Thomas Horn | From Jeopardy champ to child actor in “EXTREMELY LOUD”

No doubt there are those Thomases who can't help but be Toms. The always-affable Tom Hanks, for instance.

Then there are those who defy diminution. Such is the case with first-time film actor Thomas Horn. The 14-year-old Jeopardy! whiz kid holds his own against the Oscar-winning likes of Hanks and Sandra Bullock, who play his parents in Warner Bros.' 9/11-centered drama “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

In 2010, producer Scott Rudin was among those TV viewers impressed by Horn's display of steely nerves and card-shark cool after he wagered $12,000 in Final Jeopardy and won $38,100 with the answer: "What is a census?" That led to an audition for the role of Oskar Schell, a brainy but socially isolated lad left adrift after his father dies in the World Trade Center attacks.

The movie is heavy-duty, and so is its star. This still-sprouting, beacon-bright ninth-grader, who hails from the San Francisco area, doesn't suffer fools nor foolish inquiries gladly.

Jokingly asked if he is going to answer questions in the form of a question, Jeopardy!-style, Horn simply rolls his eyes, slightly grimaces and remains silent. He also would rather keep some personal info under wraps.

This son of an oncologist mother and an ophthalmologist father speaks three languages. Besides English, he is fluent in Croatian, thanks to his mother's side of the family. And he is studying Mandarin. "I just thought it would be a great, useful language to learn because it's the most widely spoken first language."

Unlike some showbiz youngsters, acting was never a goal for Horn. His only other experience was as a grasshopper in a fifth-grade stage performance of James and the GiantPeach. But his time as an insect did nothing to prepare him for being in almost every scene — and narrating a good portion of the action off-screen — of a major Hollywood production.

As an 11-year-old loner who feels let down by his mother and lost without his father, Horn must run the gamut of emotions from extreme joy to incredible grief. He also must be somewhat irritating since his character exhibits signs of Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism. But with the help of dialogue and acting coaches, as well as supportive co-stars who had his back, Horn delivers what director Stephen Daldry calls "one of the greatest screen performances by a young actor in the history of cinema — he is exceptional."

Horn returns the compliment. He says of the British filmmaker behind such acclaimed titles as “Billy Elliot” (which also features an exceptional boy) and “The Hours”: "He really let me have my creative take on things, even though, as a first-time actor, I don't really deserve it. Whenever he thought I could use a suggestion, he would give one. But in a really kind way and without hurting my feelings. I'm kind of a sensitive, thin-skinned person, so it's a great achievement."

Both Hanks and Bullock looked out for their on-screen son and got a kick out of watching him fully embrace the task at hand.

"He started off with a degree of comfort and never changed," says Hanks. "He was constant as the speed of light. If only we could steal his ability to focus the way he does. His concentration was rather off the scale sometimes."

Bullock did feel compelled to provide some etiquette pointers now and then, especially given Horn's habit of stomping when he walks. "He would blow by us women," she says. "Coming out of a stairwell, he would just blow by and push the door open. I told him, 'OK, with ladies, you need to stop, open the door and stay.' You could just feel him going, 'Oh, this is such a nuisance.' "

Horn is up for doing more films and has read some scripts. Still, college definitely looms. As for a major, he says, "probably something practical, like computer science and math." Though he is too young to remember the events of 9/11, Horn understands why some moviegoers might have mixed feelings about revisiting the tragic day.

Yet the theme of the film, he says, is ultimately a positive one: "Grief, no matter where it comes from, can only be resolved by connecting to other people."

(Now showing across the Philippines on Feb. 29, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.)

MAX VON SYDOW gets Oscar nomination for “EXTREMELY LOUD”

Venerated actor Max von Sydow plays a mysterious old man who can communicate only via scrawls on a notepad yet becomes a boy’s only confidante on his quest across New York, in Warner Bros.' “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” Von Sydow recently won a much-deserved Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for portraying the enigmatic, silent man known only as “The Renter.”

Nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father (Tom Hanks) died on 9/11 in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears.

Von Sydow – whose prodigious film career began in the 1950s with Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal,” and continued through ten more films with Bergman and six decades of memorable and award-winning roles – had a strong emotional reaction to the story of “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

“I was extremely moved by the script, which doesn’t happen often,” von Sydow states. “And I liked the idea of playing this enigmatic figure, this apparent stranger who tries to help Oskar in his search. It really is an interesting friendship that develops between them.”

The character remains mute throughout the movie, so the actor strove to express his moments of anguish, curiosity and delight entirely through his face and body. Says director Stephen Daldry of the unusual, wordless performance: “Max turned in a performance unlike any other he’s done — and I think it’s the kind of performance he’s always wanted to do. I honestly believe he’s created one of the most extraordinary characters of his career; he’s profoundly nuanced, complicated, funny and sensitive…without uttering a sound.”

Opening across the Philippines on Feb. 29, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

SANDRA BULLOCK, incredibly affecting in “EXTREMELY LOUD”

Two years after winning an Academy Award for “The Blind Side,” Sandra Bullock takes the role of grief-stricken mother whose apparent absence in her son's life is not quite what it seems, in Warner Bros.' heartwrenching drama, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

Nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards, the film is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father (Tom Hanks) die on 9/11 in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears.

“What I find so moving about Oskar is that he feels there has to be an answer, but there is not always a clear ‘why’ or a ‘because’ to a situation,” Bullock says. “And sometimes the answer you get is not the one you expect, which is something Oskar has to discover for himself.”

Unlike Oskar’s father, his mother, Linda (Bullock), has always found it tough to reach her son, and that only seems to increase by a factor of 10 when her husband is no longer there to bridge the gap. Yet, much as she seems lost in her own private realm of grief, Linda is connecting to Oskar in ways of which he is not even aware.

Director Stephen Daldry felt there was an organic empathy in Bullock that would allow the role to work. “Sandra is a first-rate actress who really took her role to heart,” he says. “She looked after Thomas very well and formed a strong relationship with him that translated to the screen. She was able to bring a gravitas that was entirely appropriate but also a real charm.”

For Bullock, the intriguing part was playing a mother who has to work at bonding with her son and forging her own route back into his world after his father’s death. “I think when her husband was alive, Linda was always okay with just stepping back and letting Oskar and his father be a great team together,” she observes. “But now that Oskar has lost his playmate and the one person who grounded him and who he felt was his intellectual equal, she isn’t sure she can be any of those things to her son. And she’s in the process of grieving too, so she doesn’t have much energy to fight for that connection she so desperately wants with him. She has to struggle to find the solution.”

Given the subjective, first-person viewpoint of the film, Bullock also had to play her character the way Oskar perceives her – which was especially difficult because Oskar does not see the full picture of his mother. “I had to come to grips with the idea that the audience is seeing Linda on the screen entirely through Oskar’s point of view – and his view of her is not always very favorable,” she explains. “In some scenes, she can seem to be the opposite of nurturing, yet later, it becomes clear what is really going on with her. Still, I had to be okay with her looking at times like she wasn’t being a good mother to a child who is really in need. Part of it is that what Oskar sees is her grief, which is ugly and imperfect, but also very real. But what Oskar doesn’t know is that she is also very worried about him and that causes her to really try to think like he does.”

To explore Linda Schell’s experience more deeply, Bullock listened to recordings of phone calls and voice-mail messages left by those trapped in the World Trade Center for their families. “That was very hard for me,” she says. “But what floored me was to hear people giving comfort to those they were leaving behind. You really understand that the pain of hearing that is something that could never go away.”

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

TOM HANKS, the perfect dad in “EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE”

Two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks stars as Thomas Schell, a devoted husband and father who was at the wrong place, at the wrong time during the fateful day of 9/11, in Warner Bros.' life-affirming drama, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

The film is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears.

