* (restored/expanded)
‘On a midwinter Friday at Guero’s restaurant in South Austin, Lukas Haas is about to muse on his life as an actor when he turns his attention to a harried waiter. The place is packed with a hyper, bustling lunch crowd ordering heaping plates of Tex-Mex, but the nineteen-year-old calmly fixes his enormous, bottomless brown eyes on the guy and orders only two corn tortillas and a glass of orange juice. “That’s it?” the puzzled waiter asks. “Really, that’s all I want,” he replies decisively.
‘It would be easy to read too much into the exchange—maybe Haas wasn’t hungry—but it serves well as a metaphor for his career to date. Eleven years ago, in his first major role, he shook the seats of moviegoers everywhere as the frightened title character in Witness, director Peter Weir’s thriller about an Amish boy who sees a murder at a train station and helps a detective (played by Harrison Ford) bring the perpetrators to justice. It was the kind of high-impact role that catapults a child performer to stardom, yet in the months and years that followed, Haas turned down big-budget projects in favor of smaller ones that touched his head and heart. Such pickiness meant taking parts in films that did not exactly qualify as box office hits, such as the thirties-era drama Rambling Rose and Leap of Faith, a satire about a traveling evangelist. Factor in the Haas family’s move from California to Texas three years after Witness and you can see how he slipped from the limelight and, despite working steadily, never again gained the recognition he earned as an eight-year-old.
‘That transition, from famous child to somewhat anonymous young adult, has not bothered Haas. In fact, he professes to be publicity shy—so it will be interesting to see how he greets the onslaught of accolades that await him this year, when he’ll be all over the big screen in four highly visible films. First comes Boys, a coming-of-age tale starring icon-of-her-generation Winona Ryder; it hits theaters at the end of April. Then there’s Johns, an independent flick about young male hustlers in Hollywood, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January and was picked up by a major distributor. Haas also has a role in Woody Allen’s latest, Everyone Says I Love You, a musical comedy that stars Alan Alda and Julia Roberts. And he has joined the cast of Tim Burton’s forthcoming sci-fi farce, Mars Attacks!, which features campy turns by Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, and Jack Nicholson as the president of the United States.
‘Haas would prefer not to fathom the possibilities of a return to full-throttled fame, though he knows enough to be thankful for whatever comes. It’s a wise stance, considering how many of his contemporaries crashed after their first star turns. Take Justin Henry, who broke into the business in a big way in Kramer vs. Kramer; after becoming the youngest actor ever nominated for an Oscar, he all but disappeared. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, take Macaulay Culkin, whose relentless precociousness has turned the country against him. Or take River Phoenix, who crafted his career as carefully as Haas has but eventually succumbed to Hollywood’s pitfalls and ended up overdosing at an L.A. nightclub. Perhaps the best model Haas can hope to emulate is Henry Thomas, who got the ultimate career kickoff in E.T. but has managed to stay centered ever since by carefully choosing the roles that best suit him (his last marquee performance was in Legends of the Fall) and splitting his time between Los Angeles and his native San Antonio, where he lives near his family and plays in a band.
‘“After Witness, I was really famous, but I don’t remember much—I think I was very protected,” Haas says. “I don’t know how I’ll react this time. I can’t predetermine that. I’m going to try to keep living the same way I’ve been living.”
‘How he’s been living depends on which day of the week or week of the month it is. He mainly divides his time between Austin, where he owns a condominium in one of the city’s older neighborhoods, and L.A., where he shares an apartment with his mother, screenwriter Emily Tracy (who shuttles back and forth to see her husband, painter Berthold Haas, and their eleven-year-old twins, Simon and Niki). There is no set breakdown on how much time Haas spends in each place, but there’s a big difference in what gets done there. “In Austin, I mainly stay in my house and record my keyboard music, read, or write,” he says. “L.A. is a party scene. I hang out with a lot of famous people out there. But not because they’re famous—that’s just the community.” Indeed, Haas insists his life is essentially the same wherever he is. “It’s not like, ‘Now I’m in Austin, so I’m changed.’ Austin provides a balance for me. I have old friends here who are non-industry and who are just as creative as a lot of my industry friends. I go off to New York or L.A. for a month and I’m with these stars. Then I come back and it’s a completely different world. It’s like real life.”
