How Alan Arkin Protected Abigail Breslin From Little Miss Sunshine's Adult Language

By /dec. 2022 26 3:36 PM EST

It is sometimes difficult to understand whether child actors in R-rated films can be shielded from adult themes in the films surrounding them. At 12, Chloë Grace Moretz was tasked in "Kick-Ass" with repeating nearly every swear word there is, and a few years later Jacob Tremblay appeared in one of horror's most unsettling death scenes. in Mike Flanagan's "Doctor Sleep". It was a few years after Tremblay had already given a heartbreaking performance at the age of seven alongside Brie Larson in the even darker 2015 film "Room." I have to remind myself that this phenomenon of child actors in dark or mature films is not really new.

In addition to movies like "Stand By Me" and "The Goonies," where kids swear without restraint, /Film has covered the effects some classic horror movies have had on their child stars , including Kyle Richards' experience with "Halloween". Despite the measures director John Carpenter took to keep Richards – like one of the children Laurie Strode babysits in the film – from her scariest elements, it was after seeing the final cut at age 10 that she had to sleep in his mother's room for the next five years.

While filming the R-rated dark comedy "Little Miss Sunshine", Abigail Breslin, who plays young Olive, was around Richards' age. Thankfully, the film's script, written by Michael Arndt, had a built-in solution to shield Breslin from its most adult moments. Whenever the language peaked, Breslin's character simply put on a pair of headphones. Without his co-stars, the headphones might have been little more than a prop, but in a scene involving actor Alan Arkin as a rude, estranged grandfather, Arkin insisted that Breslin covers his ears.

At the time "Little Miss Sunshine" was released in 2006, MovieFone reported that Abigail Breslin actually listened to Kelly Clarkson's music in her headphones during filming and didn't just wear them for the show. But when Breslin appeared on "The Kelly Clarkson Show" in October 2021 to tell the story, she clarified that Arkin was the one enforcing this:

"It's so funny because... I remembered when I did 'Little Miss Sunshine', I had to listen to headphones in the scene, and I was listening in makes music because Alan Arkin — there's a scene where there's a language I can't repeat on TV — but Alan really wasn't comfortable with me listening to him. always checked that I had the headphones on and that I was listening to music. So I was listening to [Kelly Clarkson's] Breakaway album. I listen to, like, 'You Found Me'."

Considering that "You Found Me" is Clarkson's ninth song...