Christians in Cinema

Actor - “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl”

As a father of 5 children and a resident of Chicago (home of the American Girl Doll company), Chris O’Donnell is very familiar with the American Girl Dolls. As an actor whose roles range from superhero to veterinarian, Musketeer to millionaire, he can obtain a seat in almost any restaurant, no matter how long the waiting list. The one exception? The American Girl tea room.

I want to try to show different sides of myself.

In “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl,” Chris plays Mr. Kittredge, the father of Kit (Abigail Breslin). When his automobile dealership goes out of business during the early days of the Great Depression, he goes to Chicago to try and find work to support his family.

This film deals with a serious subject matter, and one thing I noticed is that a couple of fathers left. How do you think this will affect little kids watching this film?

Chris:  I think kids will connect with it at different levels, depending on their personal circumstances; whether their family is going through foreclosure, or their dad is off in Iraq, or something else. What’s great about this film is it really is a “G-rated” movie, which is hard to find these days. If it is G, it’s either a cartoon or there’s some religious group behind it, and you’re a little freaked out by the whole message that’s being portrayed there.

I took my eight-year-old to see it and she loved it. Kids get so caught up in the adventure in the tree house and who are the bad guys. When we were walked out of the theater, she started asking me, “Why did they lose their house?” and other questions. Some of these discussions are very timely right now.

So I think that as a parent bringing your kid to the movies, that’s a home run. It’s tough enough taking your kids to some of these movies they want to see, but I really enjoyed sitting through it. My boys were like, “Well, do we have to go to the premiere? I don’t want to go.” And after having seen it, I said, “Yeah, you’re coming! You’re going to like it!” And I think they will.

You have five kids. Any more?

Chris:  In the words of Roberto Duran, “No mas.”

Are your daughters into American Girl?

Chris:  Oh yes. I’ve done the whole American Girl deal for years because I grew up in Chicago, and had nieces even before I had my own daughters. My niece does some print work, and she’s a child model in Chicago. She was Kit in the catalog. When you look at the catalog and it has the Kit doll, there is a little girl that’s dressed just like the doll in it. That’s my niece. She came to visit on the set, and had a lot of fun.

Have you gone to the tea room?

Chris:  That’s the hardest reservation to get. At Christmas time, to get a reservation at the American Girl Café is really hard. I even had my publicist call last time; it’s so ridiculous. I can get into any “A” restaurant you want, except the American Girl Café.

Kit could very easily have been a little boy and the story wouldn’t have been that different.

What are your impressions of working with Abigail?

Chris:  I think she’s a really talented and smart girl. You definitely forget she’s 11 years old after doing a few takes with her. You can tell when you’re acting with someone and do a few takes and have things switched up a little bit. You observe them (kind of like playing ball with another actor) and see how they react and if they’re really listening.

She’s a very good listener. And I don’t mean by me or the director telling her what to do, but just listening to adjustments we’re making, and her making adjustments. She gets it, she’s just very good. She’s so in touch with her emotions. She can tear up at the drop of a hat. She’s so believable.

At the same time, she’s still a kid. She’s still very wide-eyed and energetic and enthusiastic like kids. If you talk to her about what’s going on, and they’re going to a mall or something, she’ll tell you, she’s so excited. She’s got things in perspective. She gets excited about going to a mall and having $40 to spend.

She’ll say, “Oh, I did Jay Leno last night, and my brother did it the night before. It was fun. BUT, on Thursday, we’re going to the mall!”

I think if that’s an act, she’s the best child actor I’ve ever seen, because she seems really genuine.

What about your kids? They’ve grown up with a famous dad. How do you help them keep their feet on the ground?

Chris:  I think that it comes in waves what they’re interested in. My 5-year-old is really interested that I was in Batman right now. We just moved to a new house, and when I was moving boxes around, he found two boxes full of Batman toys. I hadn’t given them to the kids because I was saving them for the 2-year-old and the 6-month-old.

He said, “What’s in that box? I wish I had a Robin clock!”

I looked in the box, and sure enough, you could see the clock, and I asked him, “Do you want that Robin clock?” and he said, “Yeah.”

So I get it for him, then he wants to watch the movie and he’s asking questions. He’s really into the scene in the laundry where Robin does this thing with the socks or something. So now his big thing is saying, “Dad,” then imitating what I did in the film.

