LOS ANGELES—Breaking the disappointing news as gently as he could, casting director Ray Ulrich told 9-year-old child actor Grayson Linford during an audition Tuesday that the boy simply didn’t have the abusive parents necessary to make it in the entertainment industry. “Sorry, kid, but showbiz is a tough racket, and I just don’t think your mom and dad have it in them to push you over the brink emotionally and give you a real shot at a career,” said Ulrich, adding that he could tell from Linford’s lack of puffy eyes that the child hadn’t been crying before the audition due to a scolding from his mother, and that he didn’t appear to have an eating disorder caused by constant pressure from his father to land a good-paying role in a TV commercial. “You’re obviously talented, and you’ve got a great singing voice. What you really need, though, are bruises and black eyes administered by domineering parents as punishment for flubbing a line during a callback, and I gotta be honest, I’m just not seeing that. If they’d started abusing you when you were 3 or 4, there might be something we could work with here, but at age 9 it’s pretty much impossible. For you to succeed as a child actor, your parents have to really, really, want it, and they have to go to work on you—hard—and never let up. That’s how kids make a name for themselves and a pile of cash for their parents.” Ulrich went on to say that if Linford was lucky, his parents might still be able to abuse him enough to allow him to continue acting recreationally in school plays and community theater.