to participate was a bit more complicated. Stoner and Lovato co-starred in Disney Channel’s “Camp Rock,” but they’d been estranged for 14 years, following an incident in 2010 when Lovato punched a backup dancer. In the years since, Stoner has become a vocal advocate for legislation protecting child performers — a mission that ultimately brought Stoner and Lovato back together for their first conversation.
“It’s interesting when you have an idea for something, and no one else is talking about it,” Stoner said. “You’re in your room doing the research, putting together whatever projects you can to bring this forward, and then you start to see these glimpses of other folks joining in” — an allusion to the “Quiet on Set” docuseries. “It does provide hope when you feel like there’s movement being generated.”
In the end, Stoner’s participation in the documentary was a “strategic” move to put a megaphone on the cause, that turned into a healing opportunity for the two young stars.
“It’s curious, because during our earlier years, often we’re pitted against each other as competition,” Stoner said. “It can be quite an isolating experience, even though you’re smiling side by side on red carpets. Now being able to sit next to each other and feel the embodied experience of similar patterns in our nervous systems — we have the same ticks, the same fears, similar actual mental health issues that are a direct reflection of being a child actor — it can feel humanizing in an otherwise unrelatable upbringing.”
In the documentary, Stoner cites a few harrowing statistics: the average lifespan for a famous person, they say, is 14 years younger than for non-famous people due to the increased pressure on their mental health. Famous people are also 4 times more likely to die by suicide. Fame has addictive properties similar to substances, Stoner notes. “If that’s the case, why are we hooking a child to a drug that’s fundamentally altering their brain chemistry and future development?”
So, what comes next? As Marsh puts it, “The child stars of yesteryear are the canaries in the coal mine for kids on the internet.”
Stoner believes that the entertainment industry is indeed at an inflection point. “It is on each of us individually and together as a community and an industry and a collective society, to continually apply pressure in the right places at the right time with the right motives,” they told Variety. “Change is not going to happen on its own.”
Stoner has been working on a bill in their home state of Ohio geared toward protecting kid influencers. A representative from Michigan recently reached out for their help. It’s a state-by-state chase for the protections. “There’s a long way to go, but I’m in the DMs of representatives, saying, ‘Let’s chat,’” Stoner said.
Raven-Symoné has been working to make change from inside the business, as she’s transitioned to produce and direct shows featuring kid actors for the Disney Channel. “We have to help change the narrative of what a child star means,” she said. “I absolutely love every child actor that comes through the door, and I will hopefully build a foundation for their career that allows them to grow into a productive adult within the industry. It’s confidence, awareness and to understand that you don’t have to do this for the rest of your life. There are other things in the industry, and that took me 38 years to figure out.”
Will Lovato’s future include more directing? They’re not sure. “If I did, I would be co-directing,” Lovato said. “But I always have dreams that I’m trying to chase — who knows if this will be a dream in the future that I’m trying to chase again.”
But making this documentary did inspire new music — namely the song “You’ll Be OK, Kid,” which plays at the end of the film. On the heartfelt track, Lovato sings to their younger self who yearned to achieve Shirley Temple’s level of stardom: “The sharks in the water will teach you to swim, the thorns on the roses will thicken your skin. People might hurt you and break promises, but, darlin’, I promise you this, you’ll be OK, kid.”
“There’s a bit of inner-child work there, but there’s also like a cautionary tale at the same time,” Lovato said. “It was really important for me to make this song because I knew exactly what I wanted to say.”
