"It was so surreal," he recalls. "I had had no interest in being an actor. Now, all of a sudden, I'm shooting a movie and memorizing a script on an airplane." Suddenly, he was working with Mel Brooks, Elwes, Kris Kristofferson, Aykroyd, Portman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jenny McCarthy, Lauren Bacall, Jessica Beal, Danielle Fishel, Maureen McCormick, Jerry Van Dyke, Ann-Margret . . .

The precocious Allred was unfazed by auditions that put him in a room with just a cameraman and a 50-something woman, and he was considered a natural actor. "At a young age, I had an overactive imagination," he says. "I was always pretending to be something. When I read in front of them at 12, my ability to convey emotion and play a role was unusual, I think."

He screen tested with the surprisingly small Schwarzenegger for "Last Action Hero," but he lost the part to Austin O'Brien because, "I didn't make him look big enough," says Allred. Instead, he won a part in "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."

Work continued to come his way. During his teen years, he made TV movies — "Blue Rodeo" and "My Son Is Innocent" — and played the lead superhero role in "Josh Kirby . . . Time Warrior," a straight-to-video movie series that produced five sequels. He was the co-star in one TV series — "Teen Angel" — and a main character in another TV series — "Social Studies." Teen Angel gave him his first real taste of celebrity.

"There were times I wouldn't go to a mall," he says. "Security would have to escort me out. It was nice, but it was a burden. I experienced only a little part of it, but I can't imagine being Brad Pitt."

Allred and his family — he has three brothers and sisters — settled into a routine. From the age of 12, he spent a month or so each winter in Los Angeles for the TV pilot season and then returned each summer for the movie audition season. He shared an apartment with his mother, living in a complex where most other child actors stayed. The rest of the Allred family joined them in the summer.

"It was two different worlds," said Corbin. "When I got home, everything was as normal as any childhood. I played with my friends and did Boy Scouts and church and had my siblings around. Down there, it was entirely different."