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Jacob Tremblay walks in Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s teenage shoes in new Netflix drama alongside Russell Crowe.
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“I think a lot of it has to do with the people that I was able to surround myself with,” said Langley’s Tremblay, who began his acting career at age five and was just nine when the 2015 film Room was released to wide acclaim. “I’m really close with my team. I always had my parents (Jason and Christina) really close to me. Just having really trustworthy people in my life … really made a difference.”
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Tremblay adds that his successful navigation through the dangerous world of child stardom was aided greatly by his public school experience at Langley’s Gordon Greenwood Elementary and Walnut Grove Secondary (Class of 2024) in Langley.
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“Being able to go to public school made a big difference for me,” said Tremblay whose film credits include Before I Wake, Shut In, Wonder, The Book of Henry, and Luca.
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When Room blew up and Tremblay’s performance was heralded, he was off to Los Angeles on a regular basis for work. While it was “fun and exciting,” Tremblay said Hollywood “had the potential to get in your head.”
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But he understood that show business was a job and not a lifestyle.
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“My parents really did a good job at making sure that, when I came home, I just had a normal life growing up, and … spent time with my friends and went around on our bikes,” said Tremblay. “I really just had the best of both worlds. I always say this: It’s kind of feels like Hannah Montana in a way. I have a lot to thank them for.”
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Now on the verge of turning age 20, Tremblay’s latest film, Unabomber, is landing on Netflix on Sept. 25. The film, directed by Janus Metz Pedersen, tells two parts of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s story.
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One side is the life of 16-year-old Kaczynski (Tremblay), an American mathematician who became a domestic terrorist at age 36 when he sent his first bomb. He continued to do that for the next 18 years, killing three people and injuring 23 others before being caught in a remote cabin in Lincoln, Mont., in 1996. The other part of the story is set three-plus decades ahead to the tail end of the 17-year-long FBI manhunt for the Unabomber, the longest in the bureau’s history.
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Inspired by a true story, Unabomber traces Kaczynski’s story back to when, as a math prodigy, he skipped two high school grades and went off to Harvard at age 16. There, he came under the influence of Henry A. Murray, a Harvard psychologist and director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic.
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Played in the film by Russell Crowe, a fierce and frighteningly charismatic narcissist, Murray recruits Kaczynski and other undergraduates into a three-year study (1959-62) examining stress responses under aggressive and emotionally abusive mock interrogations.
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Crowe joins a strong list of bold-type actors Tremblay has already worked with during his career, including Brie Larson, Julia Roberts, Naomi Watts, Owen Wilson and Tom Hiddleston.
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“Getting to work with him was just amazing,” said Tremblay about the Academy Award-winning Crowe. “Being in his presence, I was learning so much from watching him work.”
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When Tremblay took on the role of Kaczynski, he dug deep into his well-documented adult story, including his manifesto titled Industrial Society and Its Future, which The Washington Post and The New York Times published on Sept. 19, 1995, because Kaczynski said he would desist his mail-bombing campaign if they did so. But while the Unabomber was a documented figure, young Kaczynski’s story wasn’t.
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“I was pretty free for the most part to put my own spin on it, just because it was a pretty blank canvas already,” said Tremblay, adding there were only a few pictures from Kaczynski’s childhood.
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There was, however, a shared experience that Tremblay was able to use to help inform his performance.
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“I’m kind of familiar with the feeling of being in a more mature setting at a young age,” said Tremblay. “That little bit of that awkwardness of not really fitting, I think I could kind of relate to for sure.”
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Managing that not-so-easy transition from child star to adult actor puts Tremblay in a solid position to offer advice to other kids embarking on careers in show business.
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“It’s really important to surround yourself with the right people every day, because what will happen is the wrong people will bring you to the wrong places, introduce you to the wrong things,” said Tremblay. “Be humble and treat others with respect and treat others how you wish to be treated. I think that’s always super-important.”
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Tremblay had a busy summer leading up to promoting this new film. In August, he wrapped the Vancouver-shot 4×4: The Event, an upcoming high-concept horror thriller movie directed by Alex Ullom and co-produced by Chris Ferguson and Osgood Perkins of Vancouver’s Phobos Pictures.
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“It was really nice. I hadn’t shot in Vancouver for a while,” said Tremblay. “It was a really fun shoot.”
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Tremblay’s next film to open is the stop-motion animated movie Wildwood. Opening in theatres Oct. 23, the film follows young teen Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) as she journeys into an enchanted forest to look for her missing baby brother who was abducted by a murder of crows. Tremblay, who has a very extensive voice acting resume, voices Prue’s best buddy, Curtis, who joins her in the search.
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