ClevverTV interviewed Hailee and Asa at CinemaCon and asked about Ender’s Game, working with Harrison Ford, and space camp training.
“I think the hardest part was getting up at 7 every morning,” laughed Asa. “But that was the first time the cast had met each other, pretty much, so it really broke the ice and we were best friends at the end of it.”
Source: ClevverTV
In Las Vegas last week to accept an award for Rising Star of Tomorrow at CinemaCon, Asa Butterfield did a brief Q&A with press and talked about what it was like to work with his fellow castmates and about his first time meeting Harrison Ford.
“When I first saw him I was like… “Oh my God! It’s Han Solo!” When a reporter advised him not to tell Harrison that, Asa assured him that he wouldn’t, then looked around jokingly with a look of worry on his face, “He’s not in here, is he?”, no doubt referring to Ford’s well-known tendency to bristle over mention of the Star Wars character.
Asa continued to praise him, “He’s an incredible actors but he’s also an amazing person. He’s really kind and really generous with his knowledge.”
When the topic turned to Gavin Hood, Asa had a lot of praise for him as well, mentioning again how well he knew the characters and what he wanted out of their performances. “Because he wrote the screenplay he really knew the characters back to front and he knew exactly what he wanted. And when he needed more oomph to the scene he was there to come on stage and he gave it all.”
Although he hadn’t heard of the book before the movie started casting, he read the novel right away and had several Skyping sessions about the character with Hood. “It really gave both of us an insight on how this was going to work. When I got the role I was over the moon.”
When asked what he thought fans would be most excited to see, Asa remained neutral on the topic, “The story stayed almost entirely truthful to the book. They had to age the characters up for obvious reasons but it all depends what they got out of the book. If they loved the Battle Room scenes then obviously that’s going to appeal to them but if they read the book for the morals behind it and the themes then that’s all still intact in the screenplay and I think it’s a really deep story.”
The franchise question, which is undoubtedly on the minds of many fans, came up as well. “I think it all depends on how well this does,” he said. He joked that unless the studio wanted to wait 15 or so years for him to reach Ender’s age in Ender’s Shadow, he wasn’t sure what would happen. (Be sure to read my editorial on my own thoughts on that)
Source: ShowbizJunkies via Ender News
With Lionsgate closing out CinemaCon with their Product Presentation, all stars had left to do was head to the Awards Ceremony, where three of the Ender’s Game stars received awards for their work in film.
Harrison Ford received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Asa Butterfield received the Rising Star of 2013 Award.
It’s clearly telling him something disturbing!
Here’s a full gallery of images from the con so far, will update with more as they come in.
Image source: Zimbio
David Trumbore of Collider had a phone interview with Asa Butterfield today and they talked at length about how it was working with director Gavin Hood and what it was like acting with such a large cast of kids.
Gavin is an amazing director. I haven’t worked with a director like him. Whereas other directors are quite passive with how they let their actors work, Gavin – especially because he wrote the screenplay – he already knew exactly how he wanted the characters to be. Of course he let us bring our own ideas to it. He was always very enthusiastic, he was always encouraging us, he was always there on the stage. If we needed motivation he was there shouting at us … not angry, just to get the right emotion. Because there were a lot of child actors on the set, the enthusiasm that he brought really got us into that sort of mindset, so it was really helpful.
Asa also comments about what it was like working with Harrison Ford and Sir Ben Kingsley.
I had far more scenes with Harrison than I did with Sir Ben. Sir Ben’s character’s only in it in the last third of the film, but they’re both amazing.
Of particular interest is his mention of the scene where Ender disobeys orders and we get to hear a bit of detail on how that scene has been adapted for the film.
One scene that I really remember is a scene with me and Hailee (Steinfeld). We’re in the Battle Room. She’s hit her head on one of the floating objects. I’ve jumped out … I’ve disobeyed my orders and jumped out to catch her. When I hit her, we start spinning. Of course, in zero gravity, there’s nothing to slow you down.
Overall it’s a fantastic interview, so be sure to check out the entire thing over at Collider. Hopefully we’ll see more interviews with the cast start to come out after the awards ceremony tonight.
CinemaCon is in full swing in Las Vegas and Variety spoke to the various actors receiving special recognition at the convention going on this week in Las Vegas, Nevada. Among those they interviewed are three Ender’s Game cast members.
Harrison Ford, who is receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award, was quick to point out that Ender’s Game is different from Blade Runner.
“It’s just a whole different canvas — no replicants — and character and world view.”
Asa Butterfield, who will be given the Rising Star Award, gave high praise to the script, which he read while studying hard in school.
“It was the best script I’d read, and I thought how much fun it would be to be in zero gravity with laser guns.”
And last but not least, Hailee Steinfeld, who will be recognized as the Female Star of Tomorrow, talked about the fun of hanging with a cast of mostly boys her age.
