The New York Times

JULY 12, 1994

For 'Client,' a Survivor, Age 10

By BERNARD WEINBAUMB

HOLLWOOD, July 11 -- Casting Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones was smooth sailing for Joel Schumacher, the director of "The Client," the film adaptation of the thriller by John Grisham. But finding somone for the important title role, a streetwise 11-year-old boy on the run from the Mafia and Federal prosecutors, was a far more turbulent experience than Mr. Schumacher had expected.

"I wanted an intelligent kid who's a tough and savvy survivor, a kid with an authentic Southern accent, a kid from a trailer park like the character in the movie," said Mr. Schumacher. "I wanted a kid who understood the marrow of his psyche what it was like to grow up too soon."

"Easier said than done," the director added with a wry laugh.

A Tougher Type of Child

The search focused on eight Southern cities, including three in Tennessee: Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphism, where the film is set. Children who went to acting schools simply did not fit the bill, said Mali Finn, the casting director.

"What we ere trying to do was look for unusual sources that would help us find kids who were a little tougher than the ordinary children that were signed up with the commercial or theatrical agents in the South," she said. "So in every city we contacted sources like Jesuit priests, alternative schools and police departments. We asked, 'Do you know any tough kids? Not that we were looking for a delinquent, but a tough boy."

It was the Knoxville police who told Ms. Finn to look up 10-year-old Brad Renfro. The boy, headstrong and a bit of a troublemaker, had just played a drug dealer in a school production sponsored by DARE, a program in which young people act out plays about the dangers of drugs.

"He was mesmerizing," said Ms. Finn, who had previously seen about 5,000 youngsters and interviewed about 1,500 of them in tryouts. "From the second he walked in, I had the feeling this was it. I usually taped each applicant for 10 or 15 minutes. I let the tape run an hour with him."

'Very Charismatic'

Ms. Finn presented Brad with situations from "The Client" and asked him to improvise; she also asked him to talk abouthis life. "He was very charismatic," she said. "He had a face that people could watch for two hours. The eyes were extraordinary. And he was very open. He seemed to have a terrific ear; he would imitate people in his family. And he had this unusual quality for a child of walking into a room to face a total stranger and say, 'Here I am.'"

After seeing the videotape, Mr. Schumacher, the director of "Falling Down," "St. Elmo's Fire" and "Flatliners" among other films, was equally enthusiastic. "I was struck by the maturity and the sadness of his eyes," he said. "I couldn't believe a 10-year-old that good-looking and smart who had a difficult life could actually act on the screen. It was too good to believe."

Brad was flown to Los Angeles and sent by Warner Brothers, which was producing the film, to Belita Moreno, an acting coach, for a quick assessment of his talents. "Within 24 hours, she called and said he was kind of brilliant," said Mr. Schumacher.

But still, the choice of the untrained boy was an especially tense one for Mr. Schumacher, largely because Brad Renfro's life has striking parallels to that of the fictional youth who is the film's central character.

In the film, which is to open on July 20, a boy named Mark Sway lives with his mother and younger brother in a trailer park. In the woods one day, Mark learns too much about a Mafia killing from a lawyer who is about to commit suicide. As a result, the boy is hunted by, among others, the Mafia and an ambitious prosecutor, played by Mr. Jones. Ms. Sarandon plays a lawyer with a troubled past who eventually represents Mark.

'No Baby Time'

During shooting of the film, Ms. Sarandon, Mr. Jones and the other members of the cast treated Brad as a fellow professional, Mr. Schumacher said. "He's so competitive and ambitious in a healthy way that he got it right away," said the director. "There was no baby time on the set. He was treated like everyone else."

"Of course," Mr. Schumacher added diplomatically, "he's not been around any bad actors."

Ms. Sarandon spoke warmly of the boy. "Working with a wild card like that was a plus," she said. "Finding someone fresh and not at all tricky and phony and a caricature of himself is appealing. On the other hand, if he hadn't cut it, we'd be in trouble. Fortunately, he did a very professional job. He worked hard. And he came prepared. That's more than I can say for some leading actors who are three times his age with three times as much experience."

She said that Brad's confidence and agressiveness were appealing, if a little startling. "By the end of the shoot, he was actually giving me notes saying things like, 'I think you missed it' or 'This could have been funnier,'" she said with a laugh. "Had he been three times his age it wouldn't have been so funny."

Seated in Mr. Schumacher's office at Warner Brothers, Brad Renfro, now almost 12, seemed a young person of extraordinary aplomb and steeliness. An only child, he has lived for the last six years in East Knoxville with his grandmother Joanne Renfro, a church secretary. His father, Mark, works in a blueprint factory in Knoxville; his mother has remarried and lives in Michigan. "I dont' see her much," he said.

When Mr. Schumacher called to tell him he had the part, he tried to react calmly. "I said, 'Wait a minute,'" he recalled. "I rewound the tape on the answering machine, and I told Joel, 'Please say that again and say it slowly.'"

Brad now has an agent and a lawyer. And with Mr. Schumacher's guidance, he has transferred from a public school to a Montessori school in Knoxville. He hopes to enter film school after high school; his idols are Jimmy Page, the Led Zeppelin guitarist, and James Dean. (David Speck, who plays the younger brother in the film, was also an untrained actor. He was discovered at an open casting call in Little Rock, Ark.)

"There are two main people in my life," Brad said, referring to his grandmother and his father. "Those people would never ever change. They're always going to be pro-Brad. They haven't touched my money." He said that except for what he used to purchase a camera and other film equipment, the money he made from "The Client" would remain in the bank.

Asked if he was going to buy a new house or new furnishings for his grandmother and himself, he thought for a moment, then said, "Give it time, give it time."

Asked if his appearing in "The Client" would change his life, he said: "I'll always be Brad Renfro, born on July 25, 1982. Nothing's going to change that. It won't be any different."

He's now trying out for a film role as the close friend of a boy with AIDS.

"He's at an age when he's changing," said Ms. Finn. "It's very hard to predict what happens with children awhen they move into adolescence. This role may be it for him. On the other hand, he has incredible natural abilities."

Mr. Schumacher said he often gets nervous thinking he has probably changed Brad's life irrevocably. "I hope I've changed his life for the better," the director said solemnly. Then he added: "I hope. You never know."

Second page headline: For 'The Client,' a Tough, Savvy Survivor, Age 10; article runs from page C1, continued on C16; large quotes from the text are Casting help from the Knoxville, Tenn., police. and 'I was struck by the maturity and sadness of his eyes.'; photograph depicts Brad with Joel Schumacher; image caption reads: Joel Schumacher, the director of "The Client," right, had Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. He needed a child who knew "what it was like to grow up too soon." He found Brad Renfro, left.

E-mail me with comments on this article or anything else
HOME

Number of visits this page has received since August 18, 1999:

FastCounter by LinkExchange