FROM DINOS TO DRAGONS
Howard stars in Disney remake
Bryce Dallas Howard is famous for more than being director Ron Howard’s daughter.
That was especially true after she co-starred in last year’s blockbuster Jurassic World, in which she infamously escaped danger by running in very high heels.
Her latest project is a headlining role in the remake of the Disney movie Pete’s Dragon, which dispenses with the musical numbers and bland dragon animation from the 1977 feature.
In it, Howard plays a park ranger who wears comfortable shoes in which to escape, or to chase the feral child Pete (Oakes Fegley).
As the plot would have it, Pete’s a toddler who ends up in the woods after his parents die in a car crash. Eventually, Pete is cared for by a massive yet loving dragon. When an older Pete is finally discovered, things get complicated for everybody involved.
Robert Redford co-stars as Howard’s mild-mannered and understanding father. Karl Urban is a sort of villain as the logger who finds Pete and his dragon.
Bryce Dallas, a pleasant 34-year-old, offers her thoughts on making Pete’s Dragon.
On getting involved with the redo:
“I heard it was happening and I was curious,” she says. “So I read the script and I was surprised at how different it was from the original and how moved I was by the story.”
On the film’s priority:
“When I was kid, and even now, when I watch children’s films I don’t want to see two adults talking all the time,” she says. “In this, it’s, ‘Let’s get back to the dragon.’ ”
On her priority as a performer:
“It was a balance of being of service to the primary story and being convincing all at the same time,” Bryce Dallas says.
On acting opposite Redford:
“It’s the duality of Robert Redford,” she says. “When you’re on set, you’re chilling with him and he’s the coolest guy. Then off-set, like at Sundance (Film Festival), he’s this demagogue titan.”
On her breakthrough with Pete’s Dragon:
“It was my first time playing a mother,” says the mom of two children.
On mothering the child actor who plays Pete:
“I know, and I was so annoying,” Bryce Dallas says. “But he’s a very agile boy and climbs trees way too high.”
On being comfortable in the New Zealand countryside where the movie was shot:
“I spent my entire childhood in the Connecticut outdoors, so I was fine with it,” she says.
On her potential future following in her father’s footsteps:
“Even when I’m in a scene I think of my character in the third person like a director,” she says.
On her moviemaking background as a kid:
“I grew up on my dad’s sets and I always read his scripts,” Bryce Dallas says. “So yeah, I would love to use some of that experience to direct a feature one day.”
On finding out about the Jurassic World sequel from filmmaker Colin Trevorrow:
“Colin told me that there was going to be a sequel by text,” Howard says. “In it he said, ‘Another Jurassic World, #noheels2018.’ ”