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Inside an old-fashioned telephone booth close to Savannah, Georgia, the protagonist of “Wild America,” an adventure film made for children, was in the process of shooting an important scene. A determined boy aged twelve, who hitchhiked his way onto his older siblings’ road trip, desperately contacts his household to seek his mother’s approval to join them during the filming of their first nature documentary. In the absence of her support, the child has no option but to suffer a dull summer on the family farm.
A scruffy-looking Jonathan Taylor Thomas was wearing a pair of sneakers, jeans, and a ripped sweatshirt. He tried to concentrate as he held the door open with his legs. It was not easy to focus.
We spent around two and a half hours there,’ states the film director William Dear. ”There was no one in sight when we first arrived, and it wasn’t easily accessible. But when we were done, around two to three dozen girls were loitering there. This is the downside of filming with an idol.
And Mr. Thomas, the said idol, states he was not shocked his girl fans knew where to track him down. I don’t know how they do it, but they always seem to figure it out Mr. Thomas said. He looks much younger than his ‘almost 16’ self but sounds older. He just finished two weeks of final exams, so he is speaking in a doubtful voice. Sort of like a constantly on edge overworked college student who is terrified of having questions thrown at him that he has to answer in great detail.
Mr. Thomas is used to uncontrollable enthusiasm from his admirers after working on the hit series ‘Home Improvement’ for six years and covering numerous girl magazines such as ‘Bop’ and ’16’. He claims it is ”distracting at times to see a whole group of girls staring and giggling, Thomas noted.
”It is gratifying but they expect you to pay them back a lot, especially at their age,” he expressed. It’s tricky because you want to make everyone happy, and the truth is, you absolutely can, but that would mean setting yourself up for failure and disappointment.
Recently, Mr. Thomas has been trying to establish a career in films. He spent summer breaks filming the Chevy Chase movie ”Man of the House” and last year’s movie ”Tom and Huck”. The success, although modest, of these films has placed Mr. Thomas in a rather odd and uncomfortable situation… he is now considered a box office attraction for adolescents, even though he is on the brink of outgrowing those roles.
I’ve only seen one child star outperform all other actors throughout the years, and it’s Temple’s Culkin, states Judy Savage, a woman who has headed the Savage Agency which deals with child and adolescent actors in Los Angeles over 19 years. Thomas is a great model of what the industry prefers: an intelligent, socially active kid, diminutive for his age, who has a rather unusual voice, a textured voice nonetheless. Unlike such male peer actors as Mr. Culkin, Renfro, or Furlong, Mr. Thomas has been continually prominent in major films attended by his family, but not controlled by them.
Also, Savage has pointed out that the boxer Samuel Thomas from Kentucky has ‘blendable’ good looks. He is a sandy-haired young actor, but adult actors are usually cast first and the children who play their offspring must look like them. He is not a good looker but catchy enough to do the job.
His fellow adult actors were to consider him first on casting for ‘Wild America’ whereas in previous films he was originally cast only after his adult costars were chosen. ‘He is the linchpin of the movie, the name who could get the movie made. said the director of the film.
Mr. Thomas is a private high school sophomore in Los Angeles and has been a professional actor for half his life. He was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, as the younger son of Claudine Thomas and Stephen Weiss. When the family relocated to Sacramento, California in 1986, Jonathan began acting in local theatres and modeling for print ads. His mother, a former social worker, even went a step further by sending his picture to a television casting agent.
A few auditions later in 1991, Mr. Thomas was considered for a part in a new sitcom that had Tim Allen as the lead stand-up comedian. He got the role, supposedly, when one of the producers said of Mr. Thomas, ”That kid is going to be a star.” He made his transition to feature films in 1994 when he was cast as lion cub Simba in voice in “The Lion King” film.
Now that he is older, he explains that it was his mother who guided his career and selected suitable scripts for him considering his age and the expectations of him being the sensible middle son in Home Improvement. In Tom and Huck, Mr. Thomas is the well-mannered version of Tom Sawyer, projecting against Mr. Renfro’s teenage delinquent and rebellious version of Huck Finn who was daring enough to rob a liquor shop.
Tom is more of a muted character remarked Mr. Thomas. “He wonders, ‘How is this going to work for me?’ He is the world’s best puppeteer of sorts. And I mean that in a positive sense. He is not evil. He is a deal maker, so you know that he gets things done.”
While filming in Tennessee two years ago, his mother gave him a script for Wild America. It’s about Martin, Mark, and Marshall Stouffer, three siblings from Arkansas who started filming nature documentaries in their teenage years and went on to create the PBC series Wild America.
The film, set in 1967 during the summer when the brothers filmed their first movie, is narrated by Stouffer (Mr. Thomas) the youngest brother. He usually got cast as the stunt man or the guy who gets into a cage full of wild animals, and his brothers were played by Scott Bairstow and Devon Sawa.
Mr. Thomas said the film is, ‘not one of those stupid movies that pack a punch for the sake of it- ‘I’m older now and understand life’,’ it’s a coming of age story.
It’s a maturing process, Marshall is a bit more knowing than anyone else in his family. He is more intuitive than anyone else in his family,’ Mr. Dear adds. ‘He has a lot more understanding than people give him credit for. So figuring out that he needs to be quiet for a while to observe everything, it’s not too tricky.
THEREFORE, Mr. Thomas said, in an effort to illustrate what has been called “THESE ARE QUALITIES” seemed more appropriate for a face reading M16. “The reaction, as pointed out by the studio executive, is but one example of the numerous benefits offered by the actor.”
“Honestly, I thought they were making a joke out of it, but I wanted to do it. Towering was a part of the performance, and I wanted to do it.”
Mr. Thomas does not seem to be in any kind of hassle to make good use of his immense youthful charisma. I chose not to take a film this summer, he says, because I wanted to focus on summer reading before heading into my work in ‘Home Improvement’ later this month.
I’m doing my best to tackle procrastination with my reading, he states. Unlike television or film, I can’t finish my shot and retreat into my trailer for thirty minutes. I can only complete ten to fifteen math problems before getting back to work.
While many actors his age have taken the plot of being rotten children or juvenile delinquents, Mr. Thomas has never done so, and claims he had no intention of aiming for such parts anyway. Some, if not all, people who know him will agree that their perception is right because the actor is known for being very matter-of-fact and straightforward, which is admired by everyone, including his peers. Still, there is a possibility that Ms. Savage, the talent agent, hints, that such an attitude may restrict his selection of young adult parts.
It’s challenging to try and make a teen idol type into a more edgy type as he ages, she said. It’s not in their soul. The only clean-cut starlet I see at the moment is Chris O’Donnell. She says If Mr. Thomas does not grow tall, she says, his career could stall. In my experience, kids who suffer from short stature are at an advantage during childhood, but they totally suffer during adulthood, she said. The publicist of the actor claims he is currently standing at 5 feet three inches tall.
Ms Savage draws parallels between the life of child actors like Mr. Thomas and Jodie Foster or Ron Howard, who went off to college or delved into other spheres of the entertainment world as a break from acting. It is a step that Mr. Thomas appears to be willing to adopt.
“I would wish to pursue material that is edgy since that is what gets the most respect, he says. I think this will probably go on forever. Acting is one of the hurdles I can Overcome so many doors, but there are other things I could do later too.
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