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| Josh Hutcherson Re-Defines Bright Future |
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| Interviews - Actor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Lena Putzer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, 28 April 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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One such actor was a young man with well over twenty movies and television credits to his name. This is no easy feat to achieve when you're in a very competitive business like this, and you're not even old enough to get a driver's permit, unless...your name is Josh Hutcherson. Amazingly warm, down-to- earth, intelligent and humorous, Josh spoke with me about his upcoming movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth, which will be opening in theatres this July. He also candidly talked about the important things in his life, like his pets, his favorite music, and a topic that I was especially interested in: working with Brendan Fraser (heavy sigh). Since seeing the Bridge to Terabithia, I had a feeling that Josh was one of those young actors whose career warranted watching. He was very excited about winning the Horizon Award, an award given to rising stars as acknowledgment for their consistent excellence in acting. "I was really surprised. I think it's a pretty big honor to get an award like that...to see people recognize you for the work that you do. It's a good feeling to have." Josh's character in the movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth, was originally named Axel, but for whatever reason, the script writers decided to change it to Sean. After pointing this out to him, Josh shared his opinion about it. "Yeah, I like Axel. That would be cool, being Axel." Many times an actor plays a character very well because the character shares some of their personality traits. According to Josh, playing the role of Sean could not be closer to the truth. "You know, I think of all the characters I've played, he's probably one of the closest to me. He's really just kind of laid back. He's very smart-alecky, especially toward his uncle, Brendan Fraser, in the movie, who he has to go on this crazy adventure with -- very smart-alecky to him. He's very confident in himself. I think I was able to put some of my traits and personalities into him, so he's pretty ornery." And collectively, who does Josh identify with the most? He went on to speak in length about how he identified with Jess, the character he portrayed in Bridge to Terabithia. "You know, I think with Sean, I'm most like him as far as identifying. There have been parts of pretty much everyone I've been able to identify with. In Bridge to Terabithia, Jess, my character, was teased in school when he wanted to do art and everybody else wanted to go play sports and stuff like that, and, for me, it happened... that actually kinda happened to me when I was in fourth or fifth grade. When I first started acting, everyone was like, 'What!' 'Why?' 'That's weird. You don't wanna be that. That's stupid!'" I guess Josh got the last laugh on that one! A great number of movies are based on books, and Journey to the Center of the Earth is no exception. Originally a novel penned by the genius novelist, Jules Verne, the book was made into a movie for the first time back in 1959. Since then, several adaptations have been produced over the years. Surprisingly enough, prior to accepting the part, Josh had never read the book nor seen any of the movies.
"I didn't actually. I didn't even know the story before I went out and started the movie and read the script. No, I hadn't read [anything] or watched the other movies," he confessed. There are many reasons why an actor will jump at the chance to play a part in a movie. For Josh, there were some definitive reasons why he grabbed the chance to play Sean. "I was super excited about the 3-D technology. That's one of my biggest things, to be on the cutting edge of that and that's pretty awesome, but just the script was so action-packed, I knew it was gonna be great...ya know... You do a movie for different reasons. Some movies you do because it has a great hearty script with a lot of good emotion, or a big character. Some movies you do to work with some really great actors or directors, and some movies you do because it's gonna be fun. In Journey, I did it because it's got all three of them. So it's great, ya know. All of the good reasons are there." Most of the time, producers and directors are assiduously reluctant, even down right adamant about NOT letting their actors perform their own stunts. The reasons are both obvious and numerous, but this wasn't going to land Josh's balloon. Come on! After all, he may be an actor, but deep down inside he's still a 15 year-old, hyper-active teen, with an endless supply of energy and guts (or craziness -- take your pick). Risking one's neck for the fun of it is a right of passage for a guy his age. Josh stood his ground when, at first, his request to do the stunts himself was met with a hardy "NO!" Eventually, after much persuasion (and probably some begging), Josh got his wish, as he told me enthusiastically, with a big triumphant smile on his face. "They let me do all of my own stunts! It was awesome! That's my favorite. It's one of my, that IS my favorite part of acting is doing the stunts. I love it! Every shoot I'm on, I'm always...ya see, producers are always worried about letting me do stunts. They always wanna have a stunt double, and I'm like, 'let me do it!' So finally, I convinced them...I haven't gotten hurt yet," he says, while reaching over and knocking on the marble coffee table we were sitting near, indicating a knock on wood. "So yeah, I finally convinced these guys to let me do it, but they were really cool about it and the stunt guys on that show were awesome. There's a scene where I have to jump from these floating rocks and there's a bottomless pit below me... I had so much fun that day because it was just me, the stunt guys, a camera and these rocks, and I was leaping from one to the other. I'm landing on and holding on to them, and there was this one time when I grabbed on and the entire rock flipped all the way around and then back around. Oh it was so much fun. It was awesome!" For those unfamiliar with the movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth, it is about a professor, who just so happens to have been a few sandwiches short of a full picnic basket, and his nephew, who embark on a long, strange trip through uncharted, underground caves and caverns after finding a book written in secret code. I asked Josh if they did any filming inside an actual cave. According to him, the producers made the wise decision of NOT trusting the Earth to be co-operative during a year's worth of filming. Instead, they chose the safer route. "Actually they did this crazy thing. They went to caves all around the world, and they took cast moldings of the inside of the caves and rebuilt them on a set, on huge sound stages. Stalactites, stalagmites, all that, all these things!" Okay, so call me a typical desperate housewife, but let's face it, Brendan Fraser is...ahem...easy on the eyes? Prior to asking Josh