‘Not that Haas loathes the Fantasyland aspect of being a Hollywood actor. His celebrity comes with privileges, from star treatment on the sets of his films to fast friendships with show business gadabouts like rock star—auteur Michael Stipe and model-actress Liv Tyler. But it’s clear that Haas would rather the spotlight fall on someone other than him. Unlike, say, Culkin, Haas neither seeks reporters nor finds himself having to run from them. And when the spotlight does fall on him, his mother insists, he can handle it. “He’s seen many examples across the board—all the dead ends,” she says. “He’s watched what happens to people who get full of themselves and who buy their own press. Those things are just not interesting to him.”
‘One resonant example Haas has seen up close is his pal Leonardo DiCaprio, a heartthrob actor whose performances in This Boy’s Life and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (for which he earned an Oscar nomination) have made him a hot commodity. As public personas go, Haas and DiCaprio couldn’t be more dissimilar. DiCaprio’s handlers blitz the major magazines whenever he has a movie coming out; by contrast, even if all of Haas’s films this year are hits, it is impossible to imagine that he will pose seductively for the cover of Details. “Leo is in this amazing place right now,” Haas says. “People want to be like him. He’s idolized. But no one is as big as he’s projected to be. Leo is just a guy—he’s my friend.” Like all friends, though, these two have had their moments of rivalry: Each auditioned for This Boy’s Life and Gilbert Grape. Haas maintains he doesn’t care that DiCaprio got both roles. “We’re both very lucky because we make money doing art,” he says. “Why should I want to be him?”
‘As far back as anyone can remember, Lukas Haas has always known just what he wanted. When he was still preschool age and his family was still living in L.A., he saw a live taping of a TV show his mother had written and was immediately taken with acting. “Afterward, he put his arm around me and said, ‘Mommy, this is what I’m going to do, I’m going to be a star for a little while,’” Emily remembers with a laugh. Initially, she and Berthold were reluctant to allow their son to do what could be cruel and demeaning work, but Lukas was insistent. Eventually they let him audition, and he got a role alongside Jane Alexander in the no-nukes drama Testament. He was five and a half.
‘With that first experience, the Haases began a tradition of discussing roles with Lukas in great depth. “We paid attention very, very carefully to whatever project he wanted to do,” Berthold says. “We wanted to make sure it was something he liked and that we felt good about, so that when he saw it, he would feel it was worth it.” Choosing scripts and roles carefully was one thing, however; guaranteeing that a finished movie would meet the family’s expectations was quite another. “There are so many variables, so many different people affecting a movie,” Lukas says. “You could give the most beautiful performance in the world and if they wanted to make it crap, they could. Somebody else could ruin it.”
‘This sober realization taught Lukas early on to speak his mind on a set, a trait that risked getting him pegged as an enfant terrible. “I’d say the director-actor relationship is very strange,” he observes. “You can be friends with a director, but there is a fine line where one person has control and the other doesn’t. There have been times I’ve jumped into the director’s territory. It’s the director’s movie, of course, but it’s my movie too—it’s on my record.” Many directors seem to at least consider, if not agree with, Lukas’ suggestions. “He clearly has his own opinion about things,” says Stacy Cochran, who directed Boys. “But he’s not opposed to figuring out someone else’s idea.”’ — Texas Monthly
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Stills
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Further
Lukas Haas @ IMDb
Widows Proves Lukas Haas Is the King
Lukas Haas @ Apple Music
Lukas Haas @ Facebook
I Wonder What It’s Like to be Lukas Haas
Lukas Haas: Vigilante
LUKAS HAAS: Going Ape for YouTube Vids
L’authentique fusil de Jones (Lukas Haas) dans The Revenant
Lukas Haas @ Vogue
PROFILE: LUKAS HAAS
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Extras
Lukas Haas on ‘The Today Show’ Promoting ‘Lady In White’
Lucas/Lukas: Made for You
Lukas Haas in ‘T Takes’ Episode 7
Lukas Haas Talks Stepping Outside His Comfort Zone
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Interview
Collider: As an actor, in an industry that can and often is very unpredictable, what does that feel like to be in two films in Oscar contention, in the same year?
LUKAS HAAS: It’s been a great feeling this year. It’s pretty amazing because it’s hard, these days, to find a single film that you’re gonna be proud of, let alone to get cast in it. It’s hard to search out those really beautiful movies. And so, I’m just incredibly blessed. I feel so lucky. I don’t even really know what to think. I just got really lucky, and I was there at the right time.
