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| Interview Magazine Emboldened by Brando and fostered by Foster, this young actor is a heavyweight in the making. By Vincent D'Onofrio With his stirring movie debut in The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002) opposite Jodie Foster, Kieran Culkin and Vincent D'Onofrio (his interviewer here), Emile Hirsch, with his soft eyes and hard-to-forget talent, established himself in the indie-filmmaking circles as the teenage drama kind. (Fans of TV's Project Greenlight will recall that he was the kid everyone wanted to cast as the lead in The Battle of Shaker Heights, but just couldn't reel in.) Now 19, Hirsch is broadening his body of work and his audience with his first studio comedy, The Girl Next Door. And later this month, Hirsch will be back with The Muddge Boy, a drama that, as D'Onofrio discovers, left quite an impression on the young actor. Vincent D'Onofrio: Hey, bud. How are you? Emile Hirsch: Good good. VD: You've been busy, huh? EH: I've been working a lot, but there's so much time when I'm doing nothing. VD: Of course. That's what it's like making movies. There's a lot of downtime. Now, I know you sent me a video of The Mudge Boy yesterday, but I haven't seen it yet. Tell me: What's it about? EH: It's about the Mudge boy--that's my character's last name. He's an alienated kid who lives in small-town America. His mother just passed away, abnd he and his father have never really communicated before, so it's kind of the beginning of their relationship together. And it's also the first time he's really had a chance to make some friends. VD: It sounds pretty heavy. EH: Yeah, it is. But we had some fun times. My character is about 15, and there's a scene where I don't have my shirt on. Now, I have a really hairy chest--I've got to brag about it for a second [laughs]--so I was going to shave it, but everyone was like, "No, use Nair." I put it on my whole body. The label said don't put it on your nipples, and apparently there's a reason why. VD: Oh no! It burned you? EH: Yeah. My nipples scabbed. It was horrible. VD: [laughs]. How is The Girl Next Door? EH: I haven't seen it yet, but the script was really funny. And it gave me an opportunity to do some comedy. VD: What's your character like? EH: He's a really ambitious high school senior, but he hasn't lived-- not in the wild and crazy sense. He feels like he's missed out on things. One day he meets the girl of his dreams next door, but it's not all what it seems to be. VD: Don't give it away! You've got to leave the people hungry for something. You know, when we worked together on The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, one of the the things I respected most about you was that even at the age you were back then--how old were you? EH: About 15. VD: Wow. I'd never met somebody your age who was so committed to acting. EH: Thank you. I started acting when I was 10, but I never had a total fascination with it. It was just a fun kind of thing. Then I saw A Streetcar Named Desire [1951] with Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh when I was 14, and it was like a slap in the face. It was a wake-up call. VD: Let me ask yiu, when you're going to do a project and you're thinking about the character, are you confident in your process? EH: No. Well, it depends. Sometimes I'm notally sure of myself, and other times I think I don't know anything. Confidence is very elusive. next page --> |
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