Jessica Biel reveals rule she and Justin Timberlake followed to stop son Silas becoming a ‘nepo baby’

Jessica Biel has explained that she and husband Justin Timberlake have made it clear their children won't get to be 'nepo babies' if they want to pursue a career in the performing arts.

Biel, 44, has just appeared in Matchbox the Movie and one of her co-stars is her son Silas, who has a brief part in the film.

However, mum has made it clear that he's not to rely on it as she told Josh Smith's Great Chat Show that while he's interested in acting and performing it'll take more than having famous parents to lock down regular roles.

She explained that one of the producers asked her whether Silas would be interested in taking a minor role at the end of the movie, and Biel was reluctant to agree at first because 'we keep them away from all of this'.

While they had concerns, Biel and Timberlake eventually reasoned that since he'd be around where they were filming and was interested in getting into acting anyway, and it 'was not a big speaking part'.

Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake's son Silas has a minor role in her new movie (Gotham/GC Images)

She told Smith that as a rule they weren't going to get their son roles with big parts that might be taking a job away from someone who had done the hard yards to go up for the same thing.

"There are kids who work really hard and they go to acting class and they're in theatre class and they're doing all of the work," Biel said.

"You can't just take a part from that person, just because you're my son. Like, that's not cool, we're not doing that. So this is a special opportunity because it's really teeny-tiny.

"If you had a big monologue I wouldn't let him do it."

Those seem to be the boundaries the celebrated parents are setting for their child, in this case they said yes because a producer asked and it's not a big role so that 'made Justin and I feel ok about it' according to Biel.

They were convinced to let him appear in the movie because it was a small part, but they'd have said no if he had more of a role (Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for Justin Timberlake)

"You have to earn that part, because we're not starting that," she went onto say of Silas needing to earn his roles in the industry and not being able to rely on the contact book of mum and dad if he wanted bigger opportunities.

"We're not starting 'oh you just get handed a bunch of opportunities because you're part of this family'."

On the other hand Silas did get to have a benefit from it as he met John Cena while filming the movie, which is a pretty cool thing to do while on a bit of work experience with your mum.

Her son also got a lesson in what acting is really like, because during his first day he got on set he didn't get to do anything and Biel had to explain that for a lot of actors that was the job.

He did get to do some work the next day.