It’s also very cool that they’re such different movies.
HAAS: I know. I actually did Widows first. I think somebody else was cast for that role and had to drop out, for whatever reason, and they were scrambling to find somebody quickly. My manager hit my up and asked me to self-tape, really quickly, that day. They were like, “You have to send it in now, or it’s gonna be too late.” So, I called my friend over and they helped me record it with my iPhone. I just read off of the page and sent them a little audition, and I got a call later that day from (director) Steve [McQueen] saying that I got the role. And then, I was in Chicago, two weeks later, for filming. It really just happened out of nowhere, and I was there for maybe a week, if that. Everything that I shot was packed into three days.
And then, First Man was the opposite. I was there for four months, or something like that, and there was a whole process. I got to go to NASA, see everything and ask every question, and we had astronauts escorting us through it. We went to not just Florida, but Houston, traveling from NASA to NASA and checking everything out. It was very, very cool. That whole part of the experience was the coolest film field trip that I’ve ever been on, for sure. That was the coolest preparation period that I’ve ever had. It was so cool. It’s just interesting how it took a few days to film one, and months to film the other. I love working and I love acting, so I like being on the set for a long time. I would have been happy to be in Chicago for a few months (for Widows), if it took that. And First Man was just the coolest film that I’ve ever seen being made. It’s hard to explain just how cool it was. I went to set every day, and it was just so rad working with Damien [Chazelle]. I’m a major fan of his, so I was especially excited about it. Everybody was excited about it. I’m not a fan kind of a guy, so when there’s someone that I really am a fan of, I’m extra excited to work with them.
I think Steven McQueen and Damien Chazelle are two of the most exciting filmmakers working today, and as exciting as their movies are now, I’m even more excited to see what they do, in the future. How was the experience of working with each of them? Were there any ways in which they approached filmmaking from a similar point of view, or are they very different filmmakers?
HAAS: They actually do have some similarities. They’re different personality types. Some directors are gregarious and loud and commanding, and some are more thoughtful. I’d definitely put Damien and Steve in that category. For my taste, of the people that I’ve worked with, Peter Weir (who directed Witness), Rian Johnson, who directed this movie Brick that I did, and Steve and Damien, all have this really lovely, warm, calm disposition. And Steve and Damien are incredibly generous directors. They listen. They’re engaged in the moment. They both want to know what you have to say, and they want to know what everyone has to say. They are so well-prepared. They’re living and breathing what they do, so there’s never any disconnect. Sometimes on a film, especially when you’ve been in a lot of them, you know the rhythm and what would be the right direction, going in. But with guys like them, you can see how they move through the day and through their scenes, and how they choose to shoot things. They’re both true artists. That’s what it boils down to. They’re trying to create something visceral, and they’re trying to connect, in a real way that’s special. I hope that there’s more of that in the world.
You’ve worked with some pretty great filmmakers, throughout your career. How would you compare working with Steven Spielberg to working with Christopher Nolan? Are there any similarities among those two?
HAAS: That’s interesting. So, I had a very particular experience with Steven Spielberg. I was really young when I first really worked with him. When I was in Amazing Stories, it was literally the most fun that I’d ever had on anything. The set was like a playground. We were shooting at Universal, too, which is almost like a ride. Steven would ask me, if I wanted to do it again, just because it was that fun. They would reset all of the spots, and a train would come through the house. There were all of these special effects that were in camera. I was a little kid, working with him, but he was so fun. He’s just awesome. He’s a special guy. Both Steven Spielberg and Chris Nolan are guys who are not aggressive, but are commanding type. Chris Nolan is definitely like that. He just has a vision, and he’s the commander-in-chief, for sure. He delegates. He has a very clear vision of the scene, and he sets up that scenario while the actors fit into it. Whereas with Damien [Chazelle], and people like that, at least in my experience, it’s way more about connecting to each other and working with each other. Chris is a little more of a guy who has this grand vision and he wants to execute it, and you’re a part of his palette. Really, that’s the case with any director, but some directors are more engaging, in the moment. They want to mine the actor to get what they’re looking to get.
I loved your performance in Widows because it’s such an interesting character. He’s this guy that seems like he’s saying all of the right things, but he’s also just very transactional and matter-of-fact. Having jumped into that role as quickly as you did, did you have time to find that balance and how you wanted to play him?
