‘ Moonlight’ not something young star was pursuing
LOS ANGELES — Alex R. Hibbert eyed a group of six children whipping red and yellow balls at one another in a large, reverberant pit made with trampoline floors and walls.
He wanted in. But one player needed to get nailed by a ball and knocked out of the game first.
He stood in line, his feet fidgeting, before bailing. He ran over to a nearby trampoline, pulled up his hoodie, crouched down and launched himself first upward and then backward into a flip.
“You bend your feet, keep your hands all the way and jump as high as you want,” he said. “You get maximum air.”
Alex is the 12-yearold actor who plays Chiron (also known as “Little”) in “Moonlight,” the coming-of-age film about growing up in a drug-plagued area of Miami as a character in the process of understanding his sexuality. The film earned eight Academy Award nominations, including one for best picture. (The Academy Awards will air live ext Sunday on ABC.)
In real life, he lives in Miami, where he is a seventh-grader. But he recently traveled to Los Angeles for a weekend of award shows (he attended both the Producers Guild Awards and the Screen Actors Guild awards) and auditions.
So he would have a proper tux to wear to the SAG awards, he also had to stand still for a suit fitting — a lot to ask of an energetic kid. A few hours at the Sky Zone trampoline park in the Van Nuys neighborhood was his well-deserved playtime.
“I’m open,” he yelled, his arms spread wide. A ball came straight at his head and he ducked. Then he grabbed it and hurled it at the opposite side of the dodge ball pit, which now had him alone against three boys. He came to the tables, out of breath but happy.
“It’s a battlefield out there,” he told his mother, Donna Wellington. “But I’m coming out on top.”
He grabbed for a cherry Icee she was holding for him and took a big gulp. Wellington snagged it.
“Don’t drink all of that,” she said to her son. “You’ll get a stomachache.” He made a face, then set the drink down.
Alex has drawn a lot of attention because of his ability to make faces. “Moonlight” opens with a scene focused on Alex, but not until 10 minutes into the movie does he have a line.
Critics and moviegoers have been taken by Alex’s performance, most of it delivered without words, in which he communicates the adolescent angst of a young boy growing up in an environment where his sexuality is not understood.
“Mahershala taught me a lot of tips about facials,” he said of his co-star Mahershala Ali, whom he calls his second father.
Alex didn’t grow up as an audition-hopping kid looking for a big break. He was living a typical life when stardom found him.
He was born in New York City and lived in Queens until 2011, when his mother decided to move with him to live closer to her own mother. (Alex has one sister, Robin, 22, from his father’s side, who lives in New York with their father.)
He goes to a performing-arts magnet middle school in Miami Gardens, Florida, loves science class (even though he called school “mostly boring,” he knows it will help him succeed in his life’s ambition of curing cancer) and is expected to help out at home by doing the dishes and taking out the trash.
But in March 2016, Alex’s drama teacher, Tanisha Cidel (she played the role of the principal in the film), suggested to him that he audition for “Moonlight.” He assumed it was a school production.
“I didn’t know it was going to be that big,” he said. “I thought it was going to be like a play or something.”
His mother is trying to adapt to the new normal of having a son who suddenly is invited to award shows and auditions. As long as the hoopla doesn’t interfere with school, Wellington is accommodating.
“Nothing changed,” said his mother, who works at a nursing facility.
“When I travel back and forth, I go right back to work. And Alex goes back to school.”