JONATHAN TAYLOR THOMAS: The boy who would be Pinocchio
By Luaine Lee, Scripps Howard News Service
South Coast Today
Published Aug. 11, 1996 | Updated Jan. 10, 2011
He's only 14 and has been acting for seven years, but Jonathan Taylor Thomas (the middle son on "Home Improvement") could teach craggy veterans a few things.
Usually interviews with child actors range from catatonic to hyperkinetic, with someone either talking FOR them or AT them.
Not Jonathan. He still sports the smooth, powdery skin of a boy, but to hear him talk you'd think his arteries were hardening.
His mother sits behind him, unobtrusively against the wall. She doesn't monitor what he's saying or fill in the blanks. Obviously, she thinks Jonathan can fend for himself.
With his latest movie, "Pinocchio," his next, "Wild America," completed, and ABC's "Home Improvement" due back for another season -- Jonathan could afford a swagger or two.
"Hollywood is as competitive as soccer," says the lad, who played team soccer for eight years.
"I try not to worry about that. I just try and have fun, like the game of soccer. Yes, the pressure does get to you, but the ultimate goal is to have fun and just enjoy it.
"If I wasn't having fun and didn't think this was an interesting thing to do, I wouldn't be doing it. I'd just say, 'Forget it. I'll be a regular kid.'"
Humble though he is, Jonathan is no "regular kid." Last year he was in an accelerated program for gifted students, but now he's studying exclusively with a tutor. His favorite subjects are history, science and geography.
He's the swoon-master for pre-pubescent girls, the Brad Pitt of the Z-Generation, and he manages to charm the adults who work with him, too.
Steve Barron, director of "Pinocchio," says that it took someone special to energize the part of the wooden puppet.
"We knew that however the puppet was going to behave, his whole spirit had to come from the vocal track because that's what we did first," says Mr. Barron.
"And we got that performance, his rhythms and spirit, and put that into the puppet. This kid is clever. He's a clever actor and a good performer. Anybody less than that would've weakened the puppet ... "
Jonathan (who will be 15 on Sept. 8) first got the idea of acting from a commercial on television.
"When I was 7 I saw an ad for modeling and print work, and it just looked like fun to me. It looked like something I might want to try. I was playing soccer at the same time and it was sort of the same thing -- just fun, just enjoying it. I ended up having a great time doing it and it escalated from there. It started changing and I was doing more things, to a certain point, which is where we are now."
Even so, it's not all Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory, even for him. There are difficult times.
"The hardest thing is the amount of time spent away from your family and friends. And you have to give up a lot -- not being able to do things you necessarily want to do. But the upside is you get to meet extraordinary people and do things that most people don't get to do. Experience is what it's all about -- what I'm gaining will help me later on in life."
The Pennsylvania-born youth has an 18-year-old brother, Joel, who is not an actor. He and Joel live with their mother, who has a master's degree in social work and helps manage Jonathan's career.
Three years ago, he explains, his parents were separated. Today he doesn't mention his father.
As for friends, that's not a problem, he says, in spite of the buzz he causes wherever he goes.
"I'm a pretty good judge of character. I can pretty well pick out someone I know is my friend for who I am and not just because I'm an actor or what I do. I have a few close friends I know well, and I've known them for a long time ... They like being with me and they don't care about that stuff. We don't talk about it when we're around each other. We don't care about it. We just play and have a good time," he shrugs.
All this may sound too perfect for a kid with streaky blond hair and an impish grin, but he admits that he does have one major shortcoming.
"I'm a neat freak," he laughs. "I like things in order and tidy." With his hands he arranges imaginary boxes in a row.
Like other kids, he's assigned daily chores. He feeds the dog and two cats, cleans his room, makes his bed. But he isn't paid a regular allowance.
"I don't really make a lot of purchases, don't go on extravagant spending sprees. If I'm going to buy something it's a CD or a fishing rod. It's not gonna be anything (big)."
Brightening, he chirps, "I get a learner's permit in a couple of months, I'll be turning 15. So a car may be in the works way down the line. But I have to learn how to drive first."
In spite of movies like "Tom and Huck," "Man of the House," "Pinocchio," and "Home Improvement" approaching its sixth season, none of that seems to have gone to his head.
The secret, he says, is maintaining outside interests. "Not having all your energy focused into acting, having two separate lives where you have your work life and your play life and keeping those two extremely separate, never blending them together because if they become one, then everything is focused into acting. That's when kids get into trouble," he says, resting his chin in his hand.
"You want to be able to leave and see your friends and travel and do things you like to do, have outside interests and concentrate on education. Because you've seen it a million times, people can be on the top one day and then the next, at the bottom. And that's just how it goes. But at least if that happens, I think I'm prepared and have something to fall back on."