HAAS: A lot of those dynamics were just built into the role, so all you had to do, as an actor, in that case, was get out of the way. What was really important for him is to be charming, so that you believe that she would want to go with him, even though the scenario is maybe not something she would normally do. I recognized that, and I went into it with the very simple goal of trying to charm her. The transactional thing was funny because he’s not a bad guy. He’s in the middle somewhere. When you see the film, you’re not sure about him, but the truth is that he’s actually, at least from my perspective, being honest with her. He was not just trying to sleep with her and never talk to her again. He explained himself to her and told her where he’s coming from, and he was pretty clear and honest about it, from the beginning. That’s what’s cool about Steve [McQueen] and (writer) Gillian [Flynn].
He’s an interesting character that has these different sides. From the way that I looked at it, he’s a guy who was scared of the commitment part of it and was nervous about the closer connection. At least, that’s how I played it. It could’ve been that he was lying and he had a family, but I didn’t think of it that way. I thought of him as a guy who just had trouble with intimacy and didn’t know how to really let himself go that way, so the transactional thing was good for him. He used that to be able to get to a woman, and to protect himself, emotionally. It was a really interesting role. You have to think of the character’s motives, and all he really is trying to do is impress her and make her like him, so that’s all I was doing. I kept it pretty simple like that. And Steve was just so generous and warm. I think he could tell that I was on the nervous side. I hadn’t really been in a situation like that in a bit, with a big role in a big movie, and he was just so encouraging and warm and helpful and attentive. He was just there, supporting me and rooting for me. He’s a cool guy, and it was just a cool experience.
When you do such great work, especially like these last couple of films, does it make it harder for you to find things that you get excited about?
HAAS: No, it doesn’t, only because it opens some doors. You go through phases, as an actor. It changes, all the time. The whole business has changed so much, too. You never know if you’re gonna find something that you’re gonna like. That’s why it’s so exciting to get two of them in one year, like that. But, that’s rare for me. I just try to do the movies that I really connect to and that I really love, but there aren’t that many of them out there. You can’t always just do what you love, unfortunately but you try to get as close as you can. But I’m getting some scripts now, that I wouldn’t have gotten before these movies, so it opens up that side of things. It’s great. It’s such a nice way to establish yourself again, for the movies that are contender types, which are the kind of movies that I love to make and are consistent with my early career. Honestly, I’ve gotten super lucky. I’ve worked hard for it, but it still takes a lot of good fortune and good timing.
Do you know what you’re going to do next, as an actor, or are you in the process of trying to figure that out?
HAAS: My next film is called The Violent Heart, by this guy named Kerem Sanga. His last movie (First Girl I Loved) won an award at Sundance, two years ago, and that was a beautiful movie. The script is really cool and it’s a really cool role, so I’m excited. I start filming that in February.
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20 of Lukas Haas’s 103 roles
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Peter Weir Witness (1985)
‘While his first screen role was as the youngest of the doomed children in the 1983 nuclear Holocaust film Testament (1983), it was his second appearance, in Witness (1985) opposite Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis, that earned attention and acclaim. In Peter Weir’s 1985 film, Lukas portrayed Samuel, an Amish child who was the sole witness to an undercover cop’s murder, and his work earned him starring roles in such films as Lady in White (1988), The Wizard of Loneliness (1988), and Alan & Naomi (1992) – the latter film co-written by his mother.’ — IMDb
Excerpt
Excerpt
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Frank LaLoggia Lady in White (1988)
‘It’s kind of tricky reviewing a movie like this. Almost nothing I can say will accurately reflect the tone of the film. I can write about ghosts and killers and strange old ladies, and I could be describing a much different film. But “Lady in White,” like most good films, depends more on style and tone than it does on story, and after awhile it’s the whole insidious atmosphere of the film that begins to envelop us. Like the best ghost stories of M. R. James and Oliver Onions, who were the best in their classic field, “Lady in White” is finally not really about being frightened by ghosts, but about feeling pity for them.’ — Roger Ebert
Trailer
Deleted scenes
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Martha Coolidge Rambling Rose (1991)
