WEIRDLAND: Michael Angarano reading "An American Dream"

Sunday, January 03, 2010

Michael Angarano reading "An American Dream"

Michael Angarano and Kirsten Stewart on 1st December 2008.

"Michael Angarano looks too young to buy the cigarettes he smokes. And the 22-year-old actor, star of the recent Gentlemen Broncos, admits it’s not just his fresh face that makes him appear underage.
Mike White and Michael Angarano in "Gentlemen Broncos", September 2009.

“As a kid, I was able to distract myself and not have work take over my life completely,” says Angarano, who found himself splashed across tabloids when he was still dating his ex-girlfriend, actress Kristen Stewart. “If I didn’t have that experience growing up, I don’t know that I would be able to keep work from taking over now.”
Eddie Redmayne, Kristen Stewart and Michael Angarano at Sundance Film Festival Entertainment Weekly 17th Year on 19th January 2008.

“If I wasn’t acting, I’d just be coming out of college,” he says. “I would already have had four years of being on my own, but now I’m kind of just starting.” Anganaro is successfully making the transition from child to adult actor (he’s been working since he was 5, and his résumé includes supporting roles in Almost Famous, Lords of Dogtown and Will & Grace). Michael Angarano as Sid in "Lords of Dogtown" (2005).

In his next film, Ceremony, Angarano plays a young Turk intent on destroying an older crush’s wedding (Uma Thurman plays the object of his desire).
Uma Thurman in "Ange ou Demon, Le Secret de Givenchy".

“It’s a coming-of-age story about a boy realizing he’s a boy,” Angarano says, “Instead of a boy realizing he’s a man.”
-Do you feel like a part of “young Hollywood?”
-I just do what I like doing. And that sounds very arrogant, but in a way it’s all I can do. I have no thoughts about being anything.-But it’s good to be you.
-Of course it is. Acting is like a trade, like any other trade, so when people appreciate it for what it is and understand what you’re doing and what you’re going through, that’s what you do it for. Of course you like being acknowledged but at the same time it means nothing really.
Michael Angarano as William Miller at age 11 in "Almost famous" (2000).

-Can you talk about making the transition from child to adult actor?
-It gets harder as you get older. The roles get harder. Life gets harder as you get older. As a kid I always had distractions, even when I was on set I was always worrying about school. My mind was always very busy. But as an adult when I’m on set it’s all I have to do and when I’m off set that’s also all I have to do. As a kid it’s easy not to have work take over your life completely. And it’s very important to live outside of your career.
-What do you do for fun?
-I like traveling a lot. And I’ve been doing a lot of reading. The second I stopped going to school, I started reading exponentially more. I never read and now I read a lot. I’m reading a book called An American Dream by Norman Mailer and it’s really good. I’ve read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and it changed my life completely. I love those books so much.
-Tell me about Ceremony. -In Ceremony my character is kind of a complete sociopath. The kind of person who really doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings except his own. The plot of the movie is that he tricks and manipulates his best friend into coming on this vacation with him for a weekend. But unknown to his friend, the only reason he wants to go is to break up the wedding of an older woman. The guy is maybe 22 years old, but just by the way he dresses and talks you would think he’s like 35 yeas old. He’s one of those people that, the major elephant in the room is how this person is acting. You feel like if you say something about what they’re doing, how false it is, it would pull the rug out from under them completely. That’s the kind of line that he walks.-Forbidden Kingdom was a success in the box office. Did you think it would be?
-I think a movie like that is really rare, because you know it’s going to be somewhat successful. You know what you’re doing is going to get at least some kind of default profit because of the people involved, like Jackie Chan and Jet Le. You know it’s going to do semi-fairly well. But by no means when I signed on to that movie did I do it because it was going to be a big movie or anything. It was just like anything else; an incredible challenge. Independent movies are character driven and really simple and no special effects, but they can still be so ambitious, with the story they’re trying to tell. But a movie like that, that’s like the most ambitious movie you can make, because you’re really trying to make something people will revere and be surprised and entertained with".
Source: www.blackbookmag.com

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