As a screen character, Thomas Schell was a challenge because he is seen entirely through Oskar’s eyes, to the extent that much about his history and inner life remain mysterious -- except for the parts that have made an impression on Oskar and especially Oskar’s memories of their very best times together, which remain indelibly immediate to him.

To embody the essence of a father as captured in time by his young son, director Stephen Daldry thought early on of Tom Hanks. “We thought that in terms of Oskar’s memories of Thomas as the perfect dad...well, who else could that be but Tom Hanks?” recalls Daldry. “Tom took that responsibility to heart and created a real bond with child actor Thomas Horn that was evident to everybody on the set. They were absolutely charming together, which was great for me as a filmmaker, because they created this dynamic relationship and all I had to do was shoot it. It was an act of real dedication by an extraordinary actor and collaborator.”

Hanks was drawn to the way the script gets inside Oskar’s mind at a time when the power of logical facts to keep him grounded seems to have evaporated. “In the blink of an eye, the course of Oskar’s whole world changes, and he loses his only anchor,” Hanks says. “His father used to tell him that there are always clues and treasures to be found in the world. So when he finds his father’s key, it’s very interesting that Oskar devises his own elaborate hunt for what the key might mean, convinced it will somehow explain the unexplained to him. It becomes a very personal, intimate story of a kid trying to make sense in his own way of a nonsensical world.”

He adds: “It was easiest thing in the world for me to want to do this – as soon as I read it, there was not even any question.”

The actor says he gave a lot of consideration to the kind of father Thomas was to Oskar prior to his death. He also kept in mind that Thomas was himself a child of immigrants who took up the trade of jewelry as his only clear opportunity to support his family, even though he dreamed of being a scientist. “I think Thomas was someone who felt the real task in his life was to make sure that his very bright son became a well-rounded, content human being who might make the world a better place,” Hanks says. “Since Thomas himself grew up without a father, fathering Oskar was the most important thing to him. I think he loved inventing wild stories for Oskar, like the one he makes up about New York’s lost Sixth Borough, but he also very clearly designed these stories to get Oskar out in the world and help him feel safe there.”

In part, Hanks drew on his own experiences as a father. “The emotional part of it for me was going back and remembering what it’s like to have an 11-year-old kid who is bubbling over with life,” he says.

While Hanks believes Thomas was well aware that Oskar often showed signs of behavior akin to Asperger’s Syndrome, he also says Thomas readily accepted and even related to many of his son’s oddities and phobias, which made the two of them even closer. “I think Thomas wasn’t bothered at all by his son’s behaviors,” he says. “Instead, he looked for ways to build bridges over Oskar’s turbulence, over his constant questions, his flights of fancy and his fears. Yet because of that, when he’s gone, it magnifies the incredible loss for Oskar even more.”

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

The day after 9/11 in “EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE”

One of the most definitive novels about 9/11 becomes one of the year’s most cathartic cinematic experiences as Warner Bros. brings to the screen “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. Directed by Stephen Daldry (“The Reader,” “The Hours”), the film has been nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards.

In 2005 the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, already renowned for his blend of incisive comedy and tragedy in his debut novel “Everything Is Illuminated,” published his follow-up “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” His second novel was, on the one hand, the playful story of an unusually precocious and sensitive boy who invents fantastical devices, dreams about astrophysics, collects a vast assortment of random facts – and is compelled into a quixotic odyssey through the fabric of New York. At the same time, the novel was the first major literary exploration into the grief of 9/11 families, and a study of how a child’s imagination helps him navigate overwhelming fear and unfathomable loss in the wake of events that no logic could possibly reconcile.

When Stephen Daldry read the book, he was struck most of all by Oskar’s subjective point of view. An unusual child with arrestingly high intelligence yet eccentric and obsessive behaviors that might put him on the autistic spectrum, Oskar describes the world around him with his own particular mix of naiveté and insight, nervousness and boldness, incomprehension and a need to understand. Most of all, Daldry was intrigued by how this POV, just like a child’s imagination, combined random thoughts, flashes of memory, lists of ideas and impromptu fantasies with pure emotion – all at a moment when life has irrevocably changed for Oskar’s family and the world around him.