‘Nineteen-year-old Rose (Laura Dern) arrives at the Hillyer house to take care of 13-year-old Buddy (Lukas Haas) and his younger brother and sister. “You are as graceful as the capital letter S,” Mr. Hillyer (Robert Duvall) tells her. “You will adorn our house. You will give a glow and a shine to these old walls.” After she’s there a while, Rose discovers her best ally is Mrs. Hillyer (Diane Ladd). The older woman is, like Rose, an orphan. She seems to intuitively understand Rose’s need for attention and her yearning to find “Mr. Right.” Only trouble is, Rose doesn’t know how to express her emotions appropriately. She shocks Mr. Hillyer one day by declaring her love for him. He resists her advances, but Buddy and his young sister see it all. They are fascinated. Later, the distraught Rose turns to the teenager for consolation. He provides it freely in exchange for the chance to satisfy his curiosity about female anatomy.’ — S&P
Trailer
Excerpt
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Richard Pearce Leap of Faith (1992)
‘Steve Martin stars as Jack Newton a.k.a. Jonas Nightengale as a Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show huckster born in the Bronx and abandoned to a hardscrabble life of con games and crime. Debra Winger plays Jane, his front person behind the scenes who sets up “miracles” and other well known mentalist con artist tricks that let them roam the Deep South making a comfortable living on gullible believers along with his sizable church posse which includes Meat Loaf as bus driver. He packs revival meetings with an impressive array of charismatic black choirs, stunning stage effects and other gimmicks that, as he says to Liam Neeson, the skeptical sheriff of fictional Rustwater, Kansas, “sells hope to his victims more than an expensive Broadway show”. Because of a truck breakdown in drought stricken and struggling, farm town Rustwater, Martin takes the opportunity to turn a quick dollar even though the population is nearly broke and praying desperately for rain soon for their corn crops which they pin their last economic hopes on. But he ends up getting more than the usual push back and reaction when a boy named Boyd, played by Lukas Haas, looks to Martin for healing after being crippled in a deadly auto accident which also orphaned him.’ — writersalive
Trailer
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Stacy Cochran Boys (1996)
‘“Boys,” the film that wants to make a man of Lukas Haas, is beset by growing pains, and not all of them belong to the gawky young actor. Stretched from a short story called “Twenty Minutes,” this flat, oddly paced mystery/coming-of-age drama might have been better served sticking to that time length. As it is, “Boys,” pairing Haas with “older woman” Winona Ryder, is as vague and unfocused as its title, and Stacy Cochran’s direction promises far more than her script delivers.’ — Variety
Trailer
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Woody Allen Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
‘Everyone Says I Love You is Woody at his most fun and freewheeling, tossing gags and digressions around virtually at random; he’s perfectly happy to put the flimsy narrative (an extended family’s romantic foibles) on hold for several minutes to stage a routine involving a dozen Groucho Marx impersonators. It’s essentially a companion piece to Radio Days, but in this case the nostalgia is present-tense, with Allen replaced as narrator by Natasha Lyonne’s still-evolving teen. You can see the beginning of Woody’s latter-day laziness as a writer here—a recurring bit with Lukas Haas as a Young Republican in a family of liberals is beyond feeble (though it has a great punchline)—but his comic timing was still comparatively razor-sharp, and this was pretty much the last gasp of his career as an improbable romantic lead.’ — AV Club
Trailer
Excerpt
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Scott Silver Johns (1996)
‘“Johns,” a movie about male prostitutes in Los Angeles, has a moment that offers a key to the film: Tourists offer a hustler $20 to pose in a snapshot with them. They want to show the folks back home that they’ve not only seen the sights, they’ve met the locals. The movie stars Lukas Haas and David Arquette as Donner and John, who work Santa Monica Boulevard, nurtured by their dreams: John wants to spend his 21st birthday in a luxury hotel room, and Donner wants them both to take the bus to Branson, Mo. Donner is gay and loves John; John says he’s straight and working only for the money, and he does have a girlfriend, although the relationship is fleeting and chancy.’ — Roger Ebert
Trailer
the entire film
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Tim Burton Mars Attacks! (1996)
