How Do You Survive Being A Child Star?

In the new Amazon MGM Studios action thriller G20, Marsai Martin holds her own as she takes the screen as the strong-willed and brilliant First Daughter opposite the President in the film — a formidable assignment because the president in G20 is played by Viola Davis, one of the most revered actors of our time.

Of course, Marsai has no problem standing tall and delivering her lines next to Viola, as she’s had more than a decade of practice. Martin, now twenty, has been a major network talent since she was nine years old, and was doing modeling work even before then. Most know her as Diane, the youngest and perhaps most mischievous child in the Johnson family on the hit ABC sitcom Blackish. But as Martin told me during our sitdown earlier this week, that was just the start.

G20 is on Amazon Prime right now, and worth the ride. (Also, Marsai says the movie is yes, an action thriller for sure, but it’s also a mother/daughter movie, which — what’s not to love?!) Also, why haven’t we had at least ten movies in which Viola Davis saves the world by now?!

G20 wasn’t all Marsai and I talked about. I was very interested in how she made the transition from child star to adult star. More often than feels right, that path is full of drugs and dashed dreams and tabloids and bad decisions. I need not take time here to name child stars who flamed out disastrously, because I am sure you’ve already thought of at least three or four.

Martin beautifully dodged all the pitfalls. Her answer — of course — is family. Her parents started shuttling her back and forth from Plano, Texas, to Los Angeles for auditions and small gigs when Marsai was around five. They all crashed on Marsai’s aunt’s air mattresses for a bit before moving to Orange County with relatives who already lived there.

Marsai and her mother talked at length about how Marsai being raised in a household with four generations of women helped give Marsai a perspective many other child stars just don’t get. And yes, you read that right; Marsai’s mother, Carol Martin, also spoke with me during this week’s conversation.

I pulled her out of the studio’s control room, mid-interview, for her perspective. I had one big question for her: How do you raise a well-adjusted child star? “We made sure that she understood that this is what she does,” Martin told me. “It’s not who she is. She is Caila Marsai Martin… Marsai is who the public gets to experience. Caila is who she really is.”

“It’s like Peter Parker and Spiderman, so that whenever she needs to take that off, she has a safe space to be herself, and she has something left for herself.”

It was a beautiful moment in a really charming interview. But I couldn’t help but think of how all of this juxtaposed with the harsh realities for the social media generation’s new child stars: kid influencers.

They’re unboxing, and mukbang-ing, and video-game-reviewing, and live-streaming — not on big studio sets, but from home, sometimes with their parents, sometimes without. It’s an entirely different model than the one Marsai thrived in as a kid actor, and at least in some ways, it seems to be even more susceptible to adverse outcomes for children.

Utah, Illinois, Minnesota, and California have recently passed bills instituting protections for young online creators and the children of online content creators who appear on screen. And in Utah, that bill came after the abuse of children in a Mormon influencer family. But the world of online influencing is still drastically under-monitored when compared to the traditional Hollywood system, which is full of union protections, child labor laws, and more. There’s none of that when you’re influencing from home, and if your parents are putting you up to it, there’s also no Carol Martin keeping you grounded, reminding you that the on-screen work is just something you do, not something you are.

All this to say, as wholesome as Marsai Martin’s path from child star to grown-up actor feels, there’s maybe a good chance that those kinds of stories are a lot less likely in our current media environment. Something to think about next time a young influencer crosses your screen.

Catch more of Marsai and her mother in this week’s warm and fuzzy episode, and if you’re so inclined, lemme know if you have big thoughts on children influencing? I’m conflicted – if a kid has that itch, let them scratch it. But I also can’t say I’d want my own kid doing it if I had one… More to discuss!

Thanks and have a great weekend,

– Sam