“I found it truly compelling that Jonathan Safran Foer told this story not only from the perspective of a boy enduring unimaginable heartbreak, but a boy who has his own singular view of everything,” says Daldry. “It’s a perspective that is engaging, inventive and emotionally rich.”

Oskar’s very personal experience of September 11th, and what came after, was brought to the fore in a screenplay adaptation by Eric Roth, who wanted to be true to the distinctive immediacy of Foer’s novel. “It’s a very emotional book and I hope it is a very emotional movie,” says Roth. “There’s also a real kinetic energy to the book – and the challenge was to translate that into visual imagery.”

The book wove many themes – of individual and national trauma, of childhood’s strangeness, of the nature of tragedy and the endurance of love through family hardship – into its tapestry. Each of those themes was key to the storytelling, but Roth found his way in through one particular element: the relationship between Oskar and his father, Thomas (Hanks), who is seen in the film entirely through Oskar’s subjective memories, which are in turn fueled by a confusing mixture of love, loss and lingering questions.

Oskar deeply misses his father’s so-called “reconnaissance expeditions,” clever puzzles that Thomas created for Oskar to solve, not only as inspired father-son games but also to help him engage with the world despite his social awkwardness. So when he finds the mysterious key in the bottom of a vase hidden in the dark recesses of his father’s closet, Oskar propels himself into a new mission to ferret out the key’s meaning.

His only clue to the key’s potential origins is the name “Black,” written on the envelope in which he found it, so Oskar dutifully makes an ambitious plan to visit all 472 people named Black in the New York City phone books, even though, according to the math, it will take him three years to do so.

Like many kids with gifted intelligence, high sensory sensitivity and impaired social skills, Oskar thrives on schedules, rules and facts yet his search takes him far from the predictable and the comfortable. But no matter what obstacles stand in his way, Oskar is determined to complete his task.

“Oskar is a kid who is different, but in a wonderful way,” notes Roth. “He might have a form of Asperger’s but he also has a great imagination and a real sense of curiosity along with his many fears. For a long time, he was kept afloat very much by his father who enjoyed so many similar things. So now, when Oskar finds his father’s key a year after his death, he believes it has to unlock something – a piece of advice, an object, some wisdom that his father left for him. And it leads him on an adventure that is his way of coming to terms with grief and all sorts of other things.”

As Roth began compacting Foer’s wide-ranging plot and finding the cinematic structure, he found Foer to be a supportive resource. “Jonathan is a wonderful novelist but my ability is to be a good dramatist and bring the work alive on the screen. He really trusted me in that process and we developed a very close and collaborative relationship.”

Adds Stephen Daldry: “Jonathan really understands the difference between a book and a script, and was very helpful. He never once uttered the phrase, ‘Well, in the book…’ He was always open to interpretation and reinvention.”

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Sneak Peek: TOM HANKS & SANDRA BULLOCK's “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”

From three-time Academy Award® nominated director Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot,” “The Reader,” “The Hours”) comes the poignant drama “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

The Warner Bros. film stars Academy Award® winners Tom Hanks (“Forrest Gump,” “Philadelphia”) and Sandra Bullock (“The Blind Side”) along with newcomer Thomas Horn in the role of Oskar, and was produced by Scott Rudin (“No Country for Old Men,” “The Social Network,” “True Grit”).

The screenplay is by Academy Award® winner Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump,” “The Insider”), based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s acclaimed bestseller.

“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell, an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears. Now, as Oskar crosses the five New York boroughs in quest of the missing lock – encountering an eclectic assortment of people who are each survivors in their own way – he begins to uncover unseen links to the father he misses, to the mother who seems so far away from him and to the whole noisy, dangerous, discombobulating world around him.