‘Mars Attacks! started out the way so many films do: as a pricey, feature-length adaptation of a series of scandalous Topps trading cards from the early 1960s. Basically, the kind of movie you make when you know that nobody will tell you “no.” An early version of the project would’ve carried a budget of over $200 million, which would be expensive today and would have been patently absurd 20 years ago. Yet these were the ‘90s, a time when studios would still throw unreasonable amounts of money at speculative projects by noted auteur filmmakers. (It’s the sad genesis of today’s bloated, brand-minded filmmaking: Hollywood kept the overpriced franchise starters and sequels, but pared down on all the volatile, excessively paid filmmakers that made so many of them worth watching.) All this for a movie about hideous, green aliens destroying Earth with laser beams. Burton dug deep into his bag of aesthetic tricks in order to make what really is essentially a stunt-cast Wood film with $70 million at its disposal instead of a few grand at a time. The Topps series imagined the colonization of Earth by the brain-exposed Martians, who wreak havoc until Earth fights back by detonating nukes on Mars, ensuring our continued intergalactic sovereignty. (The postwar ‘60s, everyone.) At the time, some were upset by the surprisingly graphic violence of some of the cards; even today, there’s something a little horrifying beneath the garish, cartoonish designs about the ugliness of its version of the end of the world.’ — Consequence of Sound
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Excerpt
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Alan Rudolph Breakfast of Champions (1999)
‘Getting Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical novel on film was a challenge both Rudolph and Bruce Willis were eager to meet, and the resultant movie shows them both taking creative risks. Midwestern auto dealership proprietor Willis keeps smiling even as things become unmoored with wife Barbara Hershey and son Lukas Haas, mistress Glenne Headly, colleague Nick Nolte, et al. Vonnegut’s recurring Kilgore Trout character is played by the great Albert Finney.’ — Quad Cinema
Excerpt
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Rian Johnson Brick (2005)
‘With its peculiar metabolism, “Brick” has digested the detective novel, drawn its nutrients from Dashiell Hammett’s potent prose. It’s not the champagne of the “Thin Man.” Or Spade’s scotch and soda. It’s “Red Harvest” rotgut. This won’t be to everyone’s taste. Some will gag on it. But there’s something undeniably bracing in what Johnson serves up. Something strong and promising.’ — Denver Post
Trailer
Deleted & Extended Scenes
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Gus Van Sant Last Days (2005)
‘Gus Van Sant does a remarkable job with this film – “Last Days.” Nothing much happens, there is not a lot of dialogue but what we see, experience, is the slow demise of an individual into oblivion. We are observers, albeit at a distance. The urge maybe there to intervene; deliberately evoked by the structure of Van Sant’s film. We want to say: ‘You do not have to go on like this. We can help.’ The structure is like a memory recalled. We keep going over it, adding bits as we do to try to make more sense, but never arriving at a definitive version. We especially hope that when the advertising salesman calls to the house and Blake lets him in,that he will engage with the man and forget his morose preoccupations. But the gulf between the two is unbridgeable. The nadir of the film is when Blake, left alone by his friends in the rehearsal room, starts to play on his guitar. His voice echoes his inner anguish, rising from a low to a high and then back to a low. He even manages to break a string on the guitar, but dexterously pulls the string while continuing the song. How could such music come out of such gloom? This is the paradox of creativity — of trying to give form to ideas, not yet realized. We wait in anticipation, incapable of giving directions. Blake is constantly trying to evade the intrusion of others but cannot transcend his own self, of being in the world. The final intrusion finds him not there; he is dead.’ — dliathain
Trailer
the entire film
Lukas Haas interviewed about ‘Last Days’
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Derek Sieg Swedish Auto (2006)
‘“Swedish Auto” marks the debut of a singular talent in Derek Sieg, writer-helmer of this charming, poignant drama about marginalized people. Carter (sad-eyed Lukas Haas), a character who seems like a combination of Holden Caulfield and Boo Radley, was orphaned long ago by a car crash. Carter now is the go-to mechanic in a Charlottesville, Va., auto garage run by Leroy (Lee Weaver) and staffed by Carter and Leroy’s ill-tempered son, Bobby (Chris Williams). Haas covers the waterfront of emotions, never missing a beat; he and Jones are adorable as the oddly matched couple who are treated badly, mostly because their abusers can get away with it. There’s a well-calibrated naivete at the heart of “Swedish Auto,” which together with Richard Lopez’s expert cinematography and Sieg’s creative use of a limited budget, make the movie a study in state-of-the-art-indie filmmaking.’ — Variety
Trailer
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Christopher Nolan Inception (2010)
‘Not that anyone doubts it at this point (or at least shouldn’t), but we were one of the first sites (if not the first), to call out Lukas Haas’ participation, via the original trailer, in Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and an all-star supporting cast (Haas is also a longtime pal of DiCaprio’s who hung out with him in their early bratpack days after he became huge with “Titanic”).’ — The Playlist
