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Hangin' With Archives
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Rhiannon Leigh Wrynand Chris O’Neil:Stars of “The Last Mimzy”by Lynn B
Rhiannon came into our interview carrying the original stuffed rabbit Mimzy from the film. It’s hers now and she’s not letting it go. We saw her later and she had bought a pretty dress for her movie bunny from the Build a Bear stores. We joked with young Chris because he came into our interview with a glass of something that looked like wine!! Nope, just grape juice. Chris: [Pretending to shake hands] Firm air shake. AGW: Both of you, what would you do if you found a box of otherworldly toys like your characters do in the movie? Would you be scared to open it or immediately want to play with it? Chris: I would rub them to get the genie out. Rhiannon: I would look through it and if I found Mimzy, I would keep her. Chris: First, I’ve got to find a lamp. AGW: You wouldn’t just leave the box alone because it might be dangerous? Chris: Oh, no, no, no. I take risks. AGW: Would you show your parents what you found and ask if it’s okay? Rhiannon: I would show my parents. Chris: I wouldn’t have time to show my parents. I would just get to work and say ‘okay, so now, genie, I wish for peace on earth. I wish to rule the world and I wish for three more wishes’. AGW: What is your favorite videogame to play at home? Chris: I’d have to say “Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2”. It’s a Lord of the Rings computer game. AGW: Do you have all the new electronics like Playstation 3? Chris: No but I do have the newest computer, the Windows Vista. Those are sooo awesome.
Rhiannon: Yeah. I have a computer and my favorite game would be “Cinderella Castle”. AGW: Is that the real Mimzy from the movie? Rhiannon: Yeah and they’re making little ones [shows the smaller one]. They gave me this real one. AGW: Do you have a favorite stuffed animal at home? Rhiannon: Mimzy is my favorite one at home now. AGW: Do you pretend she talks to you like the Mimzy does in the movie? Rhiannon: Yes. She talks to me. Chris: That was the prototype for Mimzy. AGW: How did each of you get into acting? Rhiannon: Well, my brother and sister first started acting and I said ‘Mommy, I want to be an actor too’ then she stuck me in acting. Chris: I live in Colorado and, at school, we did this thing called oral interpretation and my grandma said, ‘he’s a really good actor. You should start making this professional’ and she’s not the kind of person who jokes around about those kinds of things. So, we got me an acting coach in Denver and he asked us to go out for this World Championship, a performing arts thing. It’s just an amateur program in Burbank. And I got a manager there. Then, we came out and did a lot of classes and just said ‘we’ll try this out’. Didn’t expect to get anything. Then I got an agent and afterwards, I started doing auditions. My second audition, I got the part. The whole thing came at us out of nowhere. AGW: How did you like your first movie experience? Chris: It was cool! AGW: Was it everything you expected from watching movies and thinking about being in them? Chris: Oh no, no, no. Huh-uh, no. It’s a lot different. It’s a lot better but it’s a lot harder than it seems because, number 1, it’s not like actors don’t have to do school on the set if they’re kids and so, every time everybody else was just sitting around waiting until they fix a camera or something and chatting, I’m in school working hard. I’m in the 6th grade. AGW: Both of you, you have a lot of scenes where you have to imagine things. How hard was that? Can you talk about those scenes where it’s all done later in the computers? Rhiannon: it was kind of hard because a lot of times, I would have to sit there looking at my bed and doing nothing. AGW: We hear that in a scene where sugar moves across the table in the air, the cast members were all looking in different directions. Chris: It was so hilarious. Joely [Richardson who plays the kids’ mom] was looking over here and I was looking over there and Rhiannon was pretty much the only one looking in the right direction. AGW: Do either of you have brothers or sisters who think they are smarter than you? Chris: Yes. My brother thinks he the smartest person on earth. He’s older than me. He’s 17 but then, again, he has a brain the size of a pea [laughter]. Tyler, please don’t [read] this. Rhiannon: Actually, my brother and sister both just think that each of us is smart. AGW: We hear that the adult actors helped you with acting on the set. How did they help you? Rhiannon: Joely told me when I was up in the air [floating] to have a tug of war and Mimzy’s arm broke off because we were really tugging on her. Chris: I remember that. Rhiannon: It was like ‘whoops, we need a new Mimzy now’.
AGW: That’s a lot of pretending for you. Your director is also the head of New Line studios. Did you ask him if you can be in another movie? Chris: No but I asked him if he got anything cool from Lord of the Rings and he showed me Gandalf’s sword and I asked him if I could hold it but he said ‘nooooo’. AGW: Did he show you the Oscar from Lord of the Rings? Rhiannon: Yeah. Chris: How many Oscars did it win? AGW: The big one and a lot of the technical ones. Chris: Sweet! AGW: How did you two meet? How did they put you together? Chris: It was a mix and match [of several actors] Rhiannon: [reminding him] Remember, at the end when Bob said ‘make sure she doesn’t fall down’. We were running in the hallway. I was really tired because I’d done it about twenty times because there were a lot of boys there. There were tons more boys and I was the last girl still there…..waiting. I was there to try out with all the other boys. He was the last one for me to do it with and I was really tired. Chris: I knew, at the end of the audition, that it was between me and some other boy but I didn’t know which one. AGW: What did you do to get so comfortable that you could play brother and sister? Chris: We started bothering each other. AGW: What are you doing next? Chris: I don’t have anything lined up but, for any casting directors out there…..just please listen to these words ‘I really want to be in another movie with her [I go “awwwwwww”]. AGW: What was your reaction when you first saw the whole movie all put together? Rhiannon: I thought it was really, really cool. Chris: I just felt like I was gonna faint. AGW: Did you actually get to drive that truck when you two make an escape? Chris: Yes…. No, I didn’t but there was a ‘blind’ driver in the back. He had cameras mounted on the truck and one on my steering wheel so he could criticize me when I made a wrong move. AGW: Are either one of you like your characters? Like, do you like science, nature or tales of other planets? Chris: [eyes wide, nodding yes] I’m like my character a lot. I believe in aliens. Rhiannon: I’m really like my character a lot because she likes nature and all that stuff and I like stuffed animals. |
 
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What
is it like to act in a movie with a bunch of special effects that aren’t
there until later? How do you get a part in a major movie anyway? If you
are 12 (Chris O’Neil) or 7 (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn), it can all be
pretty exciting. We talked with the two young actors who play brother
and sister in the new fantasy/sci-fi film The Last Mimzy and
got the scoop. 
AGW:
Rhiannon, do you play with computers? 
Chris:
With me, a lot of times when I was doing the scene with the generator,
Bob [the director] is always telling us [in excited, director voice] ‘okay,
now the crystal’s been sucked into the generator. Now, it’s
starting to do stuff. It’s starting to shake, starting to go crazy.
It’s turning all these different colors. Now, you’re backing
away. You’re really scared and then..boom! The whole state blacks
out.’ Then he says, ‘okay, go to the window. Now you’re
looking out and you are scared to death’.