There is an astonishing range of young actors who deserve awards attention this season. Many of the actors have little or no acting experience; those a bit more seasoned make our jaws drop with the way they've expertly tackled complex, emotionally demanding roles. Two have already been singled out with 2008 Spirit Award nominations.
Ali Dinesh (Sohrab), Zekeria Ebrahimi (Amir), and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada (Hassan) in The Kite Runner
The young performers with perhaps the most notoriety now are the stars of Paramount Vantage's The Kite Runner, which adapts Khaled Hosseini's best-selling novel about the bonds of friendships that span decades of betrayal, war, and geographic and cultural separation. The families of the young Afghani actors involved — Ali Dinesh, Zekeria Ebrahimi, and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada — came forward well after the film was finished to express their concerns over a scene depicting rape, an issue so taboo in their culture that the families believed it could lead fellow Afghanis to shun or even harm the children.
Because of the concern producers and financiers say they've had all along for the film's participants, especially the children, the release date for The Kite Runner was pushed back six weeks to allow the boys' families to relocate to the United Arab Emirates. It would be a shame if this controversy became the only legacy for Dinesh, Ebrahimi, and Mahmidzada and their participation in The Kite Runner. Their performances stand out as the thread linking the story across spans of time and distance. The boys command empathy and heartbreak — not just because they're children but because they masterfully convey the story's truth about love, innocence, tragedy, and honesty without a bit of detectable self-consciousness in front of the camera. And through such talented conduits, universal themes become easily relatable, despite barriers of language and borders.
Casting director Kate Dowd spent two months searching orphanages and schools in Afghanistan to pinpoint youngsters who had the authenticity insisted upon by director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland). Producer Rebecca Yeldham recalls, "When our casting efforts took us to Kabul, we found in the kids there a quality that had been missing among the 'westernized' Afghan kids who had auditioned: an innocence and sparkle somehow tethered to a maturity and world-weariness beyond their years. The boys were amazing and touched all of our hearts with their intelligence, diligence, and joyful, soaring spirits."
Dowd notes, "There are pockets of Afghan communities throughout Europe and the U.K. where I looked; we also spread the net to Toronto, San Francisco, and New York. There were some adorable Afghan children from these cities, but they had almost been here too long, and what Marc really wanted was that pure, nonwesternized child. So off I went to Kabul and found just that. I found Zekeria in the French LycĂŠe School and Ahmad Khan and Ali Dinesh at the Afghan Relief Organization, a vocational school which offers language courses and computer skills. The children were very special and had a beautiful innocence not yet influenced by Western culture — enchanting, wonderful boys."
Saoirse Ronan as Briony Tallis in Atonement
Another performer with the weight of an expansive story on her young shoulders is Saoirse Ronan, who portrays young Briony Tallis in Joe Wright's Atonement. Briony is the story's linchpin, a fanciful child whose imagination has devastating consequences for those close to her. It's a tall order for a 13-year-old, but Ronan nails it, contributing greatly to the magic and humanity that make Atonement so memorable.
Wright points out that Ronan is from Ireland "with a very thick Irish accent — not at all like Briony, except for a very big imagination." But in a sea of hopefuls, Ronan stood out to Wright and casting director Jina Jay as the perfect young actor to catalyze the trauma and deliverance in Atonement. While tackling a 1930s upper-class British accent, Ronan holds her own firmly and brilliantly alongside stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. Says Jay, "One of the most difficult things for a child actor is maintaining energy levels, consistency, and self-discipline, but Saoirse is the most focused child of her age I have ever met."
Central to Atonement is Briony's imagination; she's a burgeoning writer in love with the power of words. Her flaw is the abuse of that power, resulting in a lifelong process of redemption. It's a difficult concept, yet Ronan figured out how to understand and convey it. "She makes herself believe things, and after a while she decides to go with her imagination and to believe herself instead of anyone else," Ronan says.
Marcus Carl Franklin as Woody in I'm Not There
How does a preteen prepare to become Bob Dylan? This was the challenge facing Marcus Carl Franklin, who was cast as a youthful representation of the legendary musician in co-writer-director Todd Haynes' ambitious, unique opus I'm Not There.
Haynes' concept for I'm Not There embraced not only Dylan's creative genius but also his penchant for change, sometimes going to the opposite extreme of what he was known for. Haynes cast six actors, including Cate Blanchett, to represent distinct creative stages in Dylan's life; and the more different the actors were from Dylan, the better they might convey the songwriter's drastic shifts.
As the character Woody, Franklin, now 14, embodies Dylan's early musical development. "The early accounts of experiencing Bob Dylan in Greenwich Village are filled with hilarious accounts of Dylan's yarns about his past and where he came from," Haynes says. "I thought, 'Let's really take that to heart and have Woody be this person that literally claims to be Woody Guthrie — and let's make him black. And let's have everybody comment on how young he is and how unlikely he is to be Woody Guthrie but never even mention that he's black, the way Dylan was never really caught in his lies.' So the character of Woody's all about the sheer force of persuasion and Dylan's first intense aspiration and desire to become something else."
