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Some insiders say a Hollywood pedigree attracts low-budget filmmakers looking for marquee value at a bargain-basement price. "People want to trade on their names," says United Talent agent J.J. Harris, who represents Drew Barrymore. But independent director Mary Harron thinks that's ludicrous. For I Shot Andy Warhol, due out next spring, she cast Jared Harris (son of Richard), Tahnee Welch (daughter of Raquel), Donovan Leitch (son of Donovan), and Martha Plimpton (daughter of Keith Carradine) in key roles. "You'd have to be crazy to cast someone because of who their parents are," she says. "Their parents aren't the ones who are up there on that screen."

Serious-minded celeb kids avoid the connection anyway. At 16, Sorvino got her own manager. She studied at Harvard, graduated, and auditioned for a year without landing a part. Later, when she found an agent, it wasn't because Dad made a call. "I never wanted anybody to say that he handed it to me. The edge I had was that my father started teaching me to act when I was a small child."

Then again, some directors just aren't impressed with names. "I had no idea who her father was," says Bruce Beresford of Tyler, whom he cast in her first film, 1994's Silent Fall. "When somebody told me, it didn't mean anything. Steven Tyler. I mean, who is he?"

(Additional reporting by Anne Thompson and Jeffrey Wells)

Originally posted Sep 15, 1995 Published in issue #292 Sep 15, 1995 Order article reprints
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