Brenda Song Says She 'Learned Not to Take Anything Personally' as Child Actor

Brenda Song is opening up about being a child actor.

Before her big break as a young teen in Disney Channel’s The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, the now 36-year-old actress had minor roles in TV shows including ER, Popular, and The Bernie Mac Show and also appeared in movies like Santa With Muscles, Blade, and Like Mike.

While promoting her new movie The Last Showgirl at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival, Brenda joked that since she still loves acting there “something must be wrong with me,” before saying that she “learned not to take anything personally at a young age.”

Keep reading to find out more…“Because the thing is, at the end of the day, this is just a job,” Brenda told Variety. “As with anyone at any job, everyone feels disposable. I think it’s just harder to take on because sometimes it’s like, ‘No, you just don’t look right. You’re not tall enough.’ And to not take that personally at a young age, I think is the difficult thing.”

“Because you don’t understand that, you don’t understand this” Brenda added. “It’s a testament to my parents, who–this was just an after-school activity until I became an adult.”

She explained, “And that certainly got me through and it really was just like me doing a play at school…It didn’t become a career choice until my mom got breast cancer for the first time and I booked The Suite Life and also got into college, and I had to sort of chose which sort of direction I want to take, because it could no longer be an after school activity.”

Late last year, Brenda‘s fiancé Macaulay Culkin shared some rare insight into their relationship.