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| Young Actor Meets Challenges In 'Emperor's Club' Hirsch Plays Opposite Kline In New Drama Tim Lammers, Staff Writer While it's only his second feature film role, 17-year-old actor Emile Hirsch is wasting no time in going toe-to-toe with some of the industry's best actors. That's especially the case with his new film in theaters Friday, the Kevin Kline drama "The Emperor's Club." In it, Hirsch plays the pivotal role of Sedgwick Bell, a boarding school freshman who disrupts school assistant headmaster William Hundert's (Kline) blissful world of teaching with arrogant and insubordinate behavior. Needless to say, that presented an immediate challenge to Hirsch, since he admires the skills of veteran Oscar-winner Kline. "It was really nerve-wracking -- I not only had to be comfortable working around him, I had to stand up and challenge him," Hirsch told me in a recent @ The Movies interview. "Sedgwick is so cocky and charismatic and defies Mr. Hundert to such a degree, at some points after they'd say 'cut,' I'd say, 'Did I just say that to Kevin Kline?'" Fortunately, Hirsch is nothing like his character in real life. But seeing how convincing the young actor is as a conniving brat, it shows you how well-defined the character was in the original short story (called "The Palace Thief") by Ethan Canin, and the screenplay by Neil Tolkin. "I knew the charisma that Sedgwick needed to have, and one of the great things about the script was that it really had a clear outline of the character, so I didn't really have to come up with a completely original idea," Hirsch said. Plus, since Hirsch was playing the son of a politician, he watched a lot of CNN and CSPAN. "You have to go straight to the source," Hirsch said. Another source of inspiration over the past year for Hirsch was a role in another Oscar-winner's film -- "Dangerous Life of Altar Boys," produced and co-starring Jodie Foster. Hirsch said the Foster, who played Sister Assumpta, was only on the set for two weeks, but he learned from the veteran fast because she works fast. "First of all, she's a very nice person, very articulate and very mellow," Hirsch said. "And, it was fun just watching her snap into character. Jodie could just snap right into it in a second -- she's pretty awesome. There was such of a contrast -- she was like a different person right there, right that second." Source: The Boston Channel |
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