Rules Child Actors Have To Follow On Set

Children have starred in Hollywood movies since the silent film era, and when television took over as the dominant medium in the 1950s, family-centered shows like "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" had important roles for younger actors as well. In the following decades, child actors dominated the casts of shows like "The Brady Bunch" and films such as "Stand By Me" and "The Goonies."

Lydia Jewett (shown above) was only eight years old when she appeared on all 20 episodes of "WITS Academy" and was 11 when she appeared as Sara Hill on "Good Girls." Millie Bobby Brown was also — fittingly — 11 years old when she was cast as Eleven on "Stranger Things," but she and her castmates will be full-fledged adults when Season 5 airs later this year.

Much of the "Stranger Things" main cast has turned 18 since the show debuted in 2016, thanks in part to COVID-19 and strike delays that have created a gap of almost three years between Seasons 4 and 5. The fact that many of the show's stars are now adults in the eye of the law doubtlessly made it easier for creators Matt and Ross Duffer to welcome viewers back to Hawkins, Indiana. Production companies must follow reams of laws regarding child labor, and the Screen Actor's Guild has an entire section in its basic agreement dedicated to protecting underage actors. Here are some of the rules child performers and the productions that employ them must follow.

Child actors and other entertainers aren't subject to U.S. federal child labor law protections, so much of the law that applies to child actors is made at the state level. They vary from state to state and country to country, so movie and TV productions that employ child actors have to stay current on changes in the law. Since so much of the entertainment industry is centered in Southern California, it shouldn't surprise you that California's laws are among the most plentiful and thoroughly developed. New York's popularity as a show location has brought many productions there as well, and the laws underage actors must follow there are similar to California's.

In Illinois, any child actor under the age of 14 must have written approval to work from their school superintendent, and Kentucky exempts child actors from any of the state's child labor law protections. An actor must be less than a month old to benefit from entertainment-specific labor laws in Kansas, where a doctor has to certify that an infant is at least 15 days old and in good health for them to participate in a show or movie's production.

Texas law restricts the length of contracts with minors, allowing them to run no more than 7 years, and in Michigan, child actors between 15 days and 17 years old have to get approval from the state Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity before performing. Montana is the Wild West for kids on camera, with no restrictions on their ability to perform. Rhode Island considers entertainers to be independent contractors and not employees, and leaves regulation of the industry for local and county governments. Whenever there is a conflict between federal and state law, the more restrictive of the two standards applies.

Most actors who are lucky enough to land a part in a television or movie production have to deal with a mountain of paperwork before they can even start rehearsing lines, and there's even more involved when the actors are children. They and their parents often must first secure a work permit, which in turn requires them to also acquire workers compensation insurance. This is one way in which varying state laws come into play; federal law doesn't require minors to get a work permit, but about half the states require them for actors under age 14, 16, or 18.

Hawaii allows minors under 14 to work with written parental authorization in lieu of a permit, while California requires a sign-off from the actor's school district in addition to a permit. The work permit is called an employment certificate in New York, and must be accompanied by written parental consent, a medical certificate, and a sign-off from the school district. Only once these permits are secured can a child actor begin working.

Contracts are also a complicated endeavor when child actors are involved. Under federal law, contracts signed by children under 18 must be affirmed (ratified) and disaffirmed (canceled) when the child turns 18. Under California law, this loophole can be closed if a producer or studio petitions to have the right to disaffirm suspended. A judge will review the contract for fairness and strip away the child's ability to cancel the contract without repercussions.

There are numerous stories of child actors who were taken advantage of financially by family members, including Jackie Coogan, who was discovered by Charlie Chaplin and starred alongside The Little Tramp in 1921's "The Kid."  Coogan's filmography stretches into the early 1980s and includes appearances on "The Brady Bunch" and "The Partridge Family" as well as a starring role as Uncle Fester on "The Addams Family." The child actors who shared the credit reels of those shows with Coogan owe him a debt of gratitude — and more.

