Summer action sci-fi flick Super 8, one of my favorite movies of the year and a sweet homage to the films of Steven Spielberg, releases to DVD and Blu-ray today. The movie’s story takes place during the summer of 1979, when a group of middle-school friends witness a train crash and investigate subsequent “unexplained events.”
With the DVD/Blu-ray release, 15-year-old Joel Courtney, who plays the lead role, is doing another round of interviews, telling how the movie changed his life. Courtney, just 14 when Super 8 was filmed, wasn’t even looking for a movie role. He had only wanted to make a TV commercial and earn a hundred bucks, but word got around and he ended up auditioning for Super 8—and got the part.
Director JJ Abrams said the main reason he hired Courtney for his first-ever acting job was his sweet innocence—and a conversation with the young star from Moscow, Idaho, confirms that observation. He’s a Christian and incredibly polite, answering many questions with “Yes, sir” and “No, sir.”
Courtney, who says his role model is Tom Hanks, has already filmed two more movies: He’s playing Tom in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, coming out in 2013, and a teen boy in The Healer, coming out next year. We asked him about those movies, about Super 8, and how his faith affects his work as an actor.
What was the best part of being in Super 8?
I wouldn’t be able to pick a best part. The entire thing was just incredibly amazing. I was so blessed to be able to even get the audition. It was completely by blessing.
I heard you were just hoping to make a commercial and earn $100.
Yes, sir. It’s all true. I just wanted a commercial and a hundred dollars. That was my goal for the summer.
What were you going to do with the hundred bucks?
Probably just save it, maybe put it in my college account or savings.
Not buy a new video game or something?
No. Actually, before Super 8, I didn’t even have a game console. But now I do. For a kickoff for Super 8, they gave us all brand new PlayStation 3s. I wasn’t sure if my dad would even let me keep it, because he had said that if I got straight A’s, he would get us an Xbox or something. So when they gave us the PS3s, I called my dad and asked him if I could keep it. I wasn’t sure if he was going to let me. But he said yes. So it’s all good.
What was the most difficult part of being part of this project?
Missing family and friends back at home. As for the movie, the hardest part was getting to the limits of my acting abilities, since I had only just begun acting. It was like a completely new thing for me.
Talk about a scene that you found especially challenging.
The scene when I confront my father and I’m shouting at him. In my family, if I talk back to my dad, I get in trouble. My dad and I have a very good relationship, so that made it even harder for me to shout at a father figure. After a couple of takes, JJ was like, “Joel, it’s okay to shout at Kyle.” [Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler played his father.]
What Spielberg movies you had seen before coming into this project?
E.T., Close Encounters, Jurassic Park, Jaws, and a few others. And I really enjoyed them all. They were amazing for the time period, without much technology.
Do you see Joe’s role as anything like Elliott’s in E.T.?
There are similarities in the fact that there is an extraterrestrial being. Except that E.T. is a really small, really nice alien, and Super 8‘s alien is not small and not nice at all.
So many of Spielberg’s movies, and of course Super 8 too, are filled with awe and wonder and mystery, telling a story about things unseen. How does that tie in with your faith as a Christian?
I hadn’t really thought about that, but now that you mention it, I do see that in the movie—like how there are some unseen things that Joe believes but other people don’t. Nobody believed Elliott had an alien in his closet, and the people in this movie wouldn’t believe there was an alien either.
Super 8 also had some nice themes of forgiveness and reconciliation.
I was really glad that that was in there, because to me, family is very important. That made it more than just some cool CGI movie. It is a drama with a good story.
In what other ways does your faith play a role in your acting?
We’ve turned down some scripts because of it. We’ve said no to multiple scripts that just were not the direction that we want to go. For example, there was a script we recently read that by the fourth page I was nude and there was like a three-page sex scene.
My dad and I have talked about this a lot. We really enjoy characters that are redemptive, not characters that are just bad throughout the entire thing. We like it if there’s a redemptive curve at the end of the movie. That also goes along with our faith.
When scripts come in, is it a decision between you and your parents?
Usually my dad reads them, and if he says no, then it will be no. But there are some that he’s like, “Well, it depends on what you think.” Then I’ll read them, and then we decide together. So it’s not just me saying yes and no. My dad’s in this with me.
And your mom?
It’s mostly just me and my dad, because my mom’s teaching fulltime at my school. So she’s completely swamped with homework, grading, making tests, doing her job.
What school do you go to?
Logos School. My mom teaches there, and my dad used to, but he quit teaching there so that he could come with me to the sets of the movies that I’m working on.
There’s a featurette on the new DVD about you, and at one point you say that there were times during production when you felt a lot of pressure to do well. Where was that pressure coming from, and how did you deal with it?
Mainly it was from myself. It wasn’t that JJ and the other crew and the cast were putting the pressure on me. It was just having the main character, and it was my first job, and I didn’t want to mess up. I wasn’t that good at memorizing lines, so that was a constant nervousness with me, that I would forget a line and then mess up the entire scene. But whenever I was feeling completely bogged down, I would pray and just like ask the Lord that he would take it away from me, because there’s nothing to be nervous about. If I messed up, we could just do another take.
I understand that JJ let you and the other teenagers kind of rewrite some of your lines to the way you would naturally say them in your real lives.
Yes, and that helped a lot. He gave us a lot of leverage with the lines; he let us change them a lot more than most directors would, I’ve heard. His motto for the movie was, “Whatever makes it more realistic.” We all worked on our lines together. It was just a complete, um, what’s the word, conspiratorial group. I have no idea what I’m trying to say!
Just that it was a real group effort?
Yes, sir. That’s what I’m trying to get at. Yes, sir.
Do you have friends in Moscow that are like your friends in Super 8—a guy who likes to blow things up, a guy who’s bossy, and others who come from broken homes?
Not really. Maybe one who comes from a broken family, but nobody who’s bossy or who likes to blow things up. But I do have a friend who likes to light things on fire! All my friends are Christians, most of us go to the same church, and I’m very grounded here. And I plan to stay here for a very long time with the people that I know.
You’ve already filmed two more movies. You’re playing Tom Sawyer in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, coming out in 2013, and you’re in a movie next year called The Healer. We all know the Tom Sawyer story, but what’s The Healer about?
It is an original script about a divorced dad with two children, and the dad learns that he has a terminal heart disease and he’s trying to reconnect with his kids before he goes in for major surgery. They go out camping for old time’s sake, and they figure out that the forest that they go camping in is a spiritual, mystical forest, and they have to go through some trialing times.
How has becoming a sudden celebrity changed you?
I like to think I’m a very mature person. I grew up a lot in the last couple of years, traveling, seeing different parts of the world, and meeting new types of people. I’ve gotten a lot better at talking to people. I used to be really awkward and stuttering all the time; I think I’m much better now.
What about the whole idea of teenage stardom going to your head?
Not happening. My friends are making sure that I am staying myself. My teachers … I actually just got my report card today and, ha, that’s got issues of its own! I’m just staying very grounded. I have to take out the garbage every morning on Monday. It’s awful. So I’m staying myself.
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