'Jerry Maguire' Star Jonathan Lipnicki Shares the 'Awful' Reality of Being a Child Star
Jonathan Lipnicki
It's been a minute since Jonathan Lipnicki starred in box-office hits—like Jerry Maguire, Stuart Little and Like Mike—but the former child actor recently reflected on the reality of finding fame at a young age.
On Dec. 8, Lipnicki appeared on the podcast Brotherly Love, hosted by actor brothers Joey, Matthew and Andrew Lawrence.
"I've always loved it," Lipnicki said of acting. "I want to do this forever, through thick and thin. Sometimes things go your way. Sometimes they do not, for a long time. But it's the greatest job in the world."
At the same time, Lipnicki acknowledged the difficult parts of pursuing it as a career, offering advice to aspiring actors.
"If you have anything else in your life that makes you just as happy, do that. Because this is very, very, very painful. It can be awful if it isn't the thing you really want to dedicate your life to," he explained. "...What I always say, like, life is stress, right? What are you willing to stress over? I'm willing to stress over this forever."
Lipnicki also discussed how it's "increasingly becoming harder and harder to just be an actor," noting that he now works as a producer and teaches acting, in addition to appearing in independent films and TV shows.
"You have to do other creative outlets to really be able to leverage different things," he said...."I do a bunch of different things, all around the thing I love. Which is telling stories. But it is so hard now to just be an actor. You have to be a multi-hyphenate in one area or another."
Overall, though, Lipnicki wouldn't change anything about his rise to fame and experience as a child actor.
"I feel very lucky. You hear a lot of negative stories," he said. "There's nothing I would take back at all. You know, I love it and I found out what I want to do for the rest of my life when I was 5 years old."
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