Mysterious Skin : Children acting a traumatic event

Children acting a traumatic event

I'm amazed how the film makers shot the scenes with the kids having their traumatic experience. I wonder what they did to get these performances from the young actors.
I often wonder, when I watch a movie with minors acting really cruel or otherwise horrible scenes, what methods the director used to make it alright for the kids to be in those scenes. Did they make them feel at ease somehow, maybe not explain everything that is going on - things like that.
Kids have strong imaginations, sometimes much darker than we expect. But still, the scenes in Mysterious Skin are scenes of abuse. I wonder how the actors in question (who were 10 and 11 at the time) look back on those scenes now and on the experience of acting in them.
Even the masturbation scene felt uneasy. Sure, it's a fact of life and perfectly normal to masturbate, even at a very young age - but asking a minor to give the impression of pleasuring himself on screen, even if all you see is his face?

A remark on the film in general: I thought it was daring and very impressive. Not easy to watch yet I still wanted to see it through to the end - and that's an achievement. It's partly due to the topic adressed above: the power of suggestion and imagination.

'We're going to see a dead kid... Maybe it shouldn't be a party.'
- Gordie (Stand By Me)

Re: Children acting a traumatic event

Found this on the movie's Wikipedia page:


A number of measures were taken to avoid exposing the child actors to the sexual and abusive aspects of the story. Although their parents were given the entire shooting script to review, the boys were given separate scripts which included only the activities they would be performing, and their roles and the characters' relationships were explained to them in innocent terms. All of the sexual abuse involving children is implied rather than being directly depicted, and the scenes in which this seduction and abuse takes place were filmed with each actor performing alone and addressing the camera rather than the other actor, then edited together, so the children did not see or hear the performance by the adult actor playing the abuser. (This subjective approach to filming was consequently used in various places throughout the film.


I can't verify the sources for this - one is an interview published online, which has been removed, the other is the commentary on the DVD, which I don't own. But it sounds sensible.


'We're going to see a dead kid... Maybe it shouldn't be a party.'
- Gordie (Stand By Me)
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