Today's Blind Items - Insta-Actor, or How I Became Bunny: A Dancing Boy Story

 Some of you know something about how I became an actor, but that isn't the whole story, which is actually kind of...funny.

Roughly two minutes after my birth, my parents were already shouting at each other about whether or not my father would be allowed to get me into modeling.

My father won that argument...for a short time. Because on one of the first shoots - this was for a brand of diaper - one of the men present wanted to put cocaine on my gums; I was teething. My mother was furious and held a retirement party for me the next day.

Then, in kindergarten - where I often got into trouble - I staged a chicken run of sorts, involving...my entire class. We had grievances, you understand, such as: having to sit still for more than five minutes, the truly lousy cafeteria food (which tasted like jail, or at least how you imagined that), the lack of fizzy drinks. So I delivered an impromptu speech on top of the picnic rallying the kids. They'd all give me their lunch money, and we'd meet up at thirteen hundred hours. In the meantime I'd go to the Ralphs and spend all that money on...candy. We had quite the candy feast that day. 

But of course you probably aren't going to get away with that. 

I spent a good hour in the "thinking chair"  (this was a chair in the principal's office with a belt to strap naughty children in) before my parents showed up. The principal suggested they get me into an acting class as a more healthy outlet for all that...energy.

My mother screamed at my father the whole way home (when she wasn't screaming at me, I mean), but that's what happened. Our first performance was Peter Rabbit. (You'll see that in the screen saga my code name is Bunny. This is why.)

At first I just kind of sat there bored and daydreaming, having to listen to the other kids - most of who were a little older - brag about how they were in this or that commercial, or had some bit part in a movie. But then, one day, something happened - something magical.

We were rehearsing that scene where Peter gets lost in the garden. I said my lines and the teacher stopped me. She said: you're just saying the words. You need to feel them. Think of a time you were afraid and alone.

And I thought of the time, just a year earlier, I fell into the pool and nearly drowned. I was surrounded by my parents' drunk and coked up Hollywood friends - this was at one of their frequent parties - and at least at first no one noticed.

I said my lines again, and this time I started to cry. And when I was done I looked over at my teacher and she was crying too. She came over and pinched my cheek and said: you are great. I had discovered...my superpower. 

Fast forward nearly two years. I'm in the second grade now, and we are being sent home with a flyer about the forthcoming school play. It was Peter Pan. I get into my mother's Jaguar and hand it to her, saying nothing. 

That's nice, she said. Do you want to see it when they put it on?

I nodded my head no.

What is it you want, she said.

I said nothing.

You want to try out for it, don't you.

I shook my head yes.

She rolled her eyes and said: I'll talk to your father, who being the grandiose narcissist, was delighted. (My mother is of the covert type - actual success is for some reason a bad thing with these people. Unless you are truly pitiable, you are not sympathetic.)

I auditioned for the lead role, and despite being younger than the recommended age, got the part. (My mother sat in the car during rehearsals because she was convinced that they were going to drop me on my head or something during the flight scenes.) 

As I said in the very first dancing boy blind item - back in January, 2018 - my future agent was in the audience with his girlfriend - the mother of one of my classmates, who was also in the play, and an aspiring actor. He was already representing him. 

What I didn't say was that later that school year the boy and his mother vanished. One day he was in school and the next day he was not. I think she discovered what was taking place with this man and her son, and literally just packed up the car one day and left.