As weird as it is to compare child actors to adults when it comes to awards, when you see a kid turn on a switch and start genuinely emoting as their character, it’s kind of incredible, even though it’s maybe a tad disturbing. I thought this while watching the audition video that has been making the rounds online of Henry Thomas at around age 9 reading for the part of Elliott in E.T.
The audition is probably glossing over my memory of Thomas actually playing Elliott in the movie, but this is some terrifyingly controlled emotional outpouring by the young actor, who talks to Steven Spielberg and his stand-in as though he is actually having his best friend taken away from him. You know what, let’s just forget the movie and appreciate how damn good this audition was. It’s like straight out of Mulholland Drive. “This is the kid.”
Of course, we can’t forget the movie, and particularly the way Spielberg is able to put us back in the mind of a child, recapturing that innocence and making us see things like it’s the first time again. But it all starts with a child protagonist that can portray that emotional vulnerability and fear of separation, and that’s exactly what Thomas did.
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