Dano comes from a long line of actors that stretches as far back as his great-grandmother, Ziegfeld Girl and film star Virginia Bruce, and also includes his grandfather, Royal Dano, and both his parents. In a way, then, it's no surprise that Hutch found so much success before his eighteenth birthday -- he's the lead on the Disney hit Zeke and Luther and stars opposite Selena Gomez in Ramona and Beezus, the film adaptation of Beverly Cleary's novels -- though as he told Movieline, it wasn't without a few bumps along the way.
This is your first film. How did you end up choosing this movie, or did it choose you?
I was just wrapping up the first season of Zeke and Luther and my agent called me with an audition for this movie called Ramona and Beezus. I heard I'd be playing Henry Huggins, and I pretty much Google anything like that, especially if it's based on a book, so I kind of researched the plot. I really enjoyed the script and I wanted to go after it, so I auditioned over a couple of months a good four or five times, and I finally booked it.
You didn't get some sort of Disney edge because Selena was already in the movie?
You know, it made me feel like there was a chance I could book it. You just never know, because when you're on Disney and shooting a show, it demands a lot -- which is a great thing, because Disney is such a great start and it really helps you hone your talent at the start of your career, but at the same time, it also makes it a little difficult to book other roles. I was happy because I felt like I had a better shot at booking the role just knowing that someone as big as Selena had already booked it.
Was it nice to go from a demanding TV show where you're one of the title characters to a film like Ramona and Beezus, where you're one of the members of an ensemble and you have a lot more time to relax?
You know, it's weird. It's one of those things where you have to transition yourself, because the work on Zeke and Luther is so constant -- it's twelve or thirteen-hour days of constant shooting -- and then you go from that to Ramona and Beezus, where you might have a few scenes but they're spaced out and you have downtime. I was kind of trying to find things to do with myself that were productive, and I'd never had to figure that out before because I'd only shot Zeke and Luther. It was a great learning experience to figure out how to use your time wisely.
And you're probably shooting a zillion pages a day on Zeke and Luther, right?
Yeah, between eight to ten pages a day.
Wow.
Yeah, it's a lot! [Laughs]
Had you read the books? Henry actually had his own series before Beverly Cleary started writing the Beezus and Ramona books.
He did. I read the very first one, Henry Huggins, and the funny thing is that I was trying to find the Ramona and Beezus book the film was based on, but it's called Beezus and Ramona in the book series. Google doesn't figure that out for you, unfortunately. Eventually I got to Vancouver and I was talking to Selena before we started shooting and I was like, "Is there just no way I can find the Ramona and Beezus book?" And she's like, "You mean Beezus and Ramona. The names are switched. Go on Amazon right now." I found the right book, and I didn't exactly feel like the smartest guy. [Laughs]
Was there any talk that maybe if this movie did well, there could be a Henry Huggins spin-off?
I've heard rumors, but as an actor, you have to try your best to ignore those. I'd get excited way too quickly.
How well did you know Selena before this movie?
I knew her through one of her friends on Wizards of Waverly Place, Jennifer Stone, so I'd actually gone to go see a movie with her and we'd done promos together. I was pretty familiar with her, and I remember texting her when I got the part and she was stoked. She was already shooting by the time I got up there, so it was great that we didn't have to force chemistry, that we already had that friendship with each other.
When you come from a family of actors like yours, does it give you an appreciation for older movies? I was reading that you've seen every Marlon Brando movie, and I wonder if that's true for most actors your age.
Because of my heritage, I think I have an appreciation for the golden age of acting, and I got introduced to those films at an early age. My dad wanted to watch them and my mom was really adamant about me seeing them. I didn't know anything about them, so I was completely open to it, and the first time I saw A Streetcar Named Desire, I was hooked.
What was it about that performance that really struck you?
Everyone says that acting changed when Marlon Brando put Stanley Kowalski on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire. I didn't get to see that, but to see that performance onscreen, it's like watching the most iconic thing in the world. He changed acting forever, and you look at that, and you strive to be the kind of actor who could start a revolution like that.
Having worked since you were little, did there come a time where you had to change your technique? When did you go from being a kid who just read lines to a kid who was really exploring how to act?
It's all about the characters you play and the choices you make while you're acting. You have to be open to anything; for example, if a director wants you to go a different way -- a way you probably would not choose yourself -- it's up to you whether you decide to take a chance and trust the director or choose to not listen to them, which is just closing yourself off so that you don't learn anything new about yourself as an actor or about the character you're playing. I think that's something every actor needs, to trust that your director knows what they're talking about so you can explore every aspect of yourself as an actor.
You booked your first commercial when you were five. Do you remember what that was like?
All I remember is that I was playing a kid with the rest of my family -- my mom, my dad, and my sister -- and we were going around on a merry-go-round in the rain, which they hadn't planned on that day. I just remember wondering why I was there. I was still a little out of it.
At what point in your acting career did it dawn on you why you were there?
I stopped acting when I was six because my dad saw me crying in the audition room, and he said, "There's no way [I'm putting you through this]." Then, when I was fifteen, I booked Zeke and Luther after kind of starting to act professionally, and I think after that, I felt like, "I can't believe this." You can't really say you're a professional actor until you book a gig, and I think after Zeke and Luther, I was getting paid to do what I wanted to do.
Two of my friends are producers on Zeke and Luther, and I went to one of them to find out what I should ask you. So here's his question: "What do you think of the fact that when you type 'Hutch Dano' into Google, one of the first suggestions it makes is 'Hutch Dano shirt off'"?
You know what, someone showed me this. [Laughs] It's funny that you brought this up, because one of my friends showed me this. I was like, "Really?" I don't think about things like that, so I would say when my friend showed it to me, I became immediately uncomfortable. That was definitely my reaction. [Laughs]