The film also stars Academy Award® nominees Max von Sydow (“Shutter Island,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “Pelle the Conqueror”) and Viola Davis (“Doubt,” “The Help”), John Goodman, Jeffrey Wright and Zoe Caldwell.

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

 

Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock “EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE” trailer

Warner Bros. has just launched the first online trailer of its upcoming drama, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.

Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” tells the story of one young boy’s journey from heartbreaking loss to the healing power of self-discovery, set against the backdrop of the tragic events of September 11.

Eleven-year-old Oskar Schell is an exceptional child: amateur inventor, Francophile, pacifist. And after finding a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, he embarks on an exceptional journey—an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. As Oskar roams the city, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity, who are all survivors in their own ways. Ultimately, Oskar’s journey ends where it began, but with the solace of that most human experience: love.

Academy Award® nominee Stephen Daldry (“The Reader,” “The Hours”) directs “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” from a screenplay by Academy Award® winner Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump,” “The Insider”), based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s acclaimed novel. The film stars Academy Award® winners Tom Hanks (“Forrest Gump,” “Philadelphia”) and Sandra Bullock (“The Blind Side”), and is being produced by Academy Award® winner Scott Rudin (“No Country for Old Men,” “The Social Network,” “True Grit”).

Opening across the Philippines in February 2012, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Tony Scott, 2009)

Tony Scott's remake lacks any and all suspense (as do nearly all his movies despite his penchant for thrillers), but he also finds a surprising resonance in the material. Blessed with a superbly written script, Scott tones down his usual madness and lets his actors do most of the work. Oh, he still can't help himself at times, but Scott puts his talents toward a sense of visual pacing and structure that uses the battle of wits between Garber (Denzel Washington) and Ryder (John Travolta) to slyly bring out back story and sociopolitical themes.

Travolta hams it up to no end, playing ex-con stock trader Ryder like the demon of Wall Street unleashed below the city, his outrage at serving time for his white collar crimes well-timed to the outrageous entitlement displayed by the real stock brokers who took all kinds of shortcuts to make a fast buck. Garber too is guilty, but we see the disparity between them, greed motivating one and financial desperation the other. Washington and Travolta have the awkward task of playing off each other mainly through long-distance radio communication (an analog take on the potential for meaningful friendships through Internet communication?), but they make for one of the richest hero-villain pairs in years and get across some unexpectedly keen social commentary to boot, even if Travolta oversells it. Supporting players John Turturro (as an arrogant negotiator), James Gandolfini (a scandal-ridden mayor) and Luis Guzman (a former MTA employee nervously helping Ryder) also deliver solid performances.

Scott frames his film with flattened compositions, a beautiful array of neon-lit streaks of blue, red and green, and Scott's "Big Board" fetish realized by the flashing subway map back at Rail Control (a board framed, like all of Scott's giant screens, as a means of both clarifying and abstracting action). Yet despite his usual touches of altered speeds and on-screen text, Scott's aforementioned ease off the throttle shows that his love of visual style does not blind him to seeing and focusing on the great chemistry between Washington and Travolta. In fact, as a movie about a sedentary narrative spruced up by slick, action-oriented direction, I found The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 to be not only more tasteful but more emotionally affecting than Danny Boyle's slick con job 127 Hours.


Sidenote: I don't know if Travolta decided to play Ryder as a flagrant homosexual or that's how the part was written, but if and when he ever comes out of the closet, expect this movie to be gutted for clips on late-night shows. Dressed like he just came from a gay bar, Travolta finds ways to be even more suggestive. Describing a teenage hostage to Garber, Ryder notes his outfit and tangentially throws in "he makes it work" before getting back to the threats. Talking with one of his cohorts about Garber, Ryder bypasses the fact he doesn't know what the man looks like and says, "He's got a good voice, though; he'll be my bitch in prison." Bless his heart; he seems to know he'll never be a star again and at least balances out his usual tat with unorthodox performances in this and Hairspray.