‘Wild America’ featuring Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Marshall), Devon Sawa (Mark), Scott Bairstow (Marty), Frances Fisher (Agnes), Zack Ward (D.C.), and others… released July 2, 1997 by Warner Bros.
(Warner Bros. / courtesy Everett Collection / Tiger Beat)
STAMPEDE!
By Judy Brennan
The Los Angeles Times
Published July 13, 1997 12 AM PT
Oh, the perils of being a teen heartthrob.
After a recent New York premiere of “Wild America,” a film targeted primarily to preteens and young teens, Devon Sawa got a taste of what it’s like to be an idol.
He stood waiting on the curb for his limo, girlfriend Alessia Lancia in tow, figuring his co-star Jonathan Taylor Thomas would distract the squealing masses and that he would be safe. He figured wrong. About 200 kids--mostly girls between the ages of 8 and 16--bounded forth, pulling at his clothes, touching and grabbing his hair, his arms, his shoulders and begging for an autograph when a taxi finally came to the rescue. Hey Elvis, Paul, John, Ringo and George: Devon feels your pain.
You laugh. But this shy 17-year-old native of Vancouver has been the cover boy of just about every teen magazine, from Big Bopper and Tiger Beat to SuperTeen and 16, when what he really wants to do is express his acting craft.
“Wild America” had the misfortune of opening over the Fourth of July weekend opposite the phenomenally successful “Men in Black,” which captured much of “Wild America’s” audience. “Wild America” took in only $2.8 million that weekend, but those involved with the picture still expect that kids will discover it and tell their friends. “Sure ‘Men in Black’ is going to be huge,” says Gary Barber, Morgan Creek’s vice chairman and executive producer on “Wild America.” “But word-of-mouth will drive this movie. It’s a true story driven by great characters with heart, and it will appeal to a varied audience.”
“This is a project picture for us,” says Barry Reardon, Warner Bros.’ distribution chief. “We’ve got 12,000 T-shirts, 8,000 hats, 10,000 CD soundtracks, 5,000 [disposable] cameras, 100,000 buttons and 500,000 tattoos. It’s the girls that will be grabbing for these. These young guys are hot as a pistol.”
Aside from seizing the opportunity of casting the studs-of- the-moment for the preteen set to play the lead roles, the picture is filled with wild animals and their cuddly babies to indulge the American public’s craze for critters.
Set in a rural Arkansas town in the ‘60s, it is based on the true story of the three Stouffer brothers, Marty (Scott Bairstow), Mark (Sawa) and Marshall (Thomas). (The real Mark Stouffer, who appears in a cameo shot with his real brothers, is a producer on the film, directed by William Dear.)
Told through the eyes of Marshall, who must endure his older brothers’ pranks throughout, the film depicts the trio’s journey to capture on film what’s left of American wildlife.
“I’m banking on my gut instincts on this one,” says Robinson, who describes the film as a ‘90s “Stand by Me” with a dash of “Indiana Jones” adventure thrown in. “I can’t talk about [the recent family-oriented disappointment] ‘Buddy’ or the other movies. I just know how that crowd in New York reacted to these boys. The girls were trying to rip Devon’s clothes off. There were 200 kids out there, screaming and squealing. It was like Beatlemania in ’62 or Elvis. I’m betting on those fans. Those are the ones that are forgotten this summer. We just decided to give them something they wanted to see.”
Those audiences want to see more of Sawa playing roles like Mark, says Hedy End, editorial director of SuperTeen and superstars teen magazines. In fact, competitor 16 magazine describes his role as the “the hotheaded, girl-crazy and majorly sexy” one. How sexy? Says 16: “Call the bod squad: He’s shirtless in many, many scenes--as opposed to [Thomas] who’s shirt-challenged never in this movie.”
Notes End: “Devon first became popular as the real life ‘Casper’ at the end of that movie. Jonathan zoomed to top of the list over the last couple of years, because of ‘Home Improvement.’ When we heard these two were doing a movie together, we were thrilled. These kids [the magazine’s readership] have grown up with Jonathan, who is seen as blond, blue-eyed and adorable. But Devon is blond, blue-eyed, a little bit older and a little more dangerous but in a nonthreatening way.”
So what does Sawa think about his fame, especially with the younger set?
“It’s great, ego-boosting and overwhelming. It all came so quickly but it’s impossible for me to go to a mall in the Valley,” says Sawa, who divides his time between Los Angeles and his Canadian hometown. “You think it’s safe and then some girl will see you and I’ll hear her say to a friend, ‘Hey, isn’t that him.’ And I’ll try to quietly leave.”
Once they realize it is Sawa, they flock around and “it starts,” he continues. “My girlfriend doesn’t really know what to think about it. When that happened at the premiere in New York . . . well, she wasn’t crazy about it. I’m still trying to get over that experience.”
Sawa, like his co-stars, wants to be taken seriously as a young actor. He started in the business at age 12, primarily in local theater in Vancouver. His first break in the movies was a role in “Little Gi- ants” that led to his part in “Casper.”
