In a recent interview with the New York Times, the former “Suite Life of Zack and Cody” actor said that he has a “very complicated relationship to celebrity culture.”
“I started acting when I was so young that I hadn’t actually attempted, as an adult, to think about if I really enjoyed performance,” the “Riverdale” actor said. “When I returned, I reminded myself that I do very much love the art of acting. But I still have a very complicated relationship to celebrity culture.”
He also argued that becoming a successful child actor or actress is more of a trauma than anything – an idea he only conceived in hindsight as he got older and gained more experience in the entertainment industry.
“My brother and I used to get quite a bit of, ‘Oh, you made it out! Oh, you’re unscathed!’ No,” he insisted. “The young women on the channel we were on [Disney Channel] were so heavily sexualized from such an earlier age than my brother and I that there’s absolutely no way that we could compare our experiences.” Read more…