LOS ANGELES -- Child actors are a curious breed of Hollywood animal. Sometimes their angelic faces and tiny bodies can conceal a weirdly grown-up personality, like 11-going-on-40 Dakota Fanning.

Other times their sheltered movie star lives seem to breed weirdly anti-social little humans, who can barely muster the imagination to tell you what their favourite subject is in school. Suddenly, a half-hour chat seems like half a day.

Then there's Taylor, Taylor and Cayden, the trio of young stars in Robert Rodriguez's The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, opening in theatres Friday. Maybe they're unique or maybe they're too new to Hollywood to be tainted, but these three could take their just-regular-kids act on the road if the whole making-movies thing doesn't work out.

The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D is Rodriguez's latest flick aimed at a family audience, following his trio of successful Spy Kids movies (the third of which allowed Rodriguez to cut his teeth on 3-D) and the absolute opposite of a family movie, Sin City.

With a script conceived by and developed with Rodriguez's eight-year-old son, Racer, Sharkboy and Lavagirl sees young Max (Cayden Boyd) literally transported into the world of his dreams, where he meets up with Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner) and Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley), a pair of young superheroes looking for answers to mysteries in their own pasts.

While they portray larger-than-life heroes on the screen, Lautner, Dooley and Boyd are as about as normal as any kids you're likely to meet. Just funnier.

During interviews for the movie, it was suggested that the two Taylors - who live across the street from each other in their Michigan hometown - might be the next Ben and Jen. They laughed it off.

"My dad said I can't date till I'm 28," said Lautner, 13.

"I have a feeling my dad won't let me go any lower than that," said Dooley, 12.

"Yeah, and my mom says I can't date until I'm married," said the 11-year-old Boyd.

The three hang out regularly as friends, although Boyd (who had small but memorable parts in both Mystic River and Dodgeball) isn't from Michigan like his co-stars.

"No, I'm from Texas," he said.

"You said that like (being from Michigan) is a bad thing!" accused Dooley.

"(University of Michigan) Wolverines rock!" declared Lautner.

"Aggies," muttered Boyd.

Cute and clever? These kids will go far. As will Racer Rodriguez, if he can continue collaborating with his dad.

And yes, Racer really is the boy's name. The other Rodriguez sons are Rocket, Rebel and Rogue.

"He was sort of my Frank Miller on this," Rodriguez said, referring to his Sin City co-director. "I tried to use as many of his ideas as possible.

Racer "is so much like me when I was that age. That's how I can go back in a time machine and be eight again, just by taking ideas straight from him. We have a very similar sense of humour ... it's me revisiting myself at that age and getting these ideas straight from the source."

Which gave Sharkboy and Lavagirl co-star George Lopez some ideas of his own when it comes to his nine-year-old daughter, Mayan.

"Just leave her in a room with some blank paper and some crayons," said the comedian. " 'You come out of here with a movie, or else you're going to lose that pony.' "