Actors wise beyond their years
Thomas Horn, 14
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
For any actor to carry a film that delves into the still-raw memories of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, would be a heavy load emotionally and a risky prospect commercially. For a teenager to do so raises the stakes considerably, and for a teen acting for the first time, well, that seems almost too much pressure to bear.
But Thomas Horn handles the role of Oskar Schell, a brilliant but troubled child whose father (played by Tom Hanks) has died in the World Trade Center attacks, with assured grace in Stephen Daldry's "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close."
For Horn, who was not yet 5 when the terrorists targeted the U.S., the key to unlocking the depth of the subject matter was a visit to New York's ground zero.
"I knew what had happened, but it wasn't emotionally real to me until I did the project," the San Francisco resident says by phone while on a press tour in New York City. "Then I met with people who had lost relatives, and I went to the World Trade Center site and I got to see some clips from the day. And that really made it real to me. It showed me what happened in a way I could really understand on an emotional level."
That newfound understanding was what he tapped to play Oskar, who discovers a key among his dad's belongings and sets out on a quest to find what it unlocks, hoping for a final message from his! father and perhaps some meaning he can attach to the tragedy.
"I think it's a very complicated story because it has multiple themes," Horn says. "One that sticks out to me is that grief, wherever it's from, can only be overcome by connecting with other people."Gosh, I'm sorry to give away any of the plot," he quickly adds. It's the first time the self-possessed actor sounds like the 14-year-old that he is.
In finding his way into portraying Oskar, Horn discovered some intersections between himself and his character. "For sure, we both like math. We like to make things make sense. We both have that passion. [But] he's quite a fearful person, and, of course, he's had a lot of grief. He's afraid of machinery, especially if it's loud or dangerous. He's afraid of people. Anyone except his dad he considers to be frightful, strange."
Horn's big break stemmed from his appearance on "Jeopardy!" during Kids' Week, when he won $31,800. Producer Scott Rudin saw the show and invited him to audition for "Extremely Loud."
"I wasn't in any way certain I was interested," Horn says. But then, "I thought, 'What do I have to lose?'"
When he was cast a month later, after a series of callback auditions, he says, "It was like a dream come true except I never really had that dream."
Asa Butterfield, 14
"Hugo"
Asa Butterfield has already starred in the disturbing Holocaust film "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" and worked with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Now he heads a cast that features Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jude Law and fellow acting prodigy Chlo Grace Moretz in Martin Scorsese's Thanksgiving release, "Hugo." No one's more surprised than he.
"Seven years ago, if you had said I was going to become an actor, I would have laughed at you, basically. I never t! hought o f it. My life's changed completely because of acting stuff. I've had a lot of great experiences," says the Londoner. "I started off going to this acting club when I was about 7; I ended up getting into an agency, and one of the first things I got was 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.'"
Butterfield considers himself "a pretty good student," currently immersed in photography and music (he plays piano, guitar and drums) as well as the usual subjects during the one-hour-of-work, one-hour-of-school on-set schedule. That helped when Scorsese gave him "homework" as well movies to watch to familiarize himself with the early-film era that concerns "Hugo," and other movies that inspired the director. No studying, however, could prepare Butterfield for the emotional demands of playing an orphan sustaining himself in a Parisian train station.
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