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lifestyle THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2016 MUSIC & MOVIES The indie child star who loves playing oddballs e isn't quite a household name yet but, at the age of 19, Dream come true Original roles child star-turned-teen heartthrob Asa Butterfield has built This year has seen him cast as the reluctant young hero of "I'm always trying to find roles which are original in one way or Hup a resume a Hollywood veteran would envy. The British "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children," a performance another, and stories which are original," he tells AFP. "I never really actor has worked with Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton, starring which moved director Tim Burton to praise Butterfield's "spe- play the kid who's got the perfect life. Usually he's missing a parent alongside some of cinema's biggest names, including Samuel L. cial kind of sensitivity." For the young London-based actor, or two." Like the young actors in the "Harry Potter" films, Butterfield Jackson, Ben Kingsley, Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins. "I've nev- working with the legendary director was the fulfillment of a has done his growing up in front of the camera but this indie child er really gotten starstruck," he tells AFP ahead of the release of his career-long dream. "When people asked me which director do star has never been a recognizable celebrity. His more high-profile latest project, sci-fi fantasy "The Space Between Us," co-starring you want to work with, I'd say Tim Burton. It's lovely having recent roles are beginning to change that as he enters adulthood, Gary Oldman. "I've been very lucky to work with the people I have, him welcome you somewhat into his imagination and ideas, but he has his feet on the ground, and says he is more likely to be but as an actor you need to be on a level playing field. Every actor which always blow you away," he says. "He is always very spon- photographed cycling in London than cruising Beverly Hills in a I've worked with has been great at making me feel comfortable on taneous. The way he works is very chaotic and you have to be Porsche. set." Butterfield began acting at age eight, after a casting director on your toes." "It hasn't really changed my life," he says of his career so far, saw him at his after-school drama club in north London. The movie Next up is "The Space Between Us," in which Butterfield before correcting himself. "Well, I suppose it has changed my life that made Hollywood sit up and pay attention, 2008 Holocaust dra- plays Gardner Elliot, the first boy born on Mars who visits Earth but I don't let it dictate my life." This month Butterfield began ma "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas," earned Butterfield a British for the first time at the age of 16, released in the US on filming World War I drama "Journey's End," and there have been Independent Film Award nomination. December 16. Butterfield and co-star Carla Gugino ("San persistent rumors of superhero movies, although it's not a genre "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's 2011 love letter to the film industry, Andreas," "Batman v Superman") spent two weeks walking with that particularly interests him. "I want to carry on acting. It's not proved to be his big break, with his own lead performance earning weights on their ankles to get used to how a Mars resident the only thing I want to do though," he says. "I want to film him a Critics' Choice Award nomination for best young actor. He might cope in the more tiring gravity of Earth. The character is wildlife documentaries up the Amazon or somewhere, behind has since transformed himself into a poster boy for young adult like many Butterfield has taken on-an abandoned or orphaned the camera." — AFP drama through such films as 2013's "Ender's Game," where he child, an oddball who must negotiate a world he barely under- played the titular role alongside Harrison Ford. stands. Asa Butterfield Beauty & the Beast is a tale Six years after 'True Grit,' another breakout for Steinfeld oes Hailee Steinfeld know how her single "Starving" got up to no. 14 on Craig and Brooks, after auditioning a as old as time — with surprises good she is? It's a question Billboard. thousand other girls, that Steinfeld Dwriter-director Kelly Fremon found her next great part. Craig and producer James L. Brooks Scripture-quoting "We almost didn't believe our eyes," irector Bill Condon was only recreated and made real in magnificent would often ask themselves after watch- "It's definitely something that says Brooks. "Suddenly we had a movie." interested in turning Disney's detail - like the grand ballroom and ing the young actress shoot a take while requires going in headfirst and not look- With Brooks ("Terms of Endearment," animated classic "Beauty and the Belle's yellow gown. But Condon was making their high-school comedy "Edge ing back," says Steinfeld. "When you "The Mary Tyler Moore Show") serving D of Seventeen." "Jim and I would sit there stand on that stage, it's you. It's me as her mentor, Craig set out to capture a Beast " into a live-action film if he could not restricted solely to drawing from the use Alan Menken's Oscar-winning score. animated film. and go, 'Holy god!'" says Craig. "And going out there and being vulnerable in more realistic view of high school, inter- He remembers fondly when it came out The new movie also contains nods to after we'd call cut, Jim and I would be front of a bunch of people and having in 1991 and how it not only solidified Jean Cocteau's ornate black and white staring at each other with our mouths fun. And it's scary because it's so differ- Disney's animation renaissance after version from 1946, Condon said, as well open and she'd just be on her phone ent than having that protection of being "The Little Mermaid," but also helped as his own unique vision. "We went in like she didn't even know she did some- a character." The irony is that Steinfeld, revitalize the movie musical at a time with the idea that we were going to set thing that great." Steinfeld, an Oscar in character, is such a genuine per- when the genre was basically dead. The it in a very specific time - the early 18th nominee at 14, is having another break- former and potent force of nature. That New York Times theater critic Frank Rich century in the French countryside," through at 19. In Craig's much-lauded was first evident in "True Grit," Joel and even called it, somewhat controversially, Condon said. They took pains to make directorial debut "Edge of Seventeen," Ethan Coen's Charles Portis adaptation "the best Broadway musical score of sure the household staff resembled the young star of the Coen brothers' in which she played the scripture-quot- 1991."It's fitting, then, that the twinkling items - clocks, teapots, candelabras - "True Grit" proves that she's matured ing, pigtailed Mattie. The Coen brothers instrumentals of Menken's prologue are from that time and place. into one of the finest (and funniest) searched and searched for an actress for the first thing you hear in the new trailer actresses of her generation. the part before finding the then 13- for the film , released Monday by Disney. More modern It's a comic and heartfelt coming-of- year-old Steinfeld; she was the only one Unsurprisingly, the big, splashy tech- age movie in the John Hughes mode in could handle Portis' ornately formal dia- nical set-piece is "Be Our Guest," in which Steinfeld stars as Nadine, a Job- logue. which the anthropomorphized house- like high-school junior plagued by a Steinfeld vividly remembers the hold items stage their own Busby series of embarrassments. She's a self- Coens giggling at the spot-on precision Berkeley-inspired number to serve Belle described "old soul" who resents her fel- of her audition. In her feature film a meal. It wasn't easy. "For us it was tak- low high-schoolers as "mouth debut, an uncanny command of lan- ing something that animation does easi- breathers"; she's equal parts narcissistic guage came naturally. "I would get the ly - imagining dancing candlesticks - and self-loathing, and altogether witty, feeling that I was in it, that I had and making it real," he said. The film is honest and original. "This was one big switched on. But I never got the feeling not just a remembrance of "Beauty and liberating role for me," Steinfeld said in that I switched off," she says. "In a way I the Beasts" past, however. They've made an interview earlier this fall. "It was felt like I had control but at the same Belle even more modern than she was amazing to be able to express all of that time didn't know where it was coming in 1991, when it was somewhat extraor- because I feel like, in a way, I haven't from." The experience of "True Grit" viewing dozens of teenagers. But it all really been able to before. This character remains unmatched for Steinfeld, she depended upon finding the right Photo shows Hailee In this file photo, Director Bill Condon dinary to have the center of a Disney Steinfeld, a cast member speaks during the photo call for the film be more interested in books than is so much like myself." says; rare are directors who so trust Nadine.