Trailer
Excerpt
Lukas Haas at the “Inception” premiere
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Steven Spielberg Lincoln (2012)
‘Lincoln lacked social polish but he had great intelligence and knowledge of human nature. The hallmark of the man, performed so powerfully by Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln,” is calm self-confidence, patience and a willingness to play politics in a realistic way. The film focuses on the final months of Lincoln’s life, including the passage of the 13th Amendment ending slavery, the surrender of the Confederacy and his assassination. Rarely has a film attended more carefully to the details of politics.’ — Roger Ebert
Trailer
Featurette
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Jane Clark Meth Head (2013)
‘The haunted little boy in Lady in White (1988), the alien-fighting teen in Mars Attacks! (1996), and the imperious drug kingpin known as The Pin in Brick (2005) are just a few of his memorable roles. But now he’s taking the lead in the new indie drama Meth Head, as a young man who falls into a Shame-like spiral after getting hooked on the stuff that makes even the most clean-cut souls break bad.’ — EW
Trailer
Cruz Haas+Interview
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Alejandro G. Iñárritu The Revenant (2015)
‘The Revenant is a 2015 American semi-biographical epic western film directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. The screenplay by Mark L. Smith and Iñárritu is based in part on Michael Punke’s 2002 novel of the same name, describing frontiersman Hugh Glass’s experiences in 1823. That novel is in turn based on the 1915 poem The Song of Hugh Glass. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, and Lucas Haas.’ — collegedome
Trailer
Monica Bellucci, Lukas Haas and more at The Revenant Premiere in Paris
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Steve McQueen Widows (2018)
‘Lukas Haas is now starring in the second of two consecutive films by Academy Award-winning directors: Damien Chazelle and Steve McQueen. While the roles couldn’t be more different – he portrays astronaut Michael Collins in First Man and a real estate executive/sugar daddy in Widows – he explained to The Hollywood Reporter In Studio the similarities he encountered between the two directors. “One thing that was common between them is their gentleness. They’re both very warm and giving. They’re very generous in the way that they direct,” he said. Haas added, “One thing that Steve was really lovely with, he would tell me, ‘Lukas you’re great. Just keep doing it.’ He would really build me up, my confidence. He flattered me quite a lot, which in that situation was really nice because it made me feel very comfortable, and I think he felt that maybe I was nervous. But he was incredibly giving, and same with Damien.”’ — LH
Trailer
Lukas Haas on ‘Widows’
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Mike Testin Browse (2020)
‘There is such a great concept in the midst of this incoherent film. The idea that someone could have their life completely messed with, financially, morally, and mentally, just by viewing a specific website could be frightening. Unfortunately, “Browse” tends to walk the fine line of having the viewer figure out if our protagonist is the one that’s mad or if it someone harassing’s him, or if it’s something that cannot be explained. I really like Lukas Haas, but this was a confusing mess of a movie. So many questions and no answers.’ — LeslieBear9
Trailer
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Damien Chazelle Babylon (2022)
‘A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood’s transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.’ — Letterboxd
Trailer
Behind the Scenes + Deleted Scenes
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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I think I found a spot for ‘curdled’ in the film script, we’ll see. No, must-have, totally get it. And good for love! I’m still thinking about the Rammelzee brick. The show was amazing, yeah. In Paris, it usually only rains for about 15 minutes at a time, I don’t know why, and I guess I’m hoping Vienna had similarly discreet clouds. Love + Lukas Haas = 👩❤️👨, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Obviously Donnelly’s work really needs to be seen in the flesh, but I thought dropping hints was worth it. Wow, 100,000 punters! Who needs Oasis? ** Misanthrope, Good lord, devious and thwarted to the end. You sorted the transport to NYC? Man, have so much fun, and what’s a little rain? Unless it’s a lot of rain. But even then. ** Steeqhen, I’m trying to figure out what the downside is of a city being full of teens from the private schools, haha. I treat my smartphone like it needs its rest, and I try to pick its pocket without waking it up. Or something. Well, four days to make something Rimbaudian seems doable given your legendary nose and grindstone. ** Jack Skelley, You’re welcome, Fatty Arbuckle. ‘Green Acres’ is both very deserving and intellectually volcanic. Signed, Chester Conklin. ** Alistair, Hi! One of the great things about poetry is that it can catch even the chilliest person off guard and