Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Childfree Celebrity Spotlight: Guy Pearce


English-born Australian actor, Guy Pearce, is best known for his role as the memory-challenged protagonist of Memento. That is not his only accomplishment, however. He is also one of the few childfree by choice celebrities who is vocal about his decision.

Quotes from Guy on the subject of having children:

"I think there are way too many people in the world anyway, so Kate and I are doing our bit and not having any,"

"To me it's a lot like someone saying, 'Do you want a broken leg?'," he said of fatherhood.
"Well, no, actually, I'm quite happy getting around without crutches, thanks very much. Seriously, I love kids but I love giving them back as well."

"We'd be on the news if we had kids," Pearce told The Times. "We'd do something horrible to them or leave them somewhere."

He added: "No, I shouldn't say that we'd do horrible things to them. I just mean that, well, I couldn't give them the constant love that they need."

Thanks to Facebook friend Milla for letting me know about Guy Pearce.

Want to see what other celebrities are childfree by choice? Check out my list and be sure to let me know if you learn of others so I can be sure to add them!

4 comments:

Harvey Requiem said...

I thought I saw this a week or two ago, and then it disappeared! I'd been having some weirdly life-like dreams, so I thought for a while that I'd either dreamed it--or I was going nuts!

Anyway, George Clooney is yummy, but I had a thing for Guy long before I knew anything about George. Totally awesome to find he's also cool enough to be childfree!

Christy said...

It's a start. I'm very happy that celebrities are making this decision...I just despise the "I love kids, but" line. I guess, for now, people can avoid some of harassment if they apologize for their cfdom.

Oh well. I better get over it, because with more people becoming cf all the time, I'm sure to see a lot more of that line. I suppose it's a small price to pay!

Ozjeppe said...

Go Guy - another rare CF celeb! I like his broken leg-comparison, which rings so true to me: Life is hard as it is, why would you want to increase the level of complication, strife and hardship tenfold?

Harvey Requiem said...

@Christy:

I don't know about others, but when I say "I love kids but..." it usually means that when I see a nice, clean, silly little girl or boy I may smile and saw "awwww!", but that is the extent of my interest--as opposed to more curmugeonly childfree people who genuinely feel none of that around kids, no interest, no "aww" factor, nothing. Nothing wrong with that, but it would be good for non-childfree to realize that there are many kinds of childfree people with various motivations, in order to combat their usual strawmen of childfree people being selfish Scrooge-like curmudgeons or perhaps just horribly warped sub-humans. I love kids the same way I might love fish--they can be fun, but for me they are not worth the trouble of keeping an aquarium.

Kids can be cute and fun to watch the way they move and think and react (aspiring animators need to watch all sorts of people and behaviors), but I know perfectly well how expensive that cute little mopppet is, and that the expense and the hardship far outweigh what I'm seeing as an outsider. I may like looking at a Picasso, but I'm perfectly happy leaving it at that, knowing how much such a painting costs even beyond the initial investment--maintenance, security, etc.--while I get to sit back and just enjoy the nice things--as Firecracker Mandy so often points out!