BOY WONDER
Vancouver actor Jacob Tremblay takes on another heavy film role
Jacob Tremblay is searching for the best way to describe what it’s like acting behind a face prosthetic.
In his new film Wonder, the 11-year-old Vancouver actor plays Auggie, a boy born with a severe facial deformity. He’s up against major social hurdles as he embarks on his first year of public school and the judgmental eye of others.
Tremblay portrays the role disguised by an artificial face that was shaped from his own.
“They put something like slime (on me), but it wasn’t slime. It was silicone. Not liquid, but like a smoothie,” he says.
Spending the day behind the prosthetic could get complicated on set, he explains while flashing a big smile.
“It was really cool, but sometimes it would be itchy, which was annoying because I couldn’t get my itch,” he says. “Other times it would be OK because it actually felt really warm, too. It was a nice warm cocoon around my face.”
Wonder is based on the teen novel by R.J. Palacio, which retells Auggie’s story from the perspectives of a number of people in his life, including his sister and his friends. The film mostly ditches those angles and focuses on the boy’s viewpoint.
Auggie suffers from what the book calls mandibulofacial dys-ostosis, a rare condition that’s considered a variation of Treacher Collins syndrome. His facial bones are underdeveloped and his ears deformed.
Tremblay prepared for his part by talking with patients at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.
“I made friends and I also asked them if they could send me any letters of any tips or experiences or stories they’ve had,” he says.
Stepping into a role featuring a youngster with adult-sized problems has become something of a specialty for Tremblay.
He captured hearts as an imprisoned child in the Oscar-nominated 2015 film Room, and in Burn Your Maps he played a young boy who suffers a family tragedy and comes to believe he is actually a Mongolian goat herder.
He has also went on to star alongside Naomi Watts in The Book of Henry and Natalie Portman in the upcoming drama The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, directed by French-Canadian auteur Xavier Dolan.