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Monday, November 20, 2006

Boy wonder, movie star: Frantic hunt for short Vikings launches my son's career on the silver screen

By Cathy MacDonald, The Daily News

'I am going to throw up," says the younger boy wonder.

We are on the set of Outlander, a movie filming near the Halifax airport. He is nervously waiting for a production assistant to pick him up.

Less than an hour ago, we weren't thinking about movies. We were thinking about supper. Then my brother, part of the Outlander production crew, called.

"How tall is Alex?" he asked.

"Four foot, nine inches," I reply promptly. We'd measured him the night before because of the province's new booster-seat laws.

"How tall is Jamie?"

"Taller." (We hadn't measured him.) "Why?"

They need a short kid in the movie. Does Alex want to be in a movie? "He'll be done around 10 p.m.," says my brother.

So I ask. Does Alex want to be in a movie about Vikings and space aliens? Uh, yeah!

He's so excited that a half-hour later he's sick with anticipation. But when a nice young production assistant arrives in a gigantic SUV to whisk him away, he is as happy as Christmas morning.

At 10:30 p.m., I call my brother's cell. "He's getting ready for his close-up," he reports.
That's right. Close-up. Alex MacDonald. Big star.

Jealous guy

At 11 p.m., I call to say I'm coming to get him. The older boy wonder tags along as a reward. Although really, really, really jealous, he did choke out congratulations to his brother.

At 11:45 p.m., a lot of tired Vikings walk by. There are no short Vikings, though. I call my brother again.

"We told him if he did a good job, we'd take pictures of him with a Viking sword," he laughs. "We're doing that now."

After midnight, a truck rolls up. My brother and a small person resembling my son get out. The boy's hair is sticking up. He's wearing new rubber boots and an ancient-looking, hemp-like outfit. I reach out and touch it. My hand comes back sticky.

"That's just blood," he says, pumped with excitement, "I got lots of bloody makeup and I had to wear a wig and it was glued onto my head and they put blood all down my arms and my legs ..."

He heads to a trailer to have his makeup removed, but minutes later he's back. "He's too excited to sit," my brother begins, before noticing the other boy wonder in my van.

In the time-honoured tradition of uncles everywhere, he starts patting his pockets frantically for something to give him. "Here," he says. It's an open pack of licorice. "This is for you."
It's not a part in a movie, it's not a Viking sword, but it is candy after midnight. Not too shabby.

There's a smile of thanks.

Getting fired

"So, what did you have to do," I ask mini-Matt Damon on the drive home.

"Oh, walk through a burning village while everybody ran around trying to put the fire out."

"Fire?! Fire? Your uncle didn't mention fire."

"Oh, yeah," he says gleefully.

"Were you near the fire?"

"No," he says sadly. I breathe again.

The movie people were really nice, he continues. They called him "pet" and "bloody buddy." They gave him a hot dog.

"And guess what else?" he says. "They're even paying me!"

Pay? No one mentioned pay.

Hmmm, maybe it's time to put "stage mom"' to the top of the list: stage mom, hockey mom, soccer mom ...

Cathy MacDonald is a mother of four, including a now wannabe actor.

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