Jeremy Suarez became a stand-out on The Bernie Mac Show as the comedian's nephew, Jordan. After the show ended, however, Suarez had difficulty finding work as he hit an awkward age and roles were no longer coming in as frequently.
In an interview with Comedy Hype, the actor explained that once he looked like a teen casting directors started hiring adults over him in order to save costs.
"It was a little bit rough because I was in this age bracket where I was...I looked like lower to middle-high school age," he said. "But at that age, they would much rather hire somebody who's like 19 to play that age because they don't have child actor laws."
Suarez added that child actors are restricted to a certain amount of hours they can work and need an on-set tutor hired. Therefore, hiring adults to play teen roles is vastly cheaper.
"Everything really slowed down and that was kind of hard for me because I had never gone like six months without a job," Suarez continued before stating he made the decision to take a step back from acting. "There's only so much life you can see on an acting set. So that's what I did. I went out and I just lived a normal life and that was really...it was cool because I had never done that before. I had never had a normal job and I wanted to go and kind of push myself. You don't if you tough until you test if you tough. So I went and I was working construction, I worked with the boilermakers, and I worked in retail. I tested if I was tough and the areas in which I wasn't tough yet, I worked on them until I am."
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