By ANTHONY BREZNICAN LOS ANGELES (AP) - "Peter Pan" is about a boy who never grows up, but usually he's played by women who are old enough to be his mother.
In previous live-action films based on the J.M. Barrie story, the mystical flying troublemaker was played by Mary Martin, Cathy Rigby and even Mia Farrow. But in the latest version, he finally is being played by an actual 12-year-old - Jeremy Sumpter. "The director, P.J. Hogan, told me that, 'Jeremy, you are Peter Pan. Just go in there and be yourself.' So I just went in there being Jeremy," he said. So how does Jeremy describe himself? "Energetic, funny and going all over the place," he said. "And hyper." The new film, which its makers describe as the most faithful to Barrie's original 1904 play and later novel, emphasizes the puppy-dog romance between Peter and Wendy, the daydreaming young girl who ventures with Peter to the mythical world of Never Land. Amid the mermaids, Indians and swordfighting, Wendy and her two brothers - bookish John and baby Michael, encounter the grumpy, embittered Captain Hook, who represents the worst in grown-ups. Like almost any kid, Jeremy, now 14, talks a little fast, fidgets like he has ants in the pants and sees life as full of exclamation points. His family brought him to Los Angeles when he was 9 for some open casting calls. His first role was in director-star Bill Paxton's 2001 horror thriller "Frailty," as the youngest son of a man who thinks the world is filled with demons. Jeremy said his favorite part of making "Peter Pan" was hanging on wires for the flying scenes. "Sometimes they shoot you straight up four stories high, then they would drop me and I shoot out like this - Whoooosh! - and I'd fly around the whole stage," he said, rising from his chair. "I did all my own stunts except for one," he added, raising his index finger. Which one? "That, I'm not going to say. I even did one that could have killed me if I didn't do it right ... well, not kill me, but it could have broken my ribs." In Barrie's time, a woman played the part of Peter Pan because child-labor laws prohibited youths from working onstage beyond a certain hour of the evening. To maintain the character's childlike voice and physique, petite and tomboyish women were hired for the role instead. The tradition stuck - even in the 1924 silent movie with Betty Bronson - in part because it's a demanding role, one that carries the entire play or movie and often requires stunt work for the wire-flying scenes. Disney hired 15-year-old Bobby Driscoll to voice the prankster for the 1953 cartoon classic "Peter Pan," but that screen character was, of course, ultimately rendered in ink-and-paint. The middle-aged Robin Williams played Peter Pan in "Hook," but that modern-day interpretation had little to do with the original Barrie story. One longtime "Peter Pan" tradition is to have one actor play two important roles: Captain Hook, the villainous pirate, and Mr. Darling, the stuffy father of Wendy, Michael and John. Jason Isaacs, who plays both roles in the new "Peter Pan," said there's more to the tradition than using one performer to play two characters who are never on-screen together. "It's much more symbolic than that," the actor said. "Wendy goes to a place where she's working out what she wants to do about growing up. ... When little kids imagine growing up and having a family, they look at their dad. "It's a little creepy, but it's meant to be creepy," Isaacs added. "There is someone who represents all the worst things and best things about growing up. Hook is this kind of animal character who she's strangely attracted to, but also repelled by - and he looks a lot like her dad!" Isaacs is used to playing mean fathers. He also played the sinister father of bully Draco Malfoy in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." "Peter Pan" director Hogan said Peter Pan represents Wendy's fear of adulthood, and the dual casting is a way to highlight how important her real father is. "Mr. Darling is everything that Captain Hook isn't. Hook is a man who follows every impulse he's ever had, usually the basest one. He's a pirate. If he wants it, he takes it. He's a wicked man, but he has LIVED," Hogan said. "And Mr. Darling is a totally constricted man, one who has made a lot of sacrifices, and his children can't see that that makes him brave. Hook comes across as brave, but is in fact, not." Then there's Tinker Bell. Almost everyone knows the graceful Marilyn Monroe lookalike fairy from Disney's "Peter Pan" cartoon. But Tinker Bell in the new movie is a little like the cartoon version's grumpier, messier twin. "She's wild, she's dirty - she's quite rough," said French actress Ludivine Sagnier, who plays the pixie like a female version of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp. "I didn't want her to be too glamorous and too much of an adult. We don't want her to be too sweet. We wanted Tinker Bell to be very clownish and cheeky." In the original play, Tinker Bell was performed by a tiny light dangled on a wire and the offstage ringing of a small bell. Over the years, she has been played by the petite 5-foot actress Virginia Brown Faire in the 1924 silent film, and Julia Roberts in 1991's "Hook." "For me, the big downside of 'Hook' was that Tinker Bell spoke," said Hogan. Sagnier uttered some French phrases as the fairy, but those were replaced with tiny rings, squeaks, pops and splutters. "She's a fairy," Hogan said. "She should have her own language." In each version, Tink is very jealous of Wendy and tries to sabotage her friendship with Peter. This time, Sagnier said she wanted to emphasize Tink's "naughty side." "Wendy is everything she cannot be," the actress said. "Wendy is a storyteller and Tinker Bell cannot talk. Wendy is strong, she provokes the desire of Peter and that's something Tinker Bell can never have." But the pixie isn't all evil, Sagnier said. "It's just that she only has room for one emotion at a time." _______________________________________________ Sndbox mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://a8.mewebdns-a8.com/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
