Josh Hutcherson (Zathura) read Katherine Paterson’s book Bridge to Terabithia when he heard it was being made into a movie and immediately fell in love with the story. Hutcherson, who plays Jess in the film, says it was extremely easy to envision how the movie would look while reading the book and he was anxious to play a character who is able to imagine a fantastical world really exists just outside his backyard.
The Appeal of Playing Jess: “It’s great…because he’s such a real kid. He has all of these real kid problems. He’s bullied at school; he has a crush on his teacher. His home life with his family isn’t great, unfortunately. I mean, mine is. I’ve always grown up with a great relationship with my parents, and my parents are like a friend to me as well. Just that is very good for me to play a character who is different from what I am. It’s fun for me to get to portray different characters.”
Hutcherson added, “There were a lot of great scenes and that’s one of the reasons I loved playing Jess because he had so many great scenes. It’s such a rich role for an actor to get to play. I got to show such a wide range of emotions. I actually worked with Gabor [Csupo], the director, about two weeks before, working on the character arc going from shy and timid and kind of hurt into this new kid that he kind of is, where he’s open about the world and he’s letting his imagination run wild.”
Relating to Being Picked Up: Jess is pushed around and made fun of by bullies at school, and Hutcherson could relate to that aspect of his character. “I could. When I first started acting, I got a lot of crap from kids at school for it. They were being really mean. I didn’t understand because I just loved doing it, and I didn’t know what was wrong with it. It was hurtful to me, but I figured out after going through all of that, that you kind of have to let it go and just let them do that. Eventually, if you don’t let bother you, they’ll stop because that’s what they like. They like seeing you kind of getting all upset about it.”
It’s Possible to Be Just Friends with Members of the Opposite Sex: “That’s another great message in this movie, among being friends and accepting people for who they are, is that guys and girls can still be friends,” said Hutcherson. “I know, it’s unbelievable everybody but, really, it’s true. It happens. I’ve grown up with having really good friends that are girls, not girlfriends - had those - but friends that are girls are great. I grew up across the street from two girls and they were both my age. We were really good friends and we played guys stuff. Not girl stuff. But, we’d play kickball in the streets. We’d play football and everything like that. It was a good time. I think people need to realize that they’re humans, too, and it’s not a different species. You can still be friends with them.”
Crushing on Zooey Deschanel: In the movie Jess has a crush on his music teacher (played by Deschanel). Hutcherson admits that wasn’t hard for him to fake. “Zooey was great. She’s a real fun person to hang out with, along with the fact that she’s a great actress and just getting to work with her. [She] just fits the role of Ms. Edmonds pretty much perfectly.”
Imagination is Key: “For me, imagination is such an important part in everybody’s life and that’s what I do every single day in my life as an actor. I’m always acting and imagining that everything is going on. Imagination, I think, is kind of lost a lot in kids because they play so many video games. My little brother plays a lot of video games, but he’s getting better about going outside. I was always raised outside playing and imagining and making up games, pretending that there is an army crawling on the ground or playing with squirt guns outside, playing kickball and everything. I don’t know, I just think kids need to do that more often.”
On Filming the Fantasy Sequences in Bridge to Terabithia: “It was difficult because we had to pretend that these characters were jumping out after us. We had to dodge and dive and hit things that weren’t even there. Sometimes we were lucky to even get a tennis ball to react to. But with the help of Gabor [Csupo] the director and the producers and everyone, they kind of helped us paint a picture of what it was going to be like afterwards in our head.”
The Scoop on His Upcoming Films: “Well, February 4th I have Firehouse Dog coming out. That actually I shot before I filmed Terabithia. After Terabithia I was home for about two weeks and then I went straight to Montreal and I filmed Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D [editor’s note: the official title is Journey 3-D] with Brendan Fraser and that’s due to release 8-8-08.”
Hutcherson wasn’t familiar with the 1959 film starring Pat Boone, James Mason, and Arlene Dahl. “I never saw the original,” said Hutcherson. “I loved the script when I read it. I found out it was 3-D and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be a good movie for me to do right now, doing a 3-D movie.’ But then I talked to the director about the technology and I found out it’s not a typical 3-D kind of kiddie movie. It’s a serious hard-hitting action-filled adventure with 3-D.
This is new technology that James Cameron helped design. That was actually the doubled lens camera. It has two camera bodies on one camera and actually there’s a one-way mirror. One camera shot down is shot out and the other one is shot through the one-way mirror. It’s amazing because it weighs less than a normal camera does. It’s confusing. They use fiber optic cables from the camera bodies back to the recording place where they recorded it onto these visual decks. It was already ready in 3-D. They didn’t have to do any kind of technical thing. You can go to into this booth, it was right next door and it was a projector, just a digital projector, and you could watch it in 3-D and put the glasses on. It was just stunning.”