I just got offered my fourth role as a priest in the last six weeks

Lilly gets excited about it. They’ve only really seen the 3 Musketeers and the Batman films. We don’t have TiVo any more, but you can type in someone’s name and see a list of all the movies they’re in. So I typed in my name and recorded some of my movies.

The other night I showed them “Circle of Friends.” Then I showed them this rugby scene from “School Ties” where I catch the ball, and they say, “Do the football catch again, Dad, do the catch again!” They don’t even know what these movies are.

Do any of your kids want to go into acting also?

Chris:  My daughter Lilly (8) claims she does, but I think if you actually pointed a camera at her, she’d freak out. That’s fine, but if she’s serious and wants to do it, we’ll support her. She does talent shows at school, and there are some kids are really talented. There’s a 7-year-old that can actually play guitar and another will sing “Edelweiss” all by herself.

Lilly will be the one who will organize her group. She’ll have four other girls with her and they’ll do some Hilary Duff or Hannah Montana song. She’ll choreograph dance moves for the whole thing. They don’t actually sing, they lip-sync. So until she actually starts singing, we won’t really know if she’s got real talent or not.

She’s going to come with me to the next couple of premieres and be my date so that will be fun.

What’s cool about this movie is that it’s for girls and it’s about something more than image and popularity, something you don’t always get from girls’ entertainment.

The whole American Girl Doll thing in general is really done well. Julia Ormond was talking about that, and she also made a good point that Kit could very easily have been a little boy and the story wouldn’t have been that different. It’s because it’s an “American Girl” movie that it’s really being sold to little girls.

But like I said, my boys are going to like it. At first, I thought, well, we’ll see. I did this screening for my daughter’s school, and all these girls came. I didn’t even bother to bring the boys because they’re going to see it next week, but they’re going to love it.

You mentioned you took this project because your daughter is into American Girl™. What are some of the key elements you look for in a project?

Chris:  It’s always different. First of all, good writing. There are a lot of scripts I see that I just struggle to read, and I wonder why I’m struggling. Then I realize, “Oh, it’s just bad.”

Some things you fly through and think, “Oh, this is so good, there’s not a chance I’m going to get this.”

So you try to find the ones you think you’ll fit into for different reasons. I also try to find something different. Not that I want to play crazy roles, but I’ve had a lot of characters that have been very reactive, like working with Al Pacino in “Scent of a Woman,” and I’ve had that a lot. So I’d like to have characters that are a little bit more proactive.

I want to try to show different sides of myself. The problem is people get certain images of you and want to see you do it again. They’ll say, “Oh, yeah, he’d be perfect for the part.”

I was telling someone, and I’m not joking, that I just got offered my fourth role as a priest in the last six weeks, and I’m not interested. Maybe if it were a priest with a secret, maybe I’d be interested, but I’m not playing “Father” right now.

What’s your next project?

Chris:  It’s a film called “Max Payne” with Mark Wahlberg, and I might do another movie this summer, but I haven’t locked into it yet. We’ll see. It’s dead right now.

Are you worried about the actors’ strike?

Chris:  I think everybody is. The town is still kind of reeling from the writers’ strike. These are kind of miserable economic times in general, and you don’t necessarily want to strike, but you’ve got to make sure you’re getting a fair deal. There are a lot of different mediums, and have to make sure everyone’s being compensated.

It’s a really difficult time to have children in our culture. You hear horror stories every day about things happening to children. Does that worry you with your kids?

Chris:  The only thing that scares me is all these social network sites: FaceBook and MySpace type things. I think kids should be really careful because things could come back to haunt them.

You hear about this girl that hung herself because of things on the Internet. It’s brutal; kids can be brutal. If it’s on the Internet or print, it’s even worse. Kids need to be really careful, because this stuff really doesn’t go away. Kids think it’s funny.

If someone had had a camera phone when I was in college, it wouldn’t be good. I wouldn’t want to see any of the stuff I did on the Internet. You see some of these photos of these girls in college, and you think, “Someone’s looking at somebody’s daughter.”

But I don’t think it’s any worse now than it has been; there’s always danger out there, but it’s always changing.