about what it was like to work with the hunky actor from the movie, The Mummy, I felt compelled to insert the following disclaimer: I am a happily married woman, BUT, I'm married; I'm not dead! Josh got a good laugh out of that one, and being as smart as he is, knew exactly what was coming. Here's what he had to say about working with his co-star. "He's great. He's awesome. He's such a nice guy. Girls always ask me that. He's a great guy. He's really nice and really cool, really down-to-earth... really fun guy. He was the biggest kid on the set, by far! He wanted to come over and play X-Box with me and my little brother. So, ya know, he's a really cool, laid back guy." Anyone who's a fan of Josh's knows he does a lot of movies that involve fantasy, animals, and in some cases, both. When asked why he seems to gravitate toward these sort of themes, he was quick to point out that not all of his movies were actually fantasy based, which then, somehow, led to a rather humorous and engrossing speculation about what may have happened to all of the fish he used to have in his aquarium. Apparently, Josh has his own private zoo back home in Kentucky. I speculated that maybe he did the movies with animals in them because he has lots of pets of his own. I reviewed some of his pets and their names with him. Apparently, IMDB.com has some information that's not quite correct. When I said I thought that Baxter was his puppy, Josh immediately corrected me. It was right after that that he went into a lengthy story about his fish. "Diesel. Diesel is the puppy. We HAD some fish. My cat Jello got hold of the fish, OR...one of a couple of things happened. Jello got a hold of the fish, but didn't kill the one sucker fish, or the sucker fish ate all the other fish, because it got bigger and the other fish just disappeared. So, either the sucker fish sucked up all the other fish or our cat got in there and ate all the other fish, but for some reason, not the sucker fish..." I offered that there might have possibly been a conspiracy between the sucker fish and Jello. "Yeah, they worked it out, everyone wins!" Well, not everyone... " Not the fish who got eaten..." According to Josh, he is very open to do more than just fantasy type movies, like romance or films with serious themes. "Oh, yeah. Definitely. I would...I'd definitely do some of those movies. Winged Creatures actually...people would say it's a fantasy movie, but it's actually [centered] around a diner shooting. It's like a small independent film and it's about peoples' lives and post traumatic stress. It's a really deep, serious movie, and my character has some big points where he almost commits suicide and a whole bunch of things like that. So that was a nice change of pace, kinda changes up things." Even if you are a famous actor, being fifteen and still living under your parents' roof means that you're expected to do your fair share of chores around the house, such as making your bed. Josh was quite eager to discuss his theory about what he considers to be a silly and pointless practice. "It's...uh... well, you see, my theory about the whole bed making thing is -- I'm gonna ask you this question... why would you make your bed, if you're just gonna sleep in it again in a few hours anyway, correct?" Considering how busy Josh has been this past year, I asked him how he managed to keep such a hectic schedule and stay sane. You know, my parents have really good jobs that allow them to go back and forth to their normal life and then go on their way to filming, and actually, I filmed Winged Creatures a year ago this spring...and I filmed Journey...no wait...NO. Winged Creatures was two years ago this spring 'cause this spring, last year, I was filming Winged Creatures and then the summer of '06 I filmed Journey, and now I'm filming Cirque Du Freak, so I had time off in between. Whenever I go away, I have my tutor on the set. He's been with me for five years. He knows it all!" Josh has been blessed to be able to fulfill his dream of becoming a successful actor, but what if his dream didn't come true? What would he have done then? "I'd probably be some sort of athlete. That's all I do in my spare time. Soccer is my number one sport. I love playing soccer." Mom was a soccer mom? "Yes. Well, actually, the thing is, I didn't start playing soccer until I filmed Kicking and Screaming, a soccer movie with Will Ferrell. He's a great guy. So soccer, any time I can, like during school back home, I have soccer literally six nights a week. It's awesome." So, does the future hold any plans of college for this bright-eyed star. The answer was an emphatic "YES!" "Yeah, I do actually. I wanna go to U.K. University of Kentucky. It's forty-five minutes out from where I live right now. I've always wanted to go there and maybe a soccer school." Like most teens his age, Josh loves music. According to him, his iPod carries quite an eclectic collection of tunes. "You know, I listen to everything. I like everything from Christian rock, to hip-hop and rap, to everything. I like Pearl Jam, yeah, those guys are great. I like STP (Stone Temple Pilots) a lot. They're pretty great. I also like a band called Days of the New. Have you heard of them? They have the best acoustic guitar. It's like an alternative, it's like a light alternative. It's really cool." He even told me about the time when he once dreamed of becoming a musician before ultimately becoming the actor he is today. Supposedly, his mother, he fears, may have some incriminating evidence of this well hidden in the house, to be used for future blackmail. "I actually...before I started acting, my plan was to be a rapper. When I was eight years-old, I opened for a band before 10,000 people at a theme park back home. So that was pretty cool." Does your mom have the incriminating video? "I hope to God my mom doesn't have a video of that somewhere because I'd probably shoot myself, but no I got on there and thought I was all Mr. Eminem or something," he laughs. Time went by much too quickly, and as I reluctantly began wrapping up our little talk, I asked him if there was anything else that he wanted to add before saying goodbye. Cleverly enough, he used this opportunity to plug his next movie, Cirque Du Freak. "Well, in Cirque Du Freak I actually get to play a vampire [Steve]. A big crazy thing happens. I become a vampanese. I try to become a vampire at first, but I have bad blood, so I went to the evil vampires and became an evil vampire, and then my friend became a regular vampire and I'm an evil vampire, so now it's kind of... we're butting heads, so the friendship went sour...it happens." Yeah, we've all been there Josh. Josh's personal website is under construction at the moment, but you can view the Journey to the Center of the Earth website at http://www.journey3dmovie.com.          
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West Palm Beach played host to the annual International Film Festival, and, of course, everyone who was anyone associated with film: actors, directors, screenplay writers and critics alike, came out in their Saturday best. Many were old-timers, but a handful of young, up-and-coming actors were being presented with awards.
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