Child star turned writer?
Vancouver’s Jacob Tremblay hopes Hollywood takes bite out of zombie script
Actor Jacob Tremblay is only 10 but he hopes that Hollywood executives will still be eager to read his zombie screenplay.
The Vancouver-born child actor, who will celebrate his 11th birthday next week, said Friday he’s been working on a script that incorporates the flesh-eating living dead.
“It’d be cool if I gave my script to Amblin and they put it in a movie,” he said, referencing the production company founded by Steven Spielberg.
Tremblay, who rose to fame in the Oscar-nominated Room, believes he would become one of the youngest screenwriters in Hollywood if his film is made.
The actor spoke about his aspirations while in Toronto to promote Wonder, a drama where he plays a boy born with a facial deformity. It hits theatres in November.
But like any seasoned Hollywood pro, Tremblay wasn’t eager to share many details of his zombie script, which is set in the 1980s.
Writing scripts is a rare aspiration, even for a precocious star like Tremblay, who hasn’t reached high school yet.
Nikki Reed is considered one of Hollywood’s youngest writers to get her feature script made.
She co-wrote the 2003 drama Thirteen when she was around 14 years old.
Montreal-born director Xavier Dolan entered the spotlight when his biographical film I Killed My Mother won the Director’s Fortnight program at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. He wrote the story when he was 17.
Tremblay recently had a chance to work with Dolan on his upcoming English-language feature The Death and Life of John F. Donovan though the director didn’t offer him much advice on his career.
“He was usually just the director,” he said.
Writing screenplays isn’t entirely new territory for Tremblay. He counted six stories that he’s already finished and said even more are percolating in his mind.
He’s completed a script involving characters from the Star Wars franchise, though he considers his zombie pitch a more serious idea.
“This is the one I’m actually thinking of being a movie,” he said. The Canadian Press