‘Nailed It’: ‘Lord Of The Rings Star Won’t Apologize For ‘Nepo-Baby’ Status

Actor Sean Astin said in a recent interview that he has never shied away from his status as a “nepo-baby,” even joking that he routinely answered, “Nepotism,” when people asked him how he had gotten started in Hollywood.

Speaking to entertainment site Page Six, Astin freely admitted that his parents — “The Addams Family” star John Astin and Oscar-winner Patty Duke (“The Miracle Worker,” 1963) — gave him a leg up when it came to getting work in Tinsel Town, and he didn’t see any reason to feel guilty about taking advantage of that.

“Listen, it’s just true,” Astin explained, saying that he didn’t blame others for jumping on the opportunities their own lives presented. “Life is hard, work is hard. Finding your way in the world is hard. So when people have some good fortune, I don’t begrudge that.”

“And I don’t begrudge myself having been born into a family where I was given a lot. I also feel that that comes with a lot of responsibility that you have the opportunity to embrace or not,” he said.

“So yeah … you know … [you] nailed it,” he said of being pegged as a “nepo baby.” “Got it in one!”

And though Astin may have gotten his foot in the door thanks to his parents’ connections, he followed that with a series of iconic roles — from the 1980s cult classic “The Goonies” and the titular role in the underdog sports film “Rudy” to the role of Samwise Gamgee in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “Lord of the Rings.”

And as two other self-described “nepo-babies” — actresses Kate Hudson and Jamie Lee Curtis — have said, whether or not it’s nepotism that opened the door, it still takes a lot of hard work to have a lasting career in Hollywood.

“It’s curious how we immediately make assumptions and snide remarks that someone related to someone else who is famous in their field for their art, would somehow have no talent whatsoever. I have come to learn that is simply not true,” Curtis said. “I have suited up and shown up for all different kinds of work with thousands of thousands of people and every day I’ve tried to bring integrity and professionalism and love and community and art to my work.”

“I don’t care where you come from, or what your relationship to the business is … if you work hard and you kill it,” Hudson added.