Is casting for child roles different in any way?

Is casting for child roles different in any way?

Paul De Freitas (Casting Director) gives expert video advice on: Have you discovered someone who is now a big star?; How do you cope with a difficult actor?; What happens if the director hates the people who you've cast? and more...

Casting for child roles is always difficult, and it's very different to casting adults. To cast child roles, you have to see a lot more, and you never quite know how a child's going to be from day to day and that makes casting child roles quite difficult. Being a child actor once myself, I'm very sympathetic and understanding to kids, and I like working with children a lot. I think that casting child roles is difficult because people don't like children who are too polished, too professional because then they think they're precocious. We all like nice natural children, and it's quite difficult to try and get a child to be accomplished as a young actor and still hold on to the qualities of being a child. And if you can do that, that's quite an achievement but that makes it quite difficult.