While being a heartthrob has its positives, he hopes his fans will follow him as he grows into more dramatic roles. “My fans made me.But sometimes there’s some weird stories about me, my favorite color, the kind of girls I like, all of that stuff that’s just not true and I never said it. All I ask is that my fans don’t believe everything they read,” Sawa cautions.
The young star says his next film is a small role in “A Cool, Dry Place” opposite “Swingers” star Vince Vaughn. He plays the troubled younger brother of Vaughn’s girlfriend. “I took the part just to be in a film with Vince. I loved ‘Swingers’ and the script. But it’s very different from ‘Wild America,’ ” he says.
“I loved ‘Wild America’ because I got to do a lot of action stuff and ‘Stand by Me’ is one of my favorite films. It reminded me of that. I’m a little like my character Mark in that, yeah, OK, I like girls a lot and I was always the class clown. But I liked the way this character grew and changed in the film.”
And what about the third star of “Wild America”?
Character transformation is what drew Bairstow to the role of Marty. Now starring opposite Kevin Costner in the upcoming “The Postman,” Bairstow, 27, is a bit reluctant to be pegged as a heartthrob to the younger crowd. Married with a 2-year-old son named Casey, he starred in TV’s “Lonesome Dove” and turned up on an “X-Files” episode. Bairstow believes he hasn’t “broken through” yet but expects the latest film could help.
“You know, I’m like Jonathan and Devon. I’m thankful for fans whatever their ages,” he says. “But Devon and Jonathan . . . they’re the heartthrobs. They’re the ones the girls will come to see.”
(Left to right) Actors Devon Sawa, Scott Bairstow, and Jonathan Taylor Thomas attend the "Wild America" Westwood Premiere on June 30, 1997 at Mann Village Theatre in Westwood, California. (Photography via Alamy-Photoshelter)
Jonathan Taylor Thomas and company: Wild boys
By Meg Richards, Associated Press writer
SouthCoast Today
Published July 13, 1997 | Updated January 10, 2011
They look like brothers. They act like brothers. It's easy to believe they'd take off and do something daring and perhaps a tad reckless this summer ... something that would surely make their parents cringe.
In the new film, "Wild America," they do.
The true-adventure story stars Jonathan Taylor Thomas, 15; Devon Sawa, 18; and Scott Bairstow, 27. They play the daredevil Stouffer brothers, naive filmmakers who left their family's home in rural Arkansas to spend the summer of 1967 documenting America's vanishing wilderness.
On a recent trip to promote the new Warner Bros. movie, the three bright and all-too-wholesome actors were wolfing down a New York pizza and giggling about inside jokes the way brothers do.
They're competitive. They compare stories and photos from the movie, trade wisecracks, and finish each other's sentences.
Mr. Thomas, who is best-known for his role as Randy on the long-running series "Home Improvement," won hearts all over the world as the voice of young Simba in "The Lion King."
Remarkably intelligent and precociously outspoken, Mr. Thomas has no trouble keeping pace with his older co-stars. Mr. Sawa and Mr. Bairstow, both natives of Canada, have appeared on the acclaimed miniseries, "Lonesome Dove."
So, let's start with the basics Who are you, what do you do and how old are you?
JTT (Jonathan Taylor Thomas): I’m Jonathan Taylor Thomas, I play Marshall, and I'm 75 years old. Going on 16.
SB (Scott Bairstow): You've got to get that 'almost 16' part in ...
JTT: Well, I'm just so HAPPY about it!
DS (Devon Sawa): I was happy, too. It's a big year.
SB: I can't believe you're actually going to be in control of an automobile.
JTT: (wounded) I've been driving for nine months now! Since I turned 15. In Los Angeles. I drive to work every day.
Do you have brothers and do they pull pranks on you like the ones in the movie?
JTT: I have an older brother, so I definitely know what that's like ...
SB: I was a younger brother, too, you know, and I often got pinned down and had saliva dripped into my mouth ... you know, drool torture ... stuff like that.
DS: Drool torture! We didn't have enough of that on the set.
JTT: Speak for yourself!
SB: It was nice for me, anyway, to have the tables turned and get to invoke a little of the abuse.
Did you do your own stunts in the movie?
DS: 99 percent, we did.
JTT: But you know, they wanted to keep us alive, since that seemed to be in everyone's best interest. They did what was appropriate.
SB: Do you know what chiggers are? Little biting bugs. These guys got attacked by chiggers in the swamp scene. I didn't have to get in the water. I stayed in the boat and I was chigger-free.
That was actually filmed in a swamp?
SB: Actually what they did was they made a set in a swimming pool, with swamp water.
DS: No, it wasn't the swamp water, it was the swamp plants that the bugs rode in on.
JTT: And they also brought in snakes, which were carried with the plants. Two snakes. We arrived in Canada and changed our clothes and we were covered in red spots from those bugs. It was not enjoyable.
SB: Oh, and I got hit by a guy in a bear suit. In the cave, when I was holding the camera up, and he knocked it out of my hand ... he hit me in the side of the temple. He had, like this 4-by-4 block that they had to walk on, like stilts. That hurt. It was like, KRRAURKHHHH.
If you could go on a road trip what would you do?
