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| "I saw Giant with James Dean, and James Dean was only 20-something, and he plays 60," says Hirsch, referring to Dean's final film in which the 24-year-old actor played Jett Rink first as a young ranch hand, then as a 50-ish oil baron. Looking at Hirsch on a recent morning - dressed in khakis, well-worn Nikes, and a white hooded sweatshirt - it's hard to imagine Hirsch playing a middle-aged married father until one hears how serious he was about tackling the role. "I did the math, and at the time I thought I could it pull off and play a 30- or 35-year-old," he says. "I was totally getting into it, and I was thinking, 'What if they totally did my face with this state-of-the-art makeup and synthesized my voice and stuff?' I got excited and told the director (Hoffman), and he didn't turn me down. He was like, 'Hmm, I never thought about that.' " Hoffman ultimately decided to go with an older actor, Joel Gretsch, to play the adult Sedgewick. "I thought it would be a challenge, and I believed in the script so much I thought it would be kinda cool," Hirsch says. "Plus, whenever I see time jump it always annoys me when I see a different person. But I think the way they did it ultimately was the best." Hoffman might have rejected Hirsch's desire to play an adult, but the actor was his first choice to play the young Sedgewick. "I needed a kid who could go toe-to-toe with Kevin Kline and also had a movie-star quality," said the director. "Emile was very obviously that kid. He has a radiance and luminosity about him, and he's very complex for a young actor. That was evident when he wanted to play the adult Sedgewick - he'd honestly thought about how to prepare to play a 40-year-old." That a 17-year-old would lobby to play someone more than twice his age speaks to Hirsch's commitment to his craft. A performer for half his life, he was introduced to acting when he accompanied his sister to auditions and caught the eye of casting directors. Born in California, Hirsch lived in Santa Fe with his mother (his parents divorced when he was 3), then moved back to Los Angeles with his father to work on his career. For his first TV role, in the short-lived Fox series Kindred: The Embraced, he was credited only as "Dying Boy," but it led to appearances in 3rd Rock From the Sun, Early Edition, and The Pretender. Although Hirsch was wary of settling into TV, he also refused to squander his time in mindless big-screen teen comedies crammed with jokes about masturbation and bodily fluids. "I'm not trying to be like, 'Oh, I'm too good for that.' It's just that for what I want, it's not a good career move," he says. "If you want a more serious approach and some longevity, it's better not to get pigeonholed. "As much as I admire a film like American Pie, I probably wouldn't want to be in it." Hirsch's next film, slated for release next year, is The Mudge Boy, in which he plays a teenager trying to repair his relationship with his distant father while coping with the death of his mother. Given the direction his career has taken, Hirsch, who will also graduate from high school next year, has no regrets about his self-imposed sabbatical. "I knew the kind of career I wanted to have, so it felt like the right thing to do," he says. "Looking back on it, it was a gamble. "But I waited a year, I gambled, and I won." Source: Halifax Herald <-- article page 1 |
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