Coogan's father died when Jackie was 21, just when his Hollywood stardom was starting to fade. As the young actor's income slowed down, he became aware that his parents had spent much of his earnings, and he sued his mother and manager to recover some of his money. A few years later, in 1939, California's legislature passed the Coogan Act, which was put in place to protect future child actors from suffering a similar fate.

The law requires a conservatively managed trust be established for child actors, with 15% of their earnings going to the trust. California solidified the Coogan Act in 2000, and similar laws are now in place in New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Nevada. There are plenty of child actors who couldn't maintain their Hollywood careers as adults, but at least modern-day kids have this protection from unscrupulous guardians.

Federal law prohibits minors from working more than three hours a day or 18 hours per week while school is in session, or more than eight hours a day or 40 per week during school breaks. Children under 16 can't work from 7 p.m. through 7 a.m. (9-7 in summer months) according to federal law and are restricted to three hours of work each school day and 23 each school week.

In California, work hours include time on set and in hair, makeup, and wardrobe. When you add that prep time to mandated recreational and educational hours, table reads, rehearsal, and performance, you hit those time restrictions quickly. There's a very important timing rule that all union child actors, as well as adults in the cast and crew, must follow: when their workday ends, they must wait a minimum of 12 hours to return to the set. This provision is in place to keep the actors rested, and the crew's rest time is critical to keeping everyone on set safe from accidents.

As you'd expect, infants aren't expected to put in the same full workdays as their 17-year-old co-stars. Six-month-old children can't work more than 20 minutes in a stretch, which can make coordinating a scene with multiple babies a tough task for first and second assistant directors. These production staffers are often also tasked with managing another very important must for child actors: on-set schooling.

Becoming a Hollywood star at a young age doesn't exempt kids from going to school. Aside from restrictions on the number of allowed work hours during the school year, film and television producers must provide adequate on-set schooling for their young actors. In California, child actors between ages 6 and 15 are generally required to attend school full-time, with some 14- and 15-year-olds allowed to work full-time while school is in session. Other exceptions are made for actors with private tutors or who moved from another state with less than 10 days left in the school year.

Studios usually employ on-set tutors to maximize production hours while complying with the law. When a child actor has access to a studio teacher or tutor on the set, they are only required to have three hours of instruction each day. That's far shorter than a typical school day and allows them to work longer hours than child actors who are still attending school. Child actors with tutors can work up to nine hours a day, while those in school can only work three hours a day — including time in hair, makeup, and wardrobe. The Screen Actor's Guild policy requires studios to provide a tutor for any child actor who will be on set for three consecutive days or more, although they can honor any days off on the actor's school district calendar. Alaska allows for a waiver of the studio teacher requirement in approved cases.

Child actors are talented professionals who are dedicated to their craft, but they are still kids. In addition to work and school instruction, the day of a child actor must legally include recreation time. One child actor who wasn't afforded this privilege is Judy Garland, who worked 72-hour shifts while filming "The Wizard of Oz." Due in part to this, Garland experienced severe burnout once the film was complete. 

These days, mandated recreation time varies by filming location and the age of the child actor. In California, actors under two years old have half of their four-hour workday set aside for playtime. Child actors between 2 and 6 years old work three hours a day and have three hours of recreation time. From ages 6 through 9, child actors can be on set for up to eight hours a day, with four hours of work, three of school, and one of recreation. 9- to 16-year-old child actors get an extra hour each day to work, and once they turn 16, they can work up to 10 hours a day, with six hours of work, three of school, and one of recreation. When their regular school is not in session, two of those school hours can be converted to work hours. Child actors can spend their free time reading, playing video games, doing homework, or watching other scenes being filmed on set to learn more about the production process.

Child actors often bond with the adults with whom they share a stage. Sofia Vergara and Rico Rodriguez starred together on "Modern Family," and Rodriguez surprised his former co-star a few years ago by showing up to a taping of "America's Got Talent," on which Vergara was a judge. The cast had a reunion in 2023, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson told People he was inadvertently able to carry on a long-held tradition. "For 11 years we would take family pictures for 'Modern Family' and without missing one ever, I would always say, 'now let's do one without Ty [Burrell].'" As Burrell was unable to make the reunion, when they recreated their cast pic, he was represented by a photograph.

