'Break' -out star

September 24, 2006
Haley Nero, a bright little 6-year-old girl with long brown hair and pretty hazel eyes, is mostly a normal first-grader who goes to grade school and likes to draw and dance and play with her friends. Haley's life is pretty run-of-the-mill, except for about 30 days every spring when she travels to Los Angeles to audition for the television pilot season or when she runs from her school to Joliet to act in the popular TV series "Prison Break" or when she flies to New Jersey to play in a movie role opposite Mark Wahlberg. For all her youth, Haley is a fairly successful little actress. Born and raised in Joliet, she goes to school at River View Elementary School in Plainfield -- her family is in the process of moving there now -- but spends some of her evenings and weekends on sets of television and movie productions. And she loves it. She can't get enough of it, her mother says. After her first role, she came off the set and asked her mother, "Can we do it again?" "I want to be an actress and a dancer," Haley said after being asked what she wanted to be when she grows up. "I want to go to Hollywood." Haley's thoughts first started turning to stardom when her mother was approached by a woman at a local mall two years ago. The woman went on and on about how beautiful Haley was, her mother Lindsey remembers. She told Lindsey she worked for a talent agency and would get her daughter into the movies. For a fee. The Neros paid $500 to the "agency" before they found out it was a scam. Lindsey, then a young mother of only 19 -- she had Haley when she was 15 -- had been taken. Needless to say, Haley got no roles through the agency and their investment was gone. "There's all kinds of scams out there," Lindsey said. "They take your money then they change their names and move." But by that time, mother and daughter were bitten by the movie bug and had their hearts set on "the business."



Lindsey signed up with a real talent agency and got Haley her first role. It was a very low-budget movie made by a student, Israel Alpazar, who was studying filmmaking at Northwestern Film School in Chicago, and Haley got a good-sized role in it. It was called, "Dreams," and Haley played what her mother calls "a freaky little girl in someone's dreams." Haley had just turned five. The role wasn't a big one, but the director had liked working with Haley so much that he called her back later asking her to play the lead in another student film, "Sage," about a little girl whose mother dies of lupus. That film was chosen No. 1 in his school, became a hit in its circles, and eventually played in a Chicago arts theater. Haley got $1,500 for two days of work for "Sage." She got another call from the student director just last spring. He was out of school now in the real world and had been hired by the cell phone company, Nokia, to do a commercial. He wanted Haley to be in it. She was, and this time, working for a big name company, she got $4,000 for only one day of work. Since her first role, Haley's played in several movie and television productions. Some might go unnoticed, such as her role in the background in this year's movie "Stranger than Fiction" or a "playing child" in "Let's go to Prison." She also played a "kid in backyard" in the movie "Juncture" and "child in front of ice cream shop" in "The Strip," both of which are in post-production now. She got her big break last year in a speaking role as Agent Hale's daughter in the television series "Prison Break," which filmed in Joliet and Chicago. She started out as an extra in the show, but producers soon moved her up to a recurring role. It was a great role while it lasted. Unfortunately, Agent Hale was gunned down and killed off last season, ending Haley's role.


Haley's had several roles this year. She and her mother are working on learning her lines now for the movie "Voices from the Graves," where she plays family member Ashley Graves. Another movie, "Joe Citizen," about a corrupt politician, films in New Jersey in November. Haley plays a young friend, Sissy, of the main character in that one. Her mother said one reason those in the industry like to work with Haley is because she pays attention and listens so well. She's good at her lines, too, her mother said, soaking them up like a sponge. She's reading them a little better now, too, since she's in first grade, but mostly, her mother has had to read the lines to her while she memorizes them. Lindsey said that although being in the movie business is fun, it can be pretty boring at times for her. She's on the set every minute her daughter is, only she is sitting doing nothing most of the day. One two-minute scene in "Prison Break," she said, took about eight hours to film. The director had the same scene shot over and over again, with different lighting and from different angles to get it just right. Haley's father, William, is on the set sometimes too, when he's not working at the Cook County Sheriff's Dept. Lindsey said that ironically, he gets offered bad guy roles all the time on sets. His more than 100 tattoos might have something to do with that. He did accept one role - that of a police officer walk-on in "Prison Break."


In spite of the long hours, Haley loves being on the set. She's always asking people to come home with her, her mother said. She asked a cameraman once if he could come home with her and help her make her home movie. And she loves the food on the set. Lindsey said there are always good meals and snacks laid out on a table for everyone. When Haley was asked what she liked best about filming movies and television series, she said, "I like to eat and meet new people." It's not hard to act, she said, or to memorize her lines. But it does get hot sometimes under the lights. "I sweat," she said. Most of the filming for her roles is done after school or on breaks. By law, they can't film a school-age child more than three hours a day when school is in session. Last year, Haley missed about 25 days of school, though, when she was in California auditioning for pilot roles. And the money's not bad at all. Her parents save 30 percent of their daughter's income for taxes, put 60 percent in a bank account and give her ten percent to spend. Haley's movie money purchases have included a swing set, a new bedroom set, gifts and televisions for her and her brother. Haley has two Web sites at www.haleynero.com and www.haleynero.starsearchcasting.com.