They’re superstars out in the world, but their shine dims at home.
Yep, many kids of Hollywood celebrities aren’t too awed by their careers — or interested in watching their blockbuster hits. For example, Ben Affleck’s children, Violet, 16, Seraphina, 13, and Samuel, 9, have selective taste in film; the actor admitted that his kids “relentlessly mock” his performance in 1998’s Armageddon, what he says is “the one movie of mine that my kids have watched.” And David Arquette and Courteney Cox’s 17-year-old daughter Coco has only seen one part of Scream, the 1996 movie during which her parents (now divorced) first fell in love. “She doesn’t like to watch anything we do,” Cox has said.
And Adam Sandler says his teenage daughters Sadie and Sunny lose interest in his films rather quickly. “And every time, I’d say about 20 minutes in, I see them tuning out, and I hear them — they’re nervous to say it—but they’re like, ‘Can we watch something else?'” he told Ellen DeGeneres in 2019.
But it’s not such a bad idea for kids to differentiate between their parents’ roles at home and out in the world, especially if it helps them imagine their own dreams. A 2021 survey conducted by Joblist found that 48 percent of people say their parents “strongly influenced” their job choices and almost 40 percent felt “pressured” to take their parents’ career advice.
So boycotting a film or two might be one way these kids are learning independence from their famous parents. And honestly — as kids, how many of us were interested in hearing about our parents’ 9 to 5? Yeah, we thought so!
This article was originally published in February 2022.
Busy Philipps
Busy Philipps’ daughter Cricket was 10 years old by the time she first saw her mom perform on-screen. While attending the 2024 Mean Girls premiere, Philipps recalled her youngest kid’s face twisting in discomfort as she watched the rebooted movie.
“I saw her face and she goes, ‘This is weird,'” the Dawson’s Creek alum said during an appearance on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. She continued, “And so we talked about it the next day and I was like, ‘You know, was that too much for you? Did you not like it?’ And she’s like, ‘I don’t think I want to watch things you’re in. It was weird.’ And I was like, ‘I get it.'”
While battling laughter, Philipps added, “She’s like, ‘Luckily you’re not in the movie that much.’ … She loved the rest of the movie! She was like, ‘I can just skip forward.'”
Jennifer Garner
Jennifer Garner shares three kids — daughters Violet and Seraphina and son Samuel — with ex-husband Ben Affleck, and she’s not exactly their favorite actor. It’s unsettling for them, she told Instlye, to see their mom display intimate emotions with other actors.
“My kids don’t love to watch me in things,” the 13 Going On 30 star said. “They do to be supportive, but I think it’s a little weird to watch your mom kiss someone or cry. They don’t want to see me sad, and they don’t want to see me in a romance. They don’t love seeing me play someone else’s mom, honestly.”
Apparently, the trio does not feel the same way about seeing Affleck on the big screen. “It’s different. They don’t mind watching their dad.”
Ben Affleck
But according to Ben Affleck, his children don’t watch their dad’s movies — or so he claimed in a January 2022 interview with Entertainment Weekly.
Explaining to interviewer Matt Damon that his kids have only seen his 1998 film Armageddon, Affleck added, “It’s funny because that’s the one movie of mine that my kids have watched and they’ll kind of all admit to liking, even though they relentlessly mock it and me. ‘What are you, driving a tank on the moon?’ But they had fun, you know what I mean? They won’t even watch The Town. So there you have it.”
Matt Damon
One of Matt Damon’s daughters has no interest in watching Good Will Hunting or The Martian. The 16-year-old will only watch her dad’s films if they are flops, and it’s quite possibly the best case of teenage trolling we’ve ever seen.
“She is very clear about not wanting to see anything that I’m in if she thinks it might be good,” Damon said in an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers. “If I get bad reviews in something, that’s the one she wants to see.”
One time, the actor overheard his daughter talking about his movie “The Wall,” and he made the unfortunate mistake of jumping in to correct her.