It wasn't merely Franklin's polarity to the real Dylan that intrigued Haynes and casting director Laura Rosenthal; it was his precocious talent. By the time Franklin auditioned for I'm Not There, the impressive list of credits he had amassed included Lackawanna Blues for HBO and the CBS-Hallmark production of The Water Is Wide. Franklin debuted on stage with Westco Productions at age 6, then progressed to Off-Broadway and Broadway productions of Caroline, or Change.
Like a seasoned pro, he took things in stride when called in to audition for the role of Woody. "The auditioning process was very relaxed and casual," Franklin recalls. "It was almost like a meeting more than an audition. When Todd came in and met with me for the callbacks, he made the environment so calm that the acting wasn't even acting. It was as if I was Woody, rather than I was pretending to be Woody."
Franklin also showed tremendous vocal ability; he ended up being the only actor in the film whose Dylan cover graces the official soundtrack release. "He blew us away," Haynes says. "I couldn't believe that we'd stumbled onto this kid. He has the voice of an angel." Franklin enthuses equally about his director, saying, "Working with Todd was definitely one of the greatest experiences of my life. He's a great person, very easy to talk to and work with, and he makes life on the set so much easier because of his patience, his wisdom, and seemingly interminable amount of knowledge on Bob Dylan."
Prepping to perform the role of Woody consisted of absorbing the care package Haynes had put together, something he delivers to all his actors. "Todd sent me a box with items that narrowed down the information to the time period I would be playing," Franklin says. "There was a book on Woody Guthrie and some CDs. It also had some pictures of Bob Dylan at the time and a picture of me that someone made. It all was very helpful." Franklin was also able to draw upon previous roles to round out the character. "The accent I had in the movie was derived from me playing a young black kid in the South so many times, definitely Caroline, or Change." But Franklin acknowledges the new territory that this role allowed him to enter: "I feel like the character was a completely different being from the others." Awards voters seem to feel that way too: Franklin was recently nominated for a 2008 Spirit Award for the role.
Ellen Page as Juno MacGuff in Juno
In Jason Reitman's scrappy Juno, 20-year-old Ellen Page plays a 16-year-old girl who gets pregnant after having sex with her best friend on a whim, then decides she will go through with the pregnancy and give her baby up for adoption. Though the film's tone is lighthearted, at its core is heavy material requiring a certain gravitas. Page drew upon instinct as well as feedback from those with more life experience, such as director Jason Reitman and co-stars Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, all of whom were new parents. "I was extremely anxious right before we started shooting in regard to making her as authentic as possible," Page recalls. "It was more about putting on the belly and feeling it — the second you put something like that on, mannerisms change, everything changes. And it was about making it as real as possible but also not forcing it. She's still a 16-year-old girl with the energy of a 16-year-old girl, so it was about having that great and interesting dynamic."
The process of making Juno was harmonious. "This was probably one of the most fantastic, organic, immediately awesome experiences of working with other people," Page says. "It was this atmosphere where everyone loved the script so much, and we all came together because we were so blown away by what Diablo [Cody] had written. There was no ego about it; it was just about coming together and being extremely grateful to be a part of the project and about creating a balance — not forcing it, just being understated." Page credits the guidance she received from Reitman as essential to her performance.
And Reitman is just as wild about Page: "She's incapable of having a dishonest moment. She acts with every inch of her body, right down to her fingernails. I've never seen someone be so ballsy and sympathetic at the same time. She makes you laugh out loud and then break down crying. Like the greatest actors in history, you fall in love the second the camera hits them and your heart breaks the moment they leave the screen."
Others agree: Page recently scored a 2008 Spirit Award nomination for the role. From very early on, acting was a natural fit for Page, who attended the Neptune Theatre School in her native Halifax, Nova Scotia. By age 10 she had an agent and was getting awards consideration for her TV work. When asked whether she feels acting was what she was destined to do, she responds, "It's inexplicable. For me, it's something I absolutely love to do, and the more I get to do it, the more I learn and the more, hopefully, I can get better at doing what I do. I'm just grateful that I'm getting to do it."
Although Page's ability to tackle complexities of emotion and dialogue consistently impresses casting directors, critics, and audiences, she still feels the sting of disregard due to her age — this despite her acclaimed performance in 2005's Hard Candy and subsequent film work in X-Men: The Last Stand. "But I think young individuals feel that in all aspects of life," she says. "I mean, I'm young, and I look even younger, so I experience that all the time, not just as an actor. I think people forget that teenagers or young individuals are human beings as well. All my really close friends are doing really awesome things, whether it's studying to be a writer or holistic nutrition and so on. Everyone deserves a little love and respect, you know?"