Danny Boyle’s youngest actors made headlines this year depicting their Mumbai home in “Slumdog Millionaire.” Back in the U.S., actor-turned-director Mark Webber pulled a similar card during casting for his new Philadelphia-set film “Explicit Ills,” which recently premiered in New York City.
“While I was really grateful to have experienced actors like Paul [Dano] and Rosario [Dawson] and Naomi Harris, I really spent a lot of time working with the children in the film to directing them and working the scenes, giving them pointers on acting in general,” Webber told MTV News. “It’s really intense.”
Originally from Philadelphia, the “Broken Flowers” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” star wanted to make a film about the neighborhood he grew up in, an area of North Philadelphia called “The Badlands,” that focused on that world. Using children from the area who weren’t trained actors was a huge part of that plan.
“We did a huge open call in Philadelphia, where we shot – about 900 kids,” Webber explained. “They hadn’t really acted before, which was a really cool thing for me.”
Webber also used community members for food drives and a real-life protest in the film that was used to raise awareness about the issues surrounding poverty and health care that he tackled in “Explicit Ills.”
“I wanted to show kids who are articulate and conscious and smart,” he said. But with a premiere finally scheduled, at the Angelika Film Center on Friday with the film’s stars reuniting to see the movie’s launch, he’s most exciting about bringing his child stars down the red carpet for their first premier.
“It’s really for these kids who worked so hard, and I’m excited for them,” he confessed. “Movie premieres for them are a really big deal.”
Would you like to see more films using community members from the places they take place? What do you think of Webber’s decision to you untrained child actors? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!
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