Barry Williams knows the complexity of ubiquity.

It doesn’t take some kind of pop culture genius to suggest that it isn’t easy being a child actor and having to grow up under the bright lights of fame. Few of these poor, lost Hollywood-made kids end up resisting the temptations offered by the dangerous cocktail of money, access, and freedom to do what they wish. Of course some child actors make it through this minefield and go on to successful careers and lives as adults – but for every Kurt Russell or Clint Howard, there are at least one Dana Plato, Robert Blake and (most likely someday) Lindsay Lohan.

Of course you’re probably thinking, “Yes, YES – but what of Barry Williams?” Well, the answer may surprise you.

Take a look at a recent entry in the “Ask Barry” section of barrywilliams.com in which Barry blows the lid off the trappings of having a famous name:

From jujubear65:
I checked out the first four Harry Potter movies from the library a week ago, as I’d never seen any of them. I watched the 4th one today, before heading out to the theatre to see the new one. I happened to see a Barry Williams listed in the credits in doing one of the artworks. Would that have been you?
Barry Williams:
Same name/different guy. I heard there is another “Barry Williams” working at a Walmart here in the states too.

Let’s first set aside the idea that “jujubear65″ might have performed a ten-second IMDB search and found the most likely answer it was looking for. Let’s also not mention that, according to AnyWho.com, there are at least ten Barry Williamses in Missouri, 14 in Michigan, just a pair in Oregon and we are damn near up to our elbows in Barry Williamses with a whopping 35 in my own home state of Pennsylvania. Hell, my oddball neighbor who is the first and only suspect when my credit card bill goes missing from my mailbox could be named Barry Williams for all I know.

Setting these things aside, you have to think that there’s more than a hint of sarcasm, of rancor in Williams’ response to jujubear65’s query. The gentle ineptitude of the question itself manages to insert itself, splinter-like, into Barry’s own feelings of the transient nature of fame, fan adoration and Hollywood power. It’s especially ironic when you consider that his answer comes within 100 vertical pixels of another response to a fan in which he holds forth on how he’s “become at peace with the public knowing me primarily as ‘Greg.’”

But we should not judge Barry Williams, for we can understand that his place in celebrity history is both well-founded and rock-solid. And while we may think that the white-hot allure of Harry Potter – and especially the work of just one of its unfortunately monikered matte artists – may be perceived to be important now, just wait and see, four years hence, when the One True Barry Williams pops up in a career-making turn as Severus Snape in the musical fantasy Abracadabra, Harry!, which will go on to play a record-breaking 82 weeks in a row at the Falcon Theatre on Riverside Drive in Burbank.