by Back in 2005, Cole and Dylan Sprouse got their big break on the Disney Channel The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
The twins were just 12 years old when the hit original series first aired, and after three successful seasons totaling 87 episodes, they went on to star in its sequel. The deck suite.
But before their time at Disney, Dylan and Cole actually took on other acting gigs — most of which were joint roles because of how identical they are. The couple famously appeared inside That 70s show, The friends, and the 1999 film Big Daddy.
In fact, Cole previously revealed that he and Dylan were “put into acting” from the age of 8 months by their mom, Melanie Wright Sprouse, due to their family’s financial instability. Melanie and their father, Matthew Sprouse, divorced when the twins were less than a year old.
“My brother and I were put into acting when we were 8 months old by our mother because we needed money,” Cole said in a now-deleted audio clip shared on Tumblr a few years ago, according to Insider. “I never made the decision to go into the arts or acting. And so it was never really my passion.”
Now 30, Cole spoke even more about his child star during an appearance on The She called her dad podcast this Wednesday.
Revealing that his mum was very financially ‘irresponsible’ due to mental health and addiction issues, Cole shared that he spent all the earnings he and Dylan had earned from their roles before Suite Life. She eventually lost custody of the twins when they were 10 years old.
“Both my brother and I went through a long court battle at about 10, and custody was taken away from my mother and given to my father,” he said, adding that his father wanted them to be “normal kids.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it… When my father was taken into custody, we had lost almost everything from the smallest pieces of our careers. That would be The friends and Big Daddy,” he said. “My mother was an incredibly wonderful and artistic woman, but she was the most financially irresponsible woman ever.”
“I think it was the result of some alchemy of addiction and mental instability, and it’s probably the biggest wound in my life,” he added.
And so, Cole revealed that his father came to see their career as a valuable and necessary financial opportunity, especially in the wake of the custody battle.
“When my brother and I got to the Disney Channel, we were fine. It was a huge benefit for us,” Cole said. “It was, in many ways, a life-saving show. It provided us with an amount of stability and consistency and routine that my brother and I really needed at the time.”
“I think there are two types of kids in the kid acting business,” she continued. “There are, like, the ‘thespian kids’ who choose to do it, and then there’s the working-class kids who, in our case at least… I mean it started, really, as a means to put bread on the table.”
When asked if he resents his parents for pushing him into acting as a child, Cole noted that while he “definitely” has some feelings to deal with, he doesn’t “regret” his childhood.
“My parents didn’t come from very much and now I’ve been granted a life of primarily financial stability – and surplus in too many cases – which is the byproduct of 30 years of work and the exchange of my childhood,” he began.
“But I don’t regret it at all,” he said. “I know there’s definitely resentment, there’s definitely some things I have to deal with, but no. If given the same choice again, I would probably do it again.”
Cole went on to mention the difference between his and Dylan’s experience as young stars compared to those of other actors who have spoken out against their child stardom over the years.
After Cole effusively praised the Disney Channel for providing him and Dylan with financial stability, podcast host Alex Cooper brought up the fact that other former Disney actors recounted very difficult experiences there.
In response, Cole said, “That’s interesting, because a lot of these kids came from privileged backgrounds. I find that many of the [time] it’s a lot easier to complain about the business approach of a bigger studio when you don’t need the money as much.”
“It’s really exciting,” he continued. “Like, when you treat this career as a kind of passion and you start to learn the language of these big studios — and the language is always money — you start to resent it.”
“But if you’re starting from a kid’s work environment… You’re not surprised or upset when your boss or studio takes a money-based approach to your career,” he added.
However, Cole made it clear that he wasn’t “delegitimizing” any of his fellow former Disney star’s experiences.
“I’m not delegitimizing anything they say. There’s no doubt that it’s already incredibly contradictory to be a kid standing up to criticize an entire nation, and also working a 9 to 5,” Cole explained, while also citing the sexuality of girls compared to boys from audience members. .
“I think in a lot of ways, my brother and I were lucky mainly because we were little boys,” he said. “Like, the glamor when we were younger, at least on the Disney Channel, was Miley and Selena and a lot of these girls because they were heavily sexualized, which is another huge fucking thing.”
“My brother and I in a lot of ways went through all the same obstacles, except the lens wasn’t so tight on us, which I’m very, very grateful for,” he added.
