Former child actor Justin Cooper, best known for playing Jim Carrey’s young son in the 1997 comedy hit Liar Liar, recently opened up about the hidden dark side of growing up in Hollywood. During an appearance on the “Not So Little Rascals” podcast, hosted by Jordan Warkol and Blake Collins, Cooper revealed that he received disturbing fan mail from prison inmates at the height of his childhood fame.
Cooper was only eight years old when the movie propelled him into the spotlight. While looking back on his early career, he praised his mother for shielding him from the more unsettling aspects of the entertainment industry.
“My mom did a really good job of kind of, like, shielding me from stuff, you know,” Cooper told the co-hosts. He explained that his mother kept certain correspondence entirely out of his sight, telling him about it only years later.
“She would tell me later on about, like, prison mail that I would get that she never showed me,” Cooper recalled. “Like, letters from people in jail… dudes in jail talking about how they’re such a big fan of me and, like, I’m such a cute kid.”
Protective Boundaries on Set
Beyond intercepting unsettling mail, Cooper noted that his mother maintained strict oversight of his safety while he was working on film and television sets. In an industry where young performers are sometimes pushed to follow adult instructions blindly, Cooper said his mother took a vastly different approach.
- She never left him alone with anyone on set.
- She actively monitored who he interacted with during productions.
- She even confronted veteran actors regarding appropriate language, such as asking comedy legend Don Rickles not to use foul language around her young son while filming Dennis the Menace Strikes Again!.
“You know, there’s a lot of acting parents that you hear of back in the day that are just like, ‘OK, ya, go. Do whatever they tell you to do. Bye!’ and my mom was not like that,” Cooper said, adding that she was protective “almost to a fault.”
Stepping Away From Hollywood
Aside from Liar Liar and Dennis the Menace Strikes Again!, Cooper built an impressive television resume throughout the 1990s with appearances on Full House, ER, Boy Meets World, and Brother’s Keeper. However, public attention could sometimes be overwhelming, with fans occasionally lining up at restaurants just to ask for his autograph while he tried to eat dinner with his family.
By the time he reached high school, acting began to feel less like fun and more like a chore. Dealing with long car rides to auditions while balancing homework eventually lost its appeal.
“I want to just go home right now and talk to girls on AIM,” he remembered thinking. When he finally told his mother he wanted to stop, she supported his decision to leave the spotlight behind.
Today, Cooper has successfully transitioned to a career behind the scenes. Now 37 years old, he works as an executive producer on The Ben Maller Show at FOX Sports Radio, successfully building a private life far away from the complexities of his early child stardom.