sneak inside them. The downside is that they may never admit that it did. Yeah, with tough poems, politically motivated or otherwise, the best option is publishing them somewhere and letting them do their work on people in secret, I think. Or that’s how it seemed to be for me. People seem more open to challenging themselves when the poem’s author is faceless. Exactly, I agree, about poetry being an outlet. Nice that you found music that made your imagination unleash. Fellow commenter Carsten spoke to you in his comment if you didn’t see it. xo. ** julian, Hi, julian! Thank you a lot for going to the trouble to come inside here. And thank you so much about the blog and my work. That’s really, really gratifying to hear. What is your writing? I mean what form does it take and so on, if you don’t mind saying? If my work helped give you strength to write, there’s literally no greater accomplishment. Yeah, with ‘Room Temperature’ we’re working our way through the film festival circuit for a while, which you kind of seem to need to do, and which is really frustrating when you’re used to writing books where everyone can have them at the same time. But we’re anxious to get it more available asap. Thanks again! I hope everything’s great on your end. ** Carsten, I’m old enough that I got to see The Stooges live a few times, and I feel like I don’t need to cover up those memories with him redoing all that great stuff in his dotage. But if you’ve never seen him, he’s surely still a fireball off some sort. Thanks for speaking to Alistair. ** Justin D, Hey, man! If you ever get the chance to see her work in a gallery or museum, do go. It’s pretty trippy/magical. I’ll go try the Maria Somerville track once I’m in the clear. Just glancing at the first seconds, you can immediately she’s a 4AD artist. RT is currently submitted to about 14 film festivals, and we’re just waiting to see how many of them bite. And we’re starting to look a distributor in the US. That’s where we are at the moment. How are you? What are your favorite things that’ve happened to you lately? ** Darbz 🕷️, Hey, D, and to your spider too. Thanks! It’s beautiful to imagine you writing that while sitting on a porch. You’re in the South, and there’s something about a porch in the South that’s very romantic to think about. I guess because of movies or something. Frankie is getting a major scrunch from me. I’m using my coffee cup as a stand in. Sometimes doing research can help with writing for sure at those moments when your brain feels a little underfed. I hope those four books have at least some really triggering paragraphs. When do you go to NYC again? It’s pretty soon, right? ** HaRpEr, Hey. Yeah, agreed about constraints. You know I sort of need to have a predetermined structure in place before I start writing even if I end up blasting through its walls. Like a trance. A refreshing trance, the best and rarest kind. I know what you mean. For me, hm, really, as long as I’m excited, I can sort of write under any circumstances. I think for me it’s about which aspect of what I’m writing about excites me. Like the new film script, I’ve been mostly into creating the dialogue and finessing that, and I didn’t have a lot of interest in the settings of the scenes where the dialogue was happening. But yesterday something switched, and now I have all kinds of ideas of where the characters are and what they’re doing with their bodies while they’re talking, and I don’t know why I managed to fall into that space suddenly. Strange process. Interesting, The Roussel technique. I wish I wasn’t so dependent on caffeine because my brain is just mush until I’ve had a cup of coffee, and by then whatever my brain was doing during sleep is disappeared. ** jay, Hey. Glad you liked it. Cool. I need to go back and finish ‘Paper Mario’. The problem is that all that’s left is three battles in a row, and battles are my least favorite part. And the ending — everything and everyone magically stops being origami and returns to 3D — is too easily imaginable. Darn. I’m good, just writing like a fiend, which is good. How are you filling your post-game time? ** Bill, Eternal rule of thumb when encountering art you like: never read the wall text. Yeah, Evenson is so nice. He’s thinking of moving to Paris. I, of course, did some major encouraging. What is Zorn’s visual art like? I’m guessing … crazy drawings? But it’s at The Drawing Center, so that’s not exactly a psychic guess. Nice, nice, all that art. God, I know, like half of the presses I like just got defunding notices. I just hope the courts can stop that massacre like they’re stopping most of his other massacres. ** Steve, I wish I could do more than just tell you how sorry I am that you’re having to go through that and tell you it’ll get easier. Love, me. ** Right. The other day someone asked Zac and me what well known actor we would most like to work with in our films, and we said ‘None’ since we only want to work with non-actors. But then later I thought, you know, I would totally love to make a film with Lukas Haas in it. And that’s of course what lead me to restore and expand this old Day about him. See you tomorrow.
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