Thursday, May 28, 1998
A-Mae-zing young actress takes Hollywood head-on
FILM: With both movie, TV experience, child star Whitman shows
promise
By Stephanie Sheh
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
She has worked with the likes of George Clooney, Andy Garcia,
Christine Lahti, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bill Pullman and Meg Ryan. And
she’s only 9 years old.
Now "Hope Floats," which opens Friday, has Mae Whitman working
with Sandra Bullock and Forest Whitaker. Holding a toy rabbit
purse, which was a souvenir from the film, the pint-sized actress
strolls into the ballroom of the Pasadena Ritz-Carlton Hotel to
talk about her "Hope Floats" and growing up an actress.
"My friends at school, they’re used to it. And they don’t really
care," Whitman says matter of factly, which is the way she seems to
answer all questions. "They’re so used to it that they just kind of
forget about it. They just come to me and they say, ‘So, um,
where’d you go?’ And I say, ‘To make a movie.’ And they say, ‘Oh.
OK.’ And they just walk away."
Seemingly unmarred by the darker sides of the business, Whitman
embodies a mixture of surprising maturity and charming innocence as
she goes from nonchalantly talking about her career to laughing
delightfully at her co-stars. This, coming from a girl whose
favorite film is "To Kill a Mockingbird," favorite television show
is "Friends" and favorite toys are "gooey stuff." But despite the
delicate balance, being a young actress hasn’t been without its
difficulties.
"Some girls in my school, they’re kind of jealous, but I try to
ignore it the best I can," Whitman says with a shrug. "It’s either
being annoyed by these really kind of mean girls or acting, doing
what I really want to do best. So I chose acting."
Whitman, whose father builds sets and mother does voice-over
work, made her entrance into acting when she begged her mother to
take her to one of her auditions.
"I wanted to go really badly and so I went. I got a big bag of
stuff, and I wanted to get all set up," Whitman recalls. "Before my
mom could help me get set up, they took her in and she started to
shoot this interview. I ran in crying. I was screaming because I
didn’t get to set up my toys.
"My mom was just calming me down and we heard, ‘Cut! OK, stop.
You can stop now,’" Whitman continues. "And she went, ‘What?’ And
they went, ‘We were taping that. We need the part of mom.’ And then
it turns out later that I got the part and she didn’t."
From there Whitman landed more daughter roles in "When a Man
Loves a Woman," "Independence Day," "One Fine Day," "The
Gingerbread Man" and a recurring role on "Chicago Hope."
With the help of her agent and parents, Whitman makes the final
call on what jobs she takes.
"If somebody says, ‘Oh, this is about a little girl that gets
shot.’ (My agent) goes, ‘No,’" Whitman explains.
"But if it’s about something else he’ll come to us and send us
the script. And my mom will say, ‘OK, do you like this? Do you want
to do this?’ And I say, ‘Well, yeah,’ to certain ones. And they say
to me, ‘All right, here’s what you’ll miss. You’ll miss your first
week of school, meeting all the new kids and meeting all the new
teachers and getting all the new work. But the good thing is that
you get to go to Paris,’ or something like that. And I go, ‘Yeah, I
want to do that one.’"
While working on location during the school year, Whitman faxes
in her homework. She also meets with a tutor three hours a day.
(Whitman is quick to point out that regular school is six hours a
day.) But she recognizes the trade-offs she is making and tries to
put things in perspective.
"I miss some certain things but, you know, I always know that if
it’s like a birthday party there will always be another one,"
Whitman says. "And if it’s a party that I miss, I look forward to
what I’ll be doing when I’m away. And make that just as good."
Just beginning to read, Whitman was 4 when she appeared in "When
a Man Loves a Woman" and started travelling to movie sets.
"I didn’t have a lot of lines in (the earlier films) so my
parents ran through them, and I learned other people’s lines so I’d
know when to say mine too," Whitman says. "I could read some of the
words like ‘the’ and ‘when’ and ‘why.’ So I’d look at the word and
say, ‘The … is … why.’"
Part by part, Whitman’s lines got longer and roles got better.
Last year, she acted alongside Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney
in the romantic comedy "One Fine Day." Whitman’s eyes automatically
light up, and her lips begin to curl at the mention of her old
prankster co-star.
"He’d have some extras or stand 50 feet away," Whitman recalls
excitedly. "And then he’d get this fake kitten that they had and
George just teased this thing. He would take it and he’d go, ‘Hey
Mae, let’s play catch.’ Then he’d have me stand a couple feet away
and then he’d throw it to me and he’d throw it to me and he’d throw
it short. And it would land on the ground and these people were
just like, ‘How can he do that?’ Because they thought it was real.
And then I threw it too far over his head and it just sailed.
Somebody actually called the humane society once."
Clooney played plenty of other jokes on crew members. One
recurring bit the "ER" star did was jostling Whitman about working
on the other medical drama.
Whitman giggles, "He would just kind of every once in awhile
look at me evilly and go, ‘Chicago Hope!’"
Whitman is equally enthusiastic about her latest co-stars in
"Hope Floats." While there weren’t really any practical jokes,
Whitman says that her co-stars’ "funninesses" just made her
laugh.
"(Harry Connick Jr.) would walk down and he’s talking to, like,
the camera for "E!" or something. ‘You know I know it sounds like
I’m tooting my own horn, but I’ve got so many horns to toot,’"
Whitman laughs. "Harry’s sooo funny. He’s sooo cool."
And Sandra Bullock doesn’t lose any points on Whitman’s coolness
scale either. The rapport the two share definitely comes across on
the big screen. In fact, if she had to choose real parents from all
her on-screen parents, Whitman would chose Clooney and Bullock.
"The first time I met her I was kind of shy," Whitman admits.
"But after I got to know her for awhile, after one hour we were
hitting each other with pillows. So that was better."
Bullock also fondly remembers her first meeting with
Whitman.
"We got into so much trouble," Bullock says. "When I auditioned
her I said, ‘This child needs to feel like my kid.’ And she climbed
all over me. I was like, ‘I get her. I get her.’ And I just love
her so much."
"Hope Floats" producer Lynda Obst, who also worked with Whitman
on "One Fine Day," is not only taken with Whitman’s charm, but her
keen acting instincts as well.
"Mae is remarkable. This is my second movie with Mae. Both times
with Mae, she’s kind of amazing," Obst says. "Because she’s (as
much) the technical actress as she is the intellectual actress or
the emotional actress, the instinctive actress. She can literally
match, 42 takes in a row, where her elbow is placed and give you a
different reading at the same time. She’s astonishing."
Whitman doesn’t have anything negative to say either. When
pressed by journalists to reveal some dirt on any celebrities, she
insists that everyone she’s worked with is "nice, very nice" – an
answer that shows simplistic candor yet hints at the early makings
of a movie star.
FILM: "Hope Floats" opens Friday. Director Forest Whitaker will
be in Ackerman Grand Ballroom today at noon for a Q&A
session.
20th Century Fox
Mae Whitman and Sandra Bullock star in "Hope Floats."
Touchstone Pictures
Mae Whitman also starred in "When A Man Loves a Woman" with Andy
Gracia and Meg Ryan.