“At that point I’d wanted to work with kids my age, and was looking forward to it,” she recalls. “The catch is that they were all boys, so it was 3½ months with a bunch of guys, which is not a bad thing.”
Lionsgate’s product presentation is on Thursday, but still no word on whether anything new from Ender’s Game will be released.
Source: Variety via Ender’s Ansible
Actor Asa Butterfield, who plays Ender Wiggin in the movie, released an iPad game called Racing Blind this past weekend that he designed with his brother Morgan and father Sam. (view the demo above) The game is for all ages as Asa has been tweeting about how his little sister Loxie has beaten his older brother at the game on more than one occasion.
The game costs 99 cents and is available in the iTunes App Store.
For social media, you can follow @RacingBlind and find them on Facebook.
Today is April 1st, which means it’s time to wish Asa Butterfield, our Ender Wiggin, a very happy 16th birthday! For the occasion, I have a special cake.
Hope you have had a fun-filled birthday and that your year is a fantastic one!
Before anyone thinks I’m a little weird for making a real cake for someone on the other side of the planet, I should note that this cake will soon shift from a cake for Asa into a cake for me, since I share a birthday with Asa. And since I’m obviously a huge fan of Ender’s Game, a Dragon Army cake will be a fun thing to blow out tonight when my family comes over. 🙂
You can see a bunch of very cool photos gathered up by Ender News (including one from me!) here.
Here’s a closer look at the dragon:
Asa Butterfield will be receiving the 2013 Rising Star Award at this year’s CinemaCon, which will be held in Las Vegas from April 15-18.
“With a stunning turn in the title role of ‘Hugo,’ Butterfield has already proven himself as one to watch in Hollywood,” said CinemaCon managing director Mitch Neuhauser.
Update: Summit has confirmed with EnderWiggin.net that Asa Butterfield will be in attendance at CinemaCon.
Source: Variety
Asa Butterfield (Ender) has been teasing something on Twitter in the last couple of weeks and his big news has turned out to be an iPad game he’s developed with his dad Sam and brother Morgan. (above)
Their game is will hopefully be released in the coming weeks. You can follow the game @RacingBlind and listen to the game’s theme music on Soundcloud.
Asa Butterfield, who plays Ender Wiggin in Ender’s Game, attended a screening of The Silver Linings Playbook with his mother Jacqueline Farr on December 16, 2012 at the Charlotte Street Hotel in London, England. Three photos have been added to the EnderWiggin.net gallery.
Earlier this year, Asa returned to England shortly after wrapping filming in New Orleans and doing some final work in Los Angeles. Since then he hasn’t been photographed much in public, returning to school and probably growing an additional inch a month.
Source: Photos © Dave M. Benett/Getty Images via Ender News
This morning brings to us the first official still from next year’s film adaptation Ender’s Game, brought to us exclusively by Entertainment Weekly.
The still, which shows child military genius Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) with Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford), is from the barracks at Battle School in space, where Ender is in training with the International Fleet among the world’s brightest young soldiers.
In the background, you can see the insignia for the International Fleet as well as their beds, no doubt a cold contrast to what they’ve just left at home. Alai (Suraj Partha) stands next to Ender. Behind Graff there’s a female cadet and several unidentified cast members (most likely background).
In the photo above, we get a first glimpse of Hugo’s Asa Butterfield (right) as Ender, standing in line with other new recruits (a.k.a. “Launchies”) early on at his time in the Battle School. He’s facing off with the imposing Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford, center) over whether his emails to home are being blocked. It’s telling that the two characters are clashing over communication, since they’ve got major communication issues with each other. In the novel, Ender could never be sure whether Graff was manipulating him, or whether he simply saw great potential in him and wanted to foster it.
The actors tried to mirror their characters’ emotions. “The relationship between [Harrison] and Asa was very close,” explains Hood, “but he didn’t overly befriend him off the set. He helped Asa by allowing that slight sense of intimidation to be there.” Getting intimidated by Indiana Jones himself? Sounds like a cinch! What was harder for the cast of children was filming the movie while going to school. “The kids have to attend school for at least three hours of class every day, plus do homework, so you can only shoot with someone like Asa for five hours of your day,” says Hood. “There was no time for fooling about or not knowing your lines or being unprepared.” To everyone’s delight, Butterfield (along with every child actor) proved himself a true professional. “Asa being prepared meant that we could focus on the scenes, and these are complicated scenes for a young actor,” says Hood.
Source: Full article at EW.com
The internet has been buzzing lately with the big news of Disney buying LucasFilm and the even bigger news that Star Wars Episode VII is now in the pipeline.
What started off just a few days ago as the mention of a movie has now turned into what sounds like actual pre-production, with EW getting the exclusive story that Harrison Ford (Colonel Graff in Ender’s Game), Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill are all up for making appearances in the film. Today, Vulture reported that Michael Arndt is being lined up to write the script.
