Star has leading role in kids’ lives
AT age 26, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is setting the bar pretty high for feminist fatherhood. The British actor, whose thriller “The Wall” opens Friday, is the dedicated father of two daughters, 5 and 6, with 50-year-old director wife Sam, and stepdad to her two daughters, 20 and 11, from a previous marriage. They met when she directed him in 2009’s “Nowhere Boy.”
Taylor-Johnson says he wouldn’t be averse to ditching his career to be a stay-at-home dad. “I much prefer being a parent to working,” he told The Post. “Doesn’t everybody? The best time I have is with my kids, experiencing their growth and their life with them. I think it’s important to have time to enjoy that.”
Taylor-Johnson has attracted atten- tion throughout his nearly-five-year marriage, due to the 23-year age gap. Also, he changed his name after saying “I do” (he was previously Aaron Johnson, while she was Sam Taylor-Wood). Although he may be a hot property, he has no interest in taking every role that comes his way.
“I do only one job a year,” he says, “and the rest of the time I don’t do anything. I know it’s a luxury to be able to do that.”
Still, he says the work he does do is “intense” — and “The Wall,” directed by Doug Liman, is no exception. TaylorJohnson plays an American soldier in 2007 Iraq, stranded by a sniper. It’s largely a one-man show, with his character talking to the sniper via walkie-talkie as he bleeds out behind a crumbling wall. (John Cena also appears, but minimally.)
“It’s not the Hollywood ending that you’re expecting, which is very Doug,” Taylor-Johnson says. “It’s about the nature of not giving up, about being pushed to your limit and constantly getting up again, knowing that you tried every angle.”
And when filming wrapped, he headed back home to his family. “I could go from job to job,” he says. “The oopportunities are there. But I just have nno interest in being busy like that and mmissing life at home.”