Portrait of the Young Man as an Actor

Details, please? "It was nighttime, very romantic, a beach setting," he says, warily. "Years down the line when my kids ask me, I'll say, 'Oh, yeah, my first kiss was great--something I'll remember until the day I die.'" Thomas shakes his head emphatically when I ask whether he's actually ever gone all the way. "Noooooooo," he asserts. "I am so not there. You get that with absentee parents, I think."

Since we're batting around the subject of romance and sex, I mention how impressed I was with his aplomb at last spring's ShoWest convention when Ellen DeGeneres rocked the packed house by jibing that Thomas had hit on her and obviously "didn't know." Did he actually get the joke?

Thomas cracks up, widens his eyes, and regards me as if now I were the alien life-form. "Actually, I must have been doing a really good job, because when she said that, all of a sudden the blood in my body drained. Oh, I got it completely. Completely. I'm not that young. She and I had been joking before about what an awkward situation it is to be sitting there eating while your image is projected on gigantic screens to a thousand people. I was wanting to move a fern in front of me so I could take, like, a couple of bites without worrying whether I had spaghetti hanging down my face. I thought what she said was hilarious."

Given that Thomas reaped the major credit for making a hit out of Man of the House, and given that his sophomore and junior follow-ups, Tom and Huck and The Adventures of Pinocchio were not hits, does the young industry veteran care to speculate on the fortunes of Wild America, a film that also stars competing young hunks Devon Sawa and Scott Bairstow? "I have no clue," he says. "I don't even want to think about it, because I don't want to be happy or sad either way about it. If people go see the movie, great. If they don't, there's nothing I can do to change that. The movies I've made have gone out and competed with that scary new breed of movies like Twister--monsters that basically eat up all the other films around them. You don't want to be in that wake."

Why Wild America?

"I have my own automatic screening process for scripts so I don't waste time," Thomas tells me. "Like, if I get a script and there's a breakdown on the front that says, 'a child ax-murderer...' I don't bother reading it. This one was moving, funny, and I felt like I hadn't seen it before. I was the first one cast in the movie."

At this point I tell Thomas I want to spring some pop-quiz questions on him. He's a schoolkid, after all. He cracks up at the prospect.

"OK, multiple choice: You know that maximum b.s. is required when you're meeting: a) a director; b) a network executive; or c) an interviewer." Laughing, he answers, "A network executive. If there's any situation you would need it, it's there. But I don't sit there saying stuff like, 'I thought your last piece of work was fantastic.'"

On to another. "You're playing tennis with the head of the studio or network. Do you play to win or let them win?" Thomas widens his eyes. "Are you kidding? Play to win, absolutely. I'd never just let him win."

"Next. This is multiple choice/finish the sentence: I want to grow up to be a) Kurt Russell; b) Ron Howard; c) Jackie Coogan; d) Rick Schroder; or e) Mickey Rooney."

Thomas breaks up at the mention of Rooney, whom too many forget was one of the biggest moneymaking, most versatile and gifted guys to ever sort-of survive child stardom. He more seriously ponders the names of the other kid-star sensations before answering, emphatically, "Ron Howard. I don't want to spend my whole life acting. My plan is to go to college, study performing arts, theater, philosophy and literature, then shift behind the camera to directing and producing.

"Directing keeps you very much creatively involved," he continues, "but at the same time, you're not in the limelight. You don't have to deal with the constant hounding we've been talking about. I mean, I'm sure people in New York and L.A. recognize Joel Schumacher all the time, but I'm not positive that when he goes somewhere outside of here, he gets recognized as much, whereas Arnold Schwarzenegger probably couldn't go anywhere on the planet without being recognized. I'm not a recluse, but I've spent a good deal of my life in the public eye and I'd like to step back from that a little bit."

"OK. Next question. The directing thing hasn't worked out and the movies you've acted in aren't making money. Your bank balance is hurting and you've got to go back to TV. What do you do when Roseanne asks you to star with her in her latest show?"

He laughs. "I'd say, 'You're a very funny woman, but I'm just going to take a career break for a while.'"

"Essay question: if you could be an adult for a day, who would you be and what would you do?"

"I'd love to be President Clinton, or myself grown up and president, just to see how this nation is governed and what it's like to be the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. I'd put a lot more into education and providing hope and alternatives to kids who see themselves predestined to live a life in a ghetto. I'd like them to know they don't have to go down this spiral path. You can change it. Do it."

"What literary character would you like to play on-screen?"

Thomas's face lights up and his answer is instant: "I recently read The Catcher in the Rye and I would love to play Holden Caulfield, this rich, insane character who has gone over the edge. Every teenager, no matter how sane he is, can relate a little to something in him. In fact, I'd love to direct that movie, although I'd be too jealous if I were just sitting behind the camera watching someone else play Holden."

With this, Thomas and I form a plan to meet again in a few years to see how things have worked out for him. Will he be more like Holden? Will he be edgier? Will he have suffered a crack-up or a down spell and made a comeback? Will he be on his way to becoming the next Ron Howard? As he gathers up his backpack, Thomas predicts, "You can push what you've seen of me today along five years on a typical growing process and that's where I'll be. I don't think you're going to see any real aberrations. At least, I hope not. If there are any, I hope they're for the better. Aberrations can be good, right?"

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Stephen Rebello interviewed Mark Wahlberg for the June '97 issue of Movieline.

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