Emile Hirsch
Spotlight By: Benjamin Lee
There's no actor in Hollywood that currently plays the 'troubled teen' role with more depth and skill than Emile Hirsch.
In a short amount of time, Hirsch has covered all of the bases when it comes to portraying the disillusioned American youth. After some brief TV appearances in ER, NYPD Blue and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Emile Hirsch caught Hollywood's attention with his role in the independent drama The Dangerous Life of Altar Boys alongside fellow teen star Kieran Culkin. He followed this up with a lead role co-starring opposite Kevin Kline in another school-set drama The Emperor's Club.
An acclaimed performance in the little-seen indie The Mudge Boy was rewarded by the lead in a mainstream teen movie, The Girl Next Door. Hirsch was reticent about starring in a 'teen movie' but the result was surprisingly smart and sweet and brought him to the attention of the masses. Work in the underrated drama Imaginary Heroes soon followed and a performance in the unsuccessful Lords of Dogtown came soon after.
Hirsch'a new film sees him taking on a different kind of troubled teen. Due to his youthful looks and small stature, Hirsch is used to playing the pushover but in Alpha Dog that image looks set to change. He plays Johnny Truelove, the movie equivalent of the real-life criminal Jesse James Hollywood. Truelove is a renowned drug dealer in the LA area who soon gets himself involved in darker criminal acts. Hirsch admits that the role is miles away from what he is used to and led to a bout of nerves when the shoot began.
'I was the youngest of all the tough guys' he confesses, 'It was perfect because Nick (Cassavetes) cuts a pretty intimidating figure at 6' 4' then you have JT, Shawn, Ben and these are tough serious actors so I was terrified, really really scared but I had to act like I wasn't. I was really sweating because I was so nervous!' He may have been the youngest but in the film, and in real-life he's the one who holds the most power. But then playing the role of someone with such an outlandish name, it was never gonna be simple. 'I wouldn't see a guy named Jesse James Hollywood winning the math academic decathlon' Hirsch jokes.
Hirsch admits that his knowledge of the real-life figure was minimal before he got the script. 'I had gleamed little pieces from the media but I wasn't really aware of it' he tells. While shooting the film, Hollywood was still on the run, becoming one of the youngest people ever to appear on the FBI's most-wanted list. It was therefore impossible for Hirsch to meet up with him, something his co-stars did with their real-life counterparts. 'Jesse James Hollywood was gone' he says, 'I saw a tiny little video that he was in but it was so short. I kinda just decided to make my own portrayal with what was in the script and maybe add bits and pieces of people that I have known.'
In preparing for the film, Hirsch along with his co-stars had to rigorously train. It was a strenuous schedule of weight-lifting, running and boxing. Hirsch remembers the effect is had upon them all. 'I remember walking up to Ben Foster in his car' he recalls, 'He was sitting there, shell-shocked, both hands on the wheel and he was staring straight ahead. He was like dude, I can't take this anymore!'
It's a film which requires a lot from Hirsch and takes him into a world he has never explored before onscreen. But in a movie filled with tough scenes, there was one which stuck in his memory more than the others. 'I think the scene that Justin and I did in the bedroom where we have a shady conversation' he states, 'It was difficult on a number of different levels. It was one of the first big dialogue scenes we shot so I was nervous. It was tricky because it was such a strange mindset to get into. It was really hard for me to wrap my head around that scene.' Despite the relative inexperience of his co-star Justin Timberlake, Hirsch delivers nothing but praise for him. 'He's got the goods', he smiles.
Wisely steering clear of many of the bigger budget films he is surely offered, the next two films on Emile Hirsch's horizon are also independent features. He's going to go from starring alongside Kevin Bacon and Julie Delpy in The Air I Breathe to taking the lead alongside Vince Vaughn in Into the Wild, directed by Sean Penn. At almost 23, it looks as though Hirsch is making the transition from teen to adult roles with ease. From the boy next door to the boy next door's drug dealer, 23-year-old Emile Hirsch need not be so nervous, he's destined to be around for a lot longer than he thinks.
