Child actors

William Friedkin

I want you to fly up to Toronto to the Shakespeare Festival. He said, there's a guy here who is doing A Streetcar Named Desire. He's a young actor from Chicago. He's never been in a film. His name is William Petersen. And he's got his own acting company in Chicago. And he loves theater. And he's doing Streetcar up here. And he's not doing anything that would remind you of Brando.

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William Friedkin

who said, we violated our agreement and this and that. And he was all upset. And I remember telling him, look, this is just a young actor who got carried away. He wanted to do it. It was his dream. It's always been his dream to run along the rails of the people movers at the airport. Now he's done it. It's a harmless incident, and he's OK. So why don't we just forget it and move on? And the guy...

27:04 · jump to transcript →

William Friedkin

Bob Wiener, the casting director, brought me virtually every... Well, everyone in the film. And he had run into Dean Stockwell somewhere, or he had seen him in something, and I only knew Dean Stockwell as a child actor. But then I saw Dean Stockwell in Paris, Texas. And then I subsequently saw him in Blue Velvet and realized that there was much more

1:04:52 · jump to transcript →

John Mackenzie

Paul Barber plays this part. Even then, you know, a rising young actor, young black actor getting very well known. And he's done a hell of a lot. He's had a very good career. He went on to do a great television vehicle, Boys in the Black Stuff. He's done The Full Monty. Remember him, The Full Monty? And of course, when he fools in horses, you see him quite a lot. He's a sort of running character in that.

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John Mackenzie

And I thought he looked sort of the right age. He was to be young, and yet you could believe that he would be part of that. He had a certain maturity in his attitude. So we got him in and got him to read it. And I think we made the right choice. He turned out to be an interesting young actor. How do you stay so cool? And with just enough arrogance in him to sort of fill the role, as it were. Help Vicky out, all right?

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Oliver Stone

All these young actors were really a pleasure to pick. Johnny Depp, Forest Whitaker, they all moved on to do something with their lives. This was like almost their first or second film roles. It was just great to be with a bunch like this. It was sort of my fantasy of a John Sturgis picture, like Magnificent Seven or something, but with youngsters. And I kind of sensed that these guys would be around for some years, and it would be a pleasure to sort of have known them in their youth.

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Oliver Stone

Another fine young actor. Hey, white boy, what you waiting for? That hole ain't gonna dig itself. Come on, boy, get your dick skin on that thing. Dig. We can get all day. Dig, dig. Somebody once wrote, hell is the impossibility of reason. That's what this place feels like, hell. I hate it already. These were my feelings pretty much at the time. I was really caught out of sorts. I mean, I...

10:01 · jump to transcript →

This was all fun to do for the most part. You know, it was a movie. We were both working on a movie. We were both working on a major motion picture produced by, you know, a big company. That, by the way, everyone auditioned for. Everyone? All of the young actors and all of the young actresses from the 80s that became, some of them became A-listers and some of them didn't. They saw them all. And we wanted the choices. No kidding.

6:34 · jump to transcript →

They were so supportive of us, I think, because the whole cast, I think, just really felt very supportive of the young actors. You know, that was Mac and myself. Just like to point out, I think that's the first act of overt violence, the Garbage Pail Kids. Okay, now it's important to say this, and I'm going to say it. In the original script, all of this stuff that they do,

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