Portrait of the Young Man as an Actor

"You sound so wise you could practically counsel wild-child young actors back to the straight and narrow," I comment.

"If that's what I wound up doing, better to leave the business entirely," he fires back, laughing a less charmingly Stepford laugh.

"How is it that you sound so grounded?"

"I started in this business when I was eight," he says, shrugging. "I've spent a lot of time with adults. Basically, if you want to do well in this business, you have to be able to function intelligently in an adult world. You have to learn to relate to the adults on the set or you're isolated. When I'm with my friends, I can have conversations about meaningless things. [But] I've always been a bit older than my friends. I think a lot. I don't do things without thinking first. I'm a very rational human being. A lot of young actors put acting before education. We've not done that. We've tried to balance both, which is tough because acting in the series and doing movies is a full-time job for me. Throw in a social life with family and friends, and it's a full plate."

The "we" to whom Thomas refers includes his mother, who, since she divorced their father, has raised on her own both him and his now 19-year-old brother. One hears far nicer things about Thomas's mother than one's heard once about other star parents. How does Thomas think he and his mom will avoid the classic, virtually inevitable kid star/parent showdown? "My mom is my mom first and my manager second," he asserts, sounding only a mite defensive. "Her first priority has always been and always will be raising me to be the best person I can be, not raising an actor. I feel very comfortable going and talking with her about contracts, but I can also say, 'Mom, I really like this girl at school. What do I do?' She's a mom and a very bright business partner and, number one, a great friend. She's a lot of why I'm sane. Whatever my future is, my mom will be in it."

"Play counselor for just a second, and tell me how might you advise Macaulay Culkin, who I've heard is trying to return to movies now that his father isn't ruining his career anymore."

Thomas, who was touted as a possible box-office successor to Culkin after breathing life into Chevy Chase's flaccid 1995 comedy Man of the House, shakes his head sympathetically. "I just wish people would leave him alone. He's a kid, let him be. Part of the downfall of this business is that people watch and watch you. They go after you and they get you and it's gotta be hurtful. They desperately want you to slip up. They wanted [him] to slip up. He's not going through any phase any other teenager doesn't go through."

Except Jonathan Taylor Thomas, anyone would note here.

"I've never met him," Thomas continues. "I don't know much about him. But I empathize with him. If he just wants to be a regular kid, to be himself and never touch show business again, that's cool. He's probably got enough money, he doesn't have to work in this business again. He's a kid. Kids are vulnerable. I'm vulnerable. What I'd say to him is, Just do what makes you happy."

"Can you fathom how the promising, gifted River Phoenix wound up dead just seven years after making such an impact in Stand by Me?" Thomas's own summer movie, Wild America, which tells the story of three brothers who go off to photograph endangered species, is reminiscent of the hit film that launched a 16-year-old Phoenix.

"I can understand it, but it won't happen to me," Thomas declares. "My whole life has been different. I'm not into the Hollywood scene. I don't go out and party. I'm not trying to seize and suck the life out of every moment. I'm not trying to take all this entertainment business stuff and completely absorb it. This business has a lot of great things to offer, but it can be completely immoral. All the qualities that apply in regular life don't necessarily apply in the entertainment business. I think it's just that I have a plan. I have goals. I have too many things I want to do in life to burn out."

Has he never been tempted to help himself to the chemical hors d'oeuvres offered to young, cute-as-a-button entertainment idols? "It's so funny," Thomas responds. "I've been in the business since I was eight and I have never been offered drugs, never seen them on the set. And it's not like I've been kept in my trailer. If I were to be offered, I'm not interested. I feel no pressure to be like everyone else." How about predatory girls? "Are you kidding me? My mom would shoo them off. Besides, I'm a very good judge of character. I can see whether they're interested in me or they're just trying to be in that 'world.' Most of these people are pretty transparent. I watch out for them."

Thomas toys with his salad--he's a non-strict vegetarian-- then tells me, in a cool, deliberate tone, "I feel I'm still at the bottom of this huge mountain I want to take. And I feel like, slowly, I am ascending. But I'm going to enjoy every minute of it, do it at my own pace, because I don't want to burn out. I want to make it to the top."

So far, Thomas appears to have avoided any public "dates" or liaisons with supermodels, MTV veejays, other kid stars. Is this the guiding influence of his mother again? "I'm only 15 and a half," he reminds me, as if kids his age didn't regularly call Loveline asking what to do about their druggie boyfriends and pregnant girlfriends. "I've gone out on a couple of dates. I look forward to dating, having a relationship, but I'm not necessarily going to go out there and look for it. And the girls I have dated are never in the business."

"Which was more memorable," I ask, "your first screen kiss or your first real-life kiss?"

Thomas laughs. "I just had a screen kiss last Friday, filming our last Home Improvement episode of the season. It went well, but it's difficult being in front of 250 people who simultaneously break out in, 'Oooh' and in front of 150 crew members, all my friends, who are laughing at me. I really don't count it as a kiss. My first real kiss was awkward, but great, exhilarating and special."

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