JTT: I'd like to travel the mountains of Nepal.
DS: I’d like, actually, to go camping in like, South America or Africa. I think that would be great. You know, somewhere where you have to live on berries and ants and stuff ...
SB: There's a place where I just finished filming ... there's this guy who bought an island off of Thailand, with a little cabana, and I think I'd like to go there. Just hang out on the beach, with these crystal-clear waters.
Is there anything really daring that you'd like to do?
JTT: I’d like to climb Mount Everest. (The other two stare at him.) I really would, I think that would be fun.
DS: The most daring thing I'd like to do is have sex with Madonna. (embarrassed, laughing) Uh, I mean, Uh, Dennis Rodman, Uh I mean uh...
SB: (intervening, in a big-brotherly manner) Ooooh-kay! The most daring thing I think I'd like to do is just get through this interview, oh my GOD! No. I'm kidding!
Photo by The Associated Press
The stars of "Wild America" -- actors Jonathan Taylor Thomas, 15; Devon Sawa, 18, and Scott Bairstow, 27 -- pose in New York. In the movie, they play the daredevil Stouffer brothers, naive filmmakers from Arkansas who travel the wilderness.
Teen Magazine February 1997 | Volume 41, Issue 2.
“We were laughing so hard during this photo shoot that when I went home, my face hurt,” says Jonathan Taylor Thomas of his in-front-of-the-camera reunion with Wild America costars Devon Sawa and Scott Bairstow. Interviews with all three Wild boys start on page 40.
By Maureen Basura
Photography by Greg Gorman
JTT time
Jonathan Taylor Thomas has had a long day. Up at 5:30 a.m. to get in the shower, on the road at six for his commute to the studio for rehearsal, script updates and lots of waiting. This day, they were using special effects in one of Jonathan’s scenes, which wasn’t working as planned. So the time that he sat waiting for the crew took chunks out of this in-demand 15-year-old phenom’s crazed schedule.
Since his leap into film, time has been one thing that Jonathan can’t get enough of.
Hiatuses away from Home Improvement have been filed with movie-making, first with The Lion King, Man of the House, Tom and Huck, then The Adventures of Pinocchio, and last summer, Wild America, co-starring Devon Sawa and Scott Bairstow. And now that he’s finally a freshman, school is tougher too. ‘In high school, studies take more time. My subjects aren’t easy like they used to be! I have to study a lot. And this is really when it matters. I know everything I do now will prepare me for college. I want to be well-rounded and go to a top university.”
Because of his desire to simultaneously be a student and a superstar, it’s no surprise that one of his major role models is actress/director Jodie Foster. “She was a child actor who went to a great school and came back to Hollywood more successful than before.”
After duplicating her stint at an Ivy League college, Jonathan would like to take a turn, like Jodie, at directing. Maybe that’s why Jonathan doesn’t think school ends when he leaves his tutor to go back to the set. With every project he’s on, he’s looking and absorbing information about what moviemakers do behind the camera to make their magic. “Everything I do I look at as great learning experience. I get to learn the technical aspect and also learn how to improve my acting.”
With a jam-packed schedule like JTT’s, it’s no surprise that he doesn’t have much time for a social life. But one thing he did get to do was go to last year’s Valentine’s Day dance at his regular school, and he plans to do the same this year. Any idea yet who the lucky girl will be? No, but like any girl who wants to share time with JTT, she’ll have to meet his strict demands for a date: Be a great conversationalist and be able to have serious discussions but also be comfortable enough to have some fun.
Fun is high priority in his life, says this admitted permanent prankster. That’s why he had such a blast while on location filming Wild America, due out this summer. Playing the youngest of three bros who go on a cross-country trip to film endangered wildlife was a challenge because he had to put up with more than his fair share of grief from his two older costars, both on and off the set. “They would try to justify it by saying that it would build my character!”
In addition to some serious character building, the guys got to do some major brother-style bonding during the two and a half months they spent filming Wild. They went to movies, out to eat—and got a kick out of the funny looks they occasionally got from fans who got a triple dose of the three drop-dead gorgeous dudes out on the town while on location in Savannah, Georgia.
But for now, Jonathan is back in the reality of his working life. As we wind up our conversation, talk turns to the horrors of an evening commute in Los Angeles and the homework that awaits, and once again he’s sounding kinda like the typical guy next-door. Yeah, right!
Birthday: September 8
Sign: Virgo
Birthplace: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Favorite Valentine’s Day memory: “In second grade, the last time I was in regular school for Valentine’s Day. I remember it was fun to make a list of who to give candy to and then I brought those candies that taste like chalk to everyone.”
Valentine’s Day on the set of Wild America: “A male bear noticed a female bear and was very interested. The trainer had to give them something like beer to calm them both down!”
Favorite gift to receive on Valentine’s Day: Nothing material: “Just spend a whole day having fun with the person I care about.”
On his on-screen brothers: “Devon and Scott and I looked like we could be related!”
Favorite TV shows: ER, Roseanne, Chicago Hope, News Radio
‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ featuring Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Pinocchio), Martin Landau (Geppetto), and others… released July 26, 1996 by ...