“I was like, ‘Isabella that movie is called The Great Wall,’” he said. “And she said, ‘Dad, there’s nothing great about that movie.’”
“That is the most ice-cold 16-year-old thing I’ve ever heard,” host Seth Meyers joked.
Keira Knightley
Keira Knightley tried showing her daughter Pirates of the Caribbean, and it didn’t quite go as planned. In an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, the actor explained that only 10 minutes in, her 7-year-old had had enough.
“I don’t want to see you doing that,” Knightley said, imitating her “unimpressed” child. Unfortunately for Knightley’s ego, that wasn’t the end of it. “She said, ‘No I don’t like you in that. You’re too pretty,'” Knightley told Fallon with a smile. “She said, ‘But don’t worry, you’re not anymore.'” Talk about brutal!
David Arquette & Courteney Cox
Everyone is excited about David Arquette and Courteney Cox new collaboration Scream, the fifth installment of the film franchise that first premiered in 1996 — barring their 17-year-old daughter Coco. In 2021, the former couple admitted that Coco “hasn’t seen the film” during an interview with Extra.
Cox added, “She’s seen part of Scream 1… She doesn’t like to watch anything we do…I’m gonna make her watch this with her eyes open…”
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman’s daughters Sunday and Faith are her “hardest critics,” the actress told Page Six in 2021 adding that they refused to watch her film Being the Ricardos. “They actually have no interest right now,” Kidman told the outlet. “I’m like, ‘You wanna come watch it?’ And they’re like, ‘No.'”
Adam Sandler
Adam Sandler is one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood but his daughters Sadie and Sunny are apparently bored by his work. In 2019, Sandler told Ellen DeGeneres that while his daughters have begged to see his more child-friendly films, they get bored quickly.
“So I show them the movies. They demand this,” Sandler explained. “And every time, I’d say about 20 minutes in, I see them tuning out, and I hear them—they’re nervous to say it—but they’re like, ‘Can we watch something else?'”
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter Apple and son Moses are chill when it comes to their mom’s star-studded career. “My kids have never seen me in a movie,” Paltrow told People in 2021. “I mean, I think my son has seen the Iron Man things, but I don’t think my daughter has ever seen me in a movie.” Paltrow added that Apple “thinks it’s weird if I’m on screen.”
Ben Stiller
Not even Zoolander?! In 2019, Ben Stiller told Good Morning America that his daughters Ella and Quinlin hadn’t watched his movies — except the 2006 flick Night at The Museum in which he plays a security guard.
“[It’s] totally their choice,” he said. “You don’t want to be the parent begging your kids to watch your movie. But I think they’ll come to it when they come to it.”
Reese Witherspoon
“They don’t have any interest in seeing me in a movie, it’s weird,” Reese Witherspoon told Andy Cohen during a 2018 episode of Watch What Happens Live. “It’s weird for them — they’re like, this is weird. And especially like, seeing me and their dad having sex in the movie…”
Witherspoon was answering a viewer question about whether she would feel comfortable if her daughter Ava and son Deacon watched Cruel Intentions, the 1999 film in which she starred with their father and now ex-husband Ryan Phillippe.
Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt and John Krasinski’s children Hazel and Violet are typically indifferent to their mom’s films, she told Live with Kelly and Ryan in 2021. But they did get excited for the Disney adventure film Jungle Cruise in which Blunt stars. “This interestingly, has been the only trailer that they have watched multiple times — they are usually disinterested in seeing me on screen — they’re really into Jungle Cruise,” she said.
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet’s kids Mia, Joe, and Bear have only seen half of her iconic 1997 film Titanic, the actress said in 2014 at the overseas premiere of her film Divergent, according to BBC News. Explaining that her children were excited to see her then-upcoming film, Winslet added, “They haven’t actually seen anything really that I’ve done, to be honest, before.”
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