Boyd's short but impressive resume already includes a stint working for Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood. Cayden played Tim Robbins' young son in the critically acclaimed drama, "Mystic River." Boyd says Eastwood had the biggest influence on his acting career and he even managed to get Eastwood to say a classic line from the “Dirty Harry” franchise between takes on the "Mystic River" set.
In filmmaker Robert Rodriguez’ return to family-friendly fare, Cayden Boyd stars as a kid with an overactive imagination and a penchant for making up superheroes. Boyd describes his character as a boy who gets involved in really big adventures. “What happens is he dreams up Shark Boy and Lava Girl. He’s always drawing in the middle of class and always thinking of superheroes. He thinks of Shark Boy and Lava Girl and they come to life while he’s at school. They burst into his school and they have to take him to Planet Drool because he’s kind of messed everything up there,” explains Boyd.
Similar to the last film of Rodriguez’ “Spy Kids” franchise, “Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl” will be released in 3-D, necessitating the donning of those oh-so-fashionable glasses. As far as life on the set went, Boyd said there really wasn’t much difference in working on a 3-D film than any other movie. It just required a good deal of imagination as Boyd and the rest of the cast had to do extensive work in front of green screens.
“The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl” marked Boyd’s first time working with green screens and the experience wound up being pretty easy, thanks to the advice and skill of Robert Rodriguez who has become something of a green screen master after the “Spy Kids” movies and “Sin City.” “The things behind you are just green screens mostly. It’s just a big green screen. So you have to imagine being on a planet of dreams basically. Sometimes when you’re in the Land of Milk and Cookies you just imagine this big mountain of cookies and a river of milk,” recalled Boyd.
Rodriguez left quite an impression on Cayden Boyd because of his directorial skills and his ability to have fun on the set. “He was always giving us the basic idea of what was going on in the scene. He’s just a really great director,” said Boyd, adding that his “Shark Boy” director was pretty much addicted to playing ‘Halo’ between takes. And working with Rodriguez also turned out to be quite a family affair. Not only did his son Racer come up with the idea for the film, Racer and Rodriguez’ other two kids had minor roles in “The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl.” Boyd said, “Usually Robert’s wife would usually come and bring them on the set. And one time Racer had to be in the film - all three of his sons had to be in the film. They just thought it would be easy to use them because they kind of look Shark Boy when he was young. …Rocket played one of the classmates in my class. He was one of the bullies.”
Boyd spent a lot of time in a harness during the three and a half month shoot, as did Taylor Lautner (‘Shark Boy’). After a short training period where the young actors learned to maneuver around in their harnesses, Boyd and Lautner were able to do, as Boyd says, “a lot of cool stunts.” “It was really fun because sometimes you would get in the harnesses and you were able to do all these kinds of stunts. You were able to run backwards and do a flip or something.”
So what was Boyd’s favorite memory of his time spent on the “Shark Boy and Lava Girl” set? He told me, “Probably when I’m climbing up this big ice pillar and I’m having to reach for this crystal heart. When Shark Boy slides down and it’s all this action that we’re doing. We’re all in the harnesses and it’s really fun.”
Next up for Cayden Boyd is a role in “The West Texas Children’s Story” to be directed by Brad Isaacs. “It’s about a boy who doesn’t have a family. His family doesn’t really pay attention. He kind of has a messed up family…and this one girl comes along and they run away together and eventually they get married.” After that he hopes to make a sequel to “The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl.” Rodriguez hasn’t talked to him about it yet, but Boyd hopes there are further adventures in store for his character and his made up friends.
