By Gill Pringle & Jeremy Nigro
American actress and occasional director and writer (she has six shorts to her credit), Bryce Dallas Howard, has slowly been building a stellar career in Hollywood. The daughter of actor/director, Ron Howard, Bryce grew up surrounded by movie stars. But her parents encouraged their children to explore nature, and access to television was not allowed. Perhaps this is what has kept her grounded over the years, with the actress famously dropping her last name when applying to drama schools so as to avoid preferential treatment. Howard got her start performing in New York plays before her breakthrough role in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, a performance which was applauded by critics and received several award nominations. She has recently appeared in several big Hollywood movies, including The Twilight Saga and Terminator Salvation, but is now best known for her role as park manager Claire in last year’s Jurassic World. Howard chats to FilmInk about her role in the New Zealand-shot Pete’s Dragon, a reimagining of the 1977 film of the same name in which a lost boy finds shelter and friendship with a not-so-mythical dragon who lives deep in an American forest.
Did you have any crazy adventures when you were little; did you ever run away? “Oh yeah, I ran away all the time. I ran away constantly. I would take utensils – like, pots and pans – but nothing else. It was really weird. There was a little house for our dogs in our garage, and I ran away to there. My dad would come out and start playing basketball, and I would be like, ‘Oh, I’m just going to join him.’ Then I would go outside and shoot some hoops with him. I would go into the woods a lot by myself behind my house, and one time I got lost, which was really bad. But I eventually found my way home after dark, and no one in my family noticed! They never noticed! I was one of four, so they were like, ‘Ah, Bryce is the oldest; I’m sure she’s fine.’ That’s something that I do yearn for, for my kids, that I don’t feel they have enough of, which is the ability to feel safe, and wander in nature. That’s something that me and my husband talk about pretty much non-stop.”
Do you think there will come a point where there’s a fatigue for Disney remakes? “Pete’s Dragon isn’t a straight up remake of the original film. The original Pete’s Dragon was the film that was playing on a loop when I was young, and when my sister found out that I was doing it, she cried. It was like our whole childhood; we watched that film constantly. It’s so specific. What’s so great about that movie can’t be redone, because it’s just wild things that wouldn’t even be allowed now, like all of the drunkenness for instance. When I actually read the script for this, I loved that it was basically in line with the themes of the original film, and it had the same title, but other than that, it was a departure. It’s not meant to step on the toes of the original.”
Have you ever been to Australia? “Oh, yes, I’ve been there lots of times. I would go there as a kid, and it was all about koala bears, in terms of the nature there. Then I went there as an adult, and I dated an Australian for a period of time, until his visa ran out, sadly [Laughs].”
Who was that? Is it anyone we know? “Nick Barkla? Wonderful guy, he’s an actor and a writer. He’s awesome…he’s really cool, but his visa ran out and I met my husband two months later.”
Had you met Robert Redford before doing the film? “No, I had never met him before. The first time that we met each other was actually while we were shooting. It was during a take. There was this big, empty paved road, and we’re supposed to run towards each other and reunite…it’s an emotional thing. I hadn’t met him yet, but I knew that he was at the other end, and I was very far away from the set. David [Lowery, director] yelled action, and we were running towards each other and I picked up speed. I was really excited, and I totally barrelled into him! He’s a really sturdy, strong guy, so he took the hit, like the man he is, and then David yelled cut and he said to me, ‘You came at me like a cannonball!’ [Laughs] I was like, ‘Sorry! Nice to meet you!’ He’s just the coolest, most with it, relaxed, honest, guy ever. At first, everyone was so nervous: ‘Robert Redford is coming! Robert Redford is coming!’ Then he arrived and he instantly put everyone at ease.”
Can you tell us about the horse rescue…what exactly happened? “I can tell you, but maybe ask David, or just don’t say what I stupidly said, which is, ‘He stole the horse!’ No, there was a horse that was clearly abused, who was tied to this wooden fence that was right by the freeway. So the horse was on the side of the freeway, and we would drive back and forth to work every day, and the horse looked to me as if he had been abused, and neglected. There was no water there for the horse, no hay, and every time people would drive past we would report what was happening, but there was still no water, and still no hay. Bob went and he got someone to investigate. He got them to knock on all the doors in the neighbourhood to say, ‘Is this your horse? Is this your horse?’ No one would claim it. They’d say, ‘Oh yeah, that horse is always out there.’ So he coordinated it with a rescue place, and he himself went and rescued the horse.”
Your co-star, Karl Urban, is a national treasure in New Zealand…did he show you around? “Yes, very much so. We all fell in love with New Zealand. We were all like, ‘We want to move here!’ He was a great example to all of us of how to live in a place that is, on the map, so isolated and yet still able to function in this industry and have a family and all of that. So for all of us, it was always twenty questions for him. It was like ‘Where do you live here? Where do you live in LA? How do you do it?’ He was really inspiring.”
Pete’s Dragon is released in cinemas on September 15.
