![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Listen to this article<\/p>\n
Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n
When you’re a kid from Hamilton, dreams of becoming an actor may feel far-fetched, but that did not stop Kathleen Robertson.<\/p>\n
“I was just literally that kid that was like, ‘I want to be an actor,’ and people would kind of laugh at me and say, ‘Yeah, good luck with that, you live in Hamilton,'” Robertson told CBC’s Q with Tom Power<\/a>.<\/p>\n Robertson became a child actor at 10 in 1985, according to IMDB, when she was cast in the movie Left Out about a family dealing with unemployment. <\/p>\n She went on to star in hugely popular shows like the \u201990s cultural phenomenon Beverly Hills, 90210, in which she played Clare Arnold.<\/p>\n Now, she credits Canada as the reason why she has stayed grounded as a celebrity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “I think if I had grown up in the States and I had been like a Disney kid, or I’d been on Nickelodeon and I’d had that kind of excitement around me … I could have had very different trajectory,” she said.<\/p>\n Robertson said in the U.S., when she tells people she used to be a child actor, they’re shocked about how levelled she seems.<\/p>\n “In Canada … Nobody gave a shit about it.”<\/p>\n ‘We were not protected’ says former child actor<\/p>\n Robertson pointed to the “tragedies and the casualties” of the last few years involving big former child actors as examples of the pressure expectations can put on children who become famous.<\/p>\n While she didn’t name specific actors, in recent years prolific former child actors like Hayden Panettiere, Daveigh Chase and Michelle Trachtenberg have all died young.<\/p>\n Panettiere died on Aug. 16<\/a> aged 36. She worked in film and television beginning as a child and soared to fame two decades ago as a cheerleader with superpowers in the TV show Heroes.<\/p>\n Chase died in June at 35<\/a>, of complications from AIDS and polychronic substance abuse, according to the\u00a0Los Angeles County Medical Examiner<\/a>. She was the voice of Lilo in the hit Disney animated feature\u00a0Lilo & Stitch.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789402456_67_default.jpg\")
Hayden Panettiere arrives at the premiere of “Blonde,” on Sept. 13, 2022, at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. She died Aug. 16, 2026. (Jordan Strauss\/AP Photo)<\/p>\n