Child Star, the new documentary about youth fame co-directed by Demi Lovato and Nicola Marsh, begins with a confession.
Lovato, one of our more open and candid celebrities, recounts the moment she watched a Shirley Temple movie on television at her great-grandparents’ house and decided her future: “I wanted to be the youngest and the best at what I do.”
That sentiment, shared by young actors and young people with dreams of working in any industry, is the monkey’s paw that curls around Child Star (whose title pointedly echoes the 2001 biopic Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story). The film ultimately provides an outlet through which a number of actors—who are partially famous for just how fresh-faced they were when they started out—put into words how that phenomenon can fundamentally alter a person’s perception of the world and their place in it.