With all this talk of Star Wars going on, eventually I began to wonder: whatever happened to that little kid that everyone blamed for Episode I being a suckfest? After some Google searching and YouTube videos, I found a rather sad story of a kid who grew up being endlessly teased about being Anakin Skywalker and ended up taking the brunt of the fandom’s anger over the film in general. Add to that, he claims he was made to do up to 60 interviews a day. That’s brutal for an adult. He was ten.
I was as disappointed in The Phantom Menace as everyone else was. I’d grown up on Star Wars and when I finally sat in the theater after waiting for months, watching the trailer over and over, and sitting in a snaking line that took me all the way into some hot and humid parking garage in Waikiki, I couldn’t believe how different it was and how apparent it was that the magic was simply gone. And I’m ashamed to say that I criticized little Jake Lloyd’s performance along with everyone else.
Still, I did this among friends. Back then I had no blog. There was no Twitter and Facebook was still restricted to certain colleges. As a fan you could pretty harmlessly criticize an actor without them feeling the sting of it. But apparently there were tons of kids and fans out there who did know him and who did make his life miserable. And there seem to be a lot of people that think he has no right to complain simply because, hey, he got to be Anakin Skywalker.
He’s destroyed all his Star Wars memorabilia and has been criticized for blaming George Lucas for what he went through but really, is he wrong?
Jake Lloyd did not write the script. He did not make up those ridiculous lines and he did not direct himself in the movie. He was ten years old for crying out loud. A child. And really, how do you place the weight of the Star Wars franchise onto the shoulders of a 10 year-old boy?
You don’t. Or at least, George Lucas shouldn’t have.
Which brings me to Ender Wiggin and Asa Butterfield. If there’s been any one major complaint about this movie (and I’m sure the discussion will continue to heat up quite a bit over the next year) it’s the fact that Asa Butterfield is 15 years old and Ender Wiggin was five when he left home for Battle School. I’ve written about this topic before and will continue to defend the studio’s decision to age Ender up because the fact of the matter is, when you have a large fanbase counting on a movie adaptation as centered upon a character as it is on Ender, it’s not a good idea to base all your hopes and expectations on a child.
I mean, how real does this experience have to be for us to have our “true” Ender? Do we have to mentally stress some little kid to the point of a nervous breakdown as Graff and Anderson tried to do for so many years? The answer is no, simply because we’re not the International Fleet and this is just a movie.
Sure, they could have searched the world for a 5-10 year-old actor to play Ender, but I think a book that has been around for 30 years and has been studied in schools for almost as long needs to have an older actor who is better equipped for the work both during and after production and needs to be able to deal with the modern backlash that can happen if all doesn’t go as planned.
After writing and watching how things work in the movie business, I have only a small glimpse of what child actors go through and with the legions of vicious cyber bullies on Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and Facebook, I can only imagine how much worse it can be for them now than it was for Jake Lloyd 13 years ago.
And while I’m not saying Ender’s Game is going to be as big as a Star Wars movie, the same concept applies to any body of work that has a large fandom sitting out there waiting.
I’ve briefly met Asa and he seems to have a great head on his shoulders. He takes his online presence in stride and is very well composed on the red carpet, crediting his mother for dressing him and charming those he speaks to and works with on set. This is a boy properly equipped to deal with the side effects of playing Ender Wiggin. I find it hard to believe that a much younger actor would come out of this experience as unscathed and unphased as he probably will.
As for Jake Lloyd, he has my apologies and he has my sympathies. None of it was really his fault and I wish Lucas had had the foresight to age his little Anakin up for the sake of a young boy’s childhood and young adulthood.
Now, some of you are probably wondering, Valentine, why are you wasting our time with this silliness? Just bear with me.
While some of you may find it totally irrelevant to be listening to Asa’s red carpet tips, what’s interesting about this video is that it’s a good way for us to hear the change in Asa’s voice and see the difference in his physique.
Most people trying to get to know Ender before the movie comes out inevitably end up watching Hugo, which was Asa’s last movie. The problem with that is that while the movie just came out last year, it was filmed in June 2010, which was a full two years ago and done when Asa was only 13.
Compare photos and you’ll see he looks very different.
The last time we posted video of an interview with Asa was in January when he attended the Critic’s Choice Awards. Compare that with how deep his voice is in that interview to the red carpet video above and you can definitely notice a difference. Compare the red carpet video with clips or interviews during the filming of Hugo and you’ll see a more obvious difference in pitch.
With red carpet fashion report videos, of course. Asa looks like he’d like to be anywhere else in the world than talking hair gel and clothes with the reporter, but that just makes the video that much cuter. His advice for young actors?
“Get your mum to dress you.”