Ferguson's character, Mitchell Pritchett, and his husband, Cameron Tucker (Eric Stonestreet), had two children on the show, including a daughter, Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons). In 2017, Ferguson talked with The Huffington Post about working with Anderson-Emmons. "I love watching her learn about how TV works," he said. "She makes me laugh."

When Kristen Stewart appeared in the 2002 film "Panic Room," she was just 10 years old. Jodie Foster played her mother in the film, and Stewart recalled the experience when honoring her friend's inclusion on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2016. The Daily Mail quoted Stewart as saying, "Jodie Foster was my favorite actress before I was cast as her daughter. Of all the examples that I could have had at such an impressionable age, there's nothing self-serving about her. She's been there for me."

Child actors sometimes appear in movies that they're too young to see in theaters. Jodie Foster was just 14 when she starred as a 12-year-old sex worker named Iris in the gritty 1976 drama "Taxi Driver." Foster and Robert De Niro earned Oscar nominations for their performances, and the R-rated film picked up another nod for Best Picture. Chloe Grace Moretz was 13 when she starred in "Kick-Ass," a 2010 superhero comedy that had more than enough adult language and violence to earn an R rating as well. Moretz contributed plenty of both while on screen, including committing more than a dozen murders. She returned as Mandy Macready/Hit Girl in the 2013 sequel, "Kick-Ass 2," but at 16 was still too young to see the R-rated flick in theaters. 

Natalie Portman's first film role as a 12-year-old was as an assassin in training in "Leon: The Professional," a film that included a romantic storyline between her and the much older title character (Jean Reno). She was also slated to appear in a shower scene until her parents lobbied for its removal. In 2023, she told The Hollywood Reporter, "It definitely has some cringey, to say the least, aspects to it. So, yes, it's complicated for me." Of course, child actors (for this purpose, defined as anyone under the age of 18) may not perform in sexually explicit productions, although the applicable federal and state laws generally outline punishments for the producers, not the performers. 

In some states, child actors under a certain age must be accompanied by a parent or guardian during any hours spent on set. Alabama law and the state's Film Office require parental supervision for child actors under 16, along with assurances that the production "will not be detrimental to the life, health, safety, welfare, or morals of the child" nor interrupt their education. Indiana state law has similar provisions, as well as a stipulation that child entertainers cannot work in cabarets or nightclubs.

While California doesn't require parental supervision of child actors, Angelina Jolie must have appreciated having her daughter Vivienne Jolie-Pitt appear alongside her in the 2014 Disney film "Maleficent." They're far from the only parent-child combination to appear together in a production; Will and Jaden Smith worked together in "The Pursuit of Happiness" and "After Earth" when Jaden was 8 and 15 years old, respectively, and Tina Fey's daughter, Alice, was already a fixture on the set of "30 Rock" as a visitor when she was cast as a 7-year-old version of Liz Lemon (Fey) in a 2012 episode. Melanie Griffith and her daughter Dakota Johnson appeared together in "Crazy in Alabama" when Johnson was just 10, and Miley Cyrus was 14 when she starred in "Hannah Montana" alongside her father, Billy Ray. Bridget Fonda began her long acting career at the age of five alongside her father, Peter, in "Easy Rider."

Some of the guidelines and protections enjoyed by child actors come from federal or state law, but actors under 18 are also full-fledged members of the Screen Actor's Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). Along with adult and child actors, SAG-AFTRA includes broadcast journalists, dancers, DJs, voiceover artists, stunt performers, and even some writers. Child actors who are SAG-AFTRA members can run for union office, vote in elections, and serve on committees.

Underage actors are encouraged to consult with the on-set union representative if they are being asked to work more than their allowed hours, aren't getting properly schooled, or are being asked to do dangerous work. SAG-AFTRA acknowledges that the union is in partnership with the parents of child actors and encourages parents to develop a strong relationship with their child's union rep. An adult or child actor becomes eligible for SAG-AFTRA membership after they land a principal role or appear in three union productions. They then have 30 days to become union members and begin paying dues. Once they become members of the union, child actors can't appear in non-union productions.