How Actors Work with Children

Until a certain age, it is tough to convince a child that what we are doing is serious work.

I have had some curious experiences when playing with child actors.

The first was in the miniseries “Seven Women,” during a scene that portrayed a baptism party. It was a huge party, with hundreds of people, typical of a Brazilian state called Rio Grande do Sul. There were horses, too.

Most of the actors and I had to dance a typical dance there. I, who have two left feet and one of them is forty centimeters shorter than the other, was juggling to keep me on the dance floor — poor actress who danced with me — while the main scene, the boy being baptized, took place.

The big problem was this… We were hundreds of people, a dozen horses, and a band making considerable noise. And in the middle of it all, there was a baby, who should be quietly waiting to be baptized.

How to convince the baby to do this?

Easy: change babies!

There were three babies available. We had to try one by one… Luckily the third one agreed to do the scene — I think the other two felt the fee was too low and, for this reason, cried the hell out — and we managed to finish the taping.

My second experience with child actors was a series of commercials that I made for Caixa, a Brazilian Federal Bank:

These two were my children in the commercial. The one on the left, unfortunately, became famous for the wrong reason. In his early twenties, this boy, called Rafael Miguel, was murdered by his girlfriend’s father in 2019.

Taping with these two children was a delight. Rafael was knowledgeable and applied; he memorized not only his lines but mine, “my wife’s” and “my daughter’s,” as well. During breaks, he would tell me about pirates, his obsession at the time, and cars. He fell in love with my Gol 1000 — a popular and very dull Brazilian car — and told me so much about “Need For Speed ​​2” that I ended up buying the game.

When taping, it was difficult for him to miss his lines. The girl, however, made a slight mistake or two. But look at her face! She was practically a baby! She was the one who coordinated the…

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