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Much ado about nothing
Claire Allfree, Metro
When I ask Anna Paquin, Hayden Christensen and Jake Gyllenhaal
how it feels to be described as Hollywood's most wanted, they
stare back blankly.
'Er, I don't know what you mean,' mumbles Christensen. 'I think
that whole thing is really weird,' says Paquin flatly. Gyllenhaal
just stares, convinced I don't mean him anyway. Point taken.
The Brits are obsessed with celebrity to the point of idiocy.
The Americans - the younger, savvier ones, at any rate - don't
get what the fuss is about, particularly if the fuss happens
to be about them.
Paquin, Christensen and Gyllenhaal are starring in a revival of
Kenneth Lonergan's 1996 classic slacker generation portrait
This Is Our Youth. By any account, it's an impressive meeting
of careers. Paquin, 19, won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar
for her role in The Piano at the age of 11. Christensen, 21,
stars as Anakin Skywalker in the next Star Wars instalment,
Attack Of The Clones. Gyllenhaal, 19, most recently starred
in October Sky. All three are ludicrously young, good-looking
and talented. But in the scruffy green room at the Garrick
Theatre they are also three slightly awkward, nervy youngsters
taking a break.
Well, almost. I have been warned not to ask questions about
Star Wars, which is a shame, since it would be handy to know
if the next episode is going to be better than The Phantom
Menace, nor Paquin's last film X-Men, which is fine, since
I haven't seen it. Nor anything personal. Right. So, that
leaves the play then. Happily, Gyllenhaal and Paquin at
least have plenty to say about that.
Lonergan isn't particularly well-known in this country,
although this premiere precedes the UK premiere of another
of his plays, The Lobby Hero, at the Donmar in April.
Athreehander set in Manhattan in 1982, This Is Our Youth
is a deceptively simple black comedy about three intelligent
kids stranded at the cusp of adulthood without direction or
moral responsibility, thanks to affluent parents who have
brought them up with money rather than love. It was written
before two of the cast were born, but all three believe the
times and people it depicts aren't so different from the
ones they know.
'We've a Republican president, we're on the edge of recession,
the divide between rich and poor is still stratospheric,'
says Gyllenhaal. 'We might not be those kids but we know
people like them. We might not choose to express the depth
of our insecurities with drug deals but everyone remembers
what it feels like to have sex for the first time.'
Do they feel they have been lucky? That, if it weren't for
some odd grace of God, they, with their looks, intelligence
and opportunities, could have found themselves drifting as
help-lessly as the similarly blessed characters they portray,
stoned out of their minds on fear, as Christensen's character
memorably puts it? 'No,' says Christensen, who is either very
shy or not enjoying this one bit. 'I've no idea what drives
people to take heroin. I can't relate to that at all.'
'But you do sense the potential in yourself, in plays like
this about people your age,' argues Paquin, who plays Jessica,
a girl pathologically terrified of what people think of her.
'You prepare your character, you work out the factors in her
life that makes her who she is, then you bring to her bits
from your own life, and you realise, wow, those lives are
pretty close.'
Both Gyllenhaal and Paquin come across as centred, calm
and utterly focused on what they are doing. Paquin is an
old hand. 'You can't get affected by attention or you
become someone different to who you were, and then you
have nothing to bring to your job,' she states simply.
Gyllenhaal worries that he is too young and doesn't know
enough to make the right emotional connections within his
characters, but says he knows more than he did. Christensen
says little, but does think that doing the play has forced
him to think about why he is passionate about what he does.
Thanks for coming all this way to meet us, they say at the
end. Nope, they really don't get the fuss thing at all.
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This is London, March 12, 2002
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