“No One Can Go Through a Professional Childhood Unscathed”

This interview with Anna Chlumsky is super smart and great

I’ve always had a soft spot for actress Anna Chlumsky, and not just because I modeled my first kiss, when I was about ten, after hers in My Girl, executed when she was the same age. (“You know that scene in My Girl?” “Uh huh …” “What they do under the tree?” “Uh huh …” “Wanna do that?” “Uh huh!”) And not just because she is excellent on “Veep,” either, even though that show is kind of a marvel, profane and intelligent and hilarious and accurate and mean but not hard to watch, like anything with Larry David is.

There’s some je ne sais quoi about Chlumsky, like she would be your sarcastic but warm-hearted and loyal BFF in real life. And she very much lives up to expectations in a terrific interview for Anna Sale’s podcast (Anna meets Anna!!). The segment could be titled “How Former Child Stars Do Money.”

Anna Chlumsky Catches the Worm

She hits all the high notes of the Former Child Star aria: the over-invested mom (a single mother, even); trying to save all her childhood earnings for college; growing depressed and disillusioned with Hollywood during adolescence; finally returning to stage/screen work as an adult. But her version of the song also feels unique. She’s an intellectual who went from the University of Chicago to publishing in New York. She married another intellectual whom she met in college and who them decided to enlist in the army and go fight overseas. And Chlumsky is now a mom herself. I wish Sale had asked what her would do if either of her kids showed an interest in acting. But Sale does, in her trademark loving but effective way, ask lots of other great questions. Like garli, she believes details are delicious.

AS: How long after the psychic did you quit your job?

AC: I think this was in the course of like a week.

AS: Really?

AC: Yeah.

AS: And this is like a job with benefits.

AC: Uh huh, yeah. Yeah, it was benefits and, I mean, it was a small salary. I mean, it was assistant’s salary.

AS: How’d you support yourself at that point?

AC: That’s when you dip into the savings.

AS: This is money you earned as a kid?

AC: Yep. Yep. That I still had even after college. It wasn’t a lot. But — but it was enough to get me through that first year, you know, barely. There were a couple of really freaky months there, but.

AS: I bet that’s such a strange experience. You’re like — you’re looking at the balance of the money that you earned when you were a child and you’re watching it go down.

AC: Yeah. Yeah.

AS: How much money was it after college?

AC: Um, ugh, I don’t want to say, I guess, ’cause then people are going to judge me.

AS: I understand. Okay.

AC: It was less than $50K, okay?

AS: Okay. Tens of thousands of dollars.

AC: Tens of thousands of dollars in savings.

AS: Yeah.

🎤 GO LISTEN 🎤

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.