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Everything Coming to Now Playing Podcast in December 2020

Everything Coming to Now Playing Podcast in December 2020.

It’s been a long and exhausting year, but Now Playing Podcast is leaving 2020 on a positive note, with nineall-new episodes for listeners and supporters. It’s a good thing December has 31 days. 

Here’s everything coming to Now Playing Podcast in December 2020.

December 1 – 48 Hrs.

December was supposed to be the month of Eddie Murphy, with our hosts taking their first real deep dive into the actor/comedian/singer/GOAT’s filmography. But now that Amazon has moved the Coming to America sequel to March, it’s going to be the “half-month” of Murphy. Now Playing kicks things off December 4 with a review of 1982’s 48 Hrs. Directed by Walter Hill and co-starring Nick Nolte, this was the film that launched Murphy’s film career and gave audiences a glimpse at the star beyond Saturday Night Live. Let’s see how some of the movie’s rougher edges hold up with modern audiences. 

December 4 – Rosemary’s Baby

Roman Polanski’s classic horror tale headlines the Gold Level of Now Playing’s 2020 Fall/Winter Donation SeriesRosemary’s Baby follows Mia Farrow’s expectant mother, who fears a satanic cult is after her baby. The film is recognized as a hallmark of the art-horror genre, spawning a television film sequel and a 2014 remake.

December 8 – Another 48 Hrs.

Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte got back together in 1990 for a sequel to their first team-up. Another 48 Hrs. arrived at a time when sequels were experimenting with titles that didn’t involve numbers. That’s how we got movies like Another Stakeout and Teen Wolf Too. There was even a made-for-TV sequel to Splash called Splash, Too

December 11 – Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby

Speaking of made-for-TV sequels, a very loosely connected sequel dubbed Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby premiered on ABC in October 1976. This time, it’s Patty Duke in the lead role. While the first Rosemary’s Baby has been enshrined in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, the sequel has been uploaded to YouTube. You can watch through the link below and ready yourself for the review on December 11.

December 15 – Stephen King’s Golden Years

Now Playing makes a quick pivot back to its long-running Stephen King retrospective on December 15, with a review of 1991’s CBS miniseries, Stephen King’s Golden Years. It’s about a man named Harlan Williams – not the comic actor Harland Williams – who realizes he’s aging in reverse. The miniseries ran for seven episodes in the summer, so you’re forgiven if you’ve never heard of it. 

December 18 – Rosemary’s Baby (2014)

NBC tried to reinvent Rosemary’s Baby with a two-part, four-hour adaptation that aired during the 2014 May “sweeps” ratings period. This time, Zoe Saldana takes over the Rosemary role, with Patrick J. Adams and Jason Isaacs also on board. The miniseries wasn’t a ratings or critical hit, but our hosts will give it another look on December 18.

December 22 – Tenet

At last, Now Playing gets a chance to review one of the many would-be blockbusters that got pushed back by the pandemic. Tenet got a theatrical release in September, but with so many theaters closed it failed to meet expectations in the U.S. It’s hitting disc and digital on December 15, so all of our hosts will have a chance to watch and review it. 

December 25 – Trading Places

It will truly be a happy and merry Christmas when the Now Playing review of Trading Places arrives on December 25. The 1983 comedy further solidified Eddie Murphy’s reputation as a box office draw and helped Jamie Lee Curtis break away from “scream queen” roles she’d been stuck playing since Halloween. The Trading Places review will be released exclusively for Now Playing’s Podbean patrons, and can be unlocked with a pledge of $10 or more. 

December 29 – Wonder Woman 1984

First Tenet, now Wonder Woman 1984. It’s like Christmas here at Now Playing. Actually, it is Christmas. The long awaited sequel to the 2017 blockbuster will hit theaters and HBO Max on December 25, giving our hosts enough time to watch and prepare for the December 29 review. The road to Wonder Woman 1984’s release is one of the most talked-about stories of the year, as WarnerMedia took the unprecedented step of releasing the big budget film on streaming. By doing so, they’re risking as much as $1 billion in box office, but many analysts believe it will be worth it in the long run

November 25, 2020 Posted by | Movies, Now Playing Podcast | , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Everything Coming to Now Playing Podcast in December 2020

An Oral History of Now Playing’s ‘Friday the 13th’ Retrospective

In a crowded field of competing film-focused podcasts, Now Playing Podcast has managed to separate itself from the pack via its acclaimed retrospective format, keeping listeners engaged week after week as the show’s panel of critics chronicle decades of Hollywood franchise hits (and misses). 

But it wasn’t always the plan. Now Playing Podcast launched in 2007 as a short-form, off-the-cuff movie review program focused on new releases. Early reviews of Spider-Man 3Iron Man, and The Dark Knight not only lacked the in-depth conversation that listeners are now accustomed to, but the randomness of the chosen reviews prevented the show from gaining a foothold in the budding podcast space.

Format changes were desperately needed if the show were to succeed in attracting a loyal following. On January 9, 2009, Now Playing debuted its first retrospective; a 12-episode exploration of the Friday the 13thfranchise, building up to the release of the Platinum Dunes-produced remake. 

The revised format struck the right chord with listeners. More than 11 years later, the original trio of Arnie Carvalho, Stuart Atkinson, and Brock have reunited. THIS is an oral history of Now Playing’s Friday the 13th Retrospective Series

Arnie: As a completist, retrospectives have always appealed to me. I remember the day Star Trek V: The Final Frontier came out; I woke up at 1 a.m. so I could watch the first four Trek films and still make it to the first showing of Final Frontier. In the 90s I did a game site in which I’d review all installments of a game series in order of release. I’d even done some podcasting along those lines, with the Star Wars Action News book club, reviewing every Star Wars novel in order of release. Sadly, I can never watch Leonard Part 6 because I can’t find Leonard Parts 1-5.

Stuart had visited Springfield a few months before, and we saw The Midnight Meat Train, since Barker films were something we often watched together. After, Marjorie pretty much stuck a microphone in Stuart’s face and, without him knowing what was really going on, we had our normal post-movie conversation, but on the mic, and it became a podcast. But I also had real fun doing it.

Released on August 8, 2008, The Midnight Meat Train review marked host Stuart Atkinson’s first appearance on Now Playing Podcast. One week later, Brock would join the rotating panel of hosts for a review of Pineapple Express. The podcast continued to utilize two hosts, rather than the standard three that appear in every new episode. 

Arnie: I’d mostly stepped away from hosting Now Playing, letting Brock and his wife Elisha take the reins. I’d always insisted the show review current movies, and Brock and I had discussed if it was worth doing new-to-video releases, etc. But then the Friday the 13th reboot arrived, and I got really hyped. 

Brock: I remember having a conversation with Arnie about the download numbers on Midnight Meat Train being something we weren’t seeing on other episodes. The horror genre was clearly needing more podcasting content, yet I never thought I’d be involved there; it wasn’t my preferred genre. With a baby on the way, my wife and I knew we weren’t going to be able to see new releases each week, and so we recorded a few new-to-DVD episodes, like Burn After Reading, as a way to stay current enough. But it all changed when Arnie came to me with an idea that combined all of these ideas. 

Arnie: I’d had so much fun with Midnight Meat Train that I thought it would be fun to come back and channel my hype for the new Friday film through a podcast. I really wanted Stuart to be a part of it because of Midnight Meat Train.

Stuart: I thought it was an idea slightly worse than when Arnie and I decided to open a detective agency in sixth grade. I couldn’t imagine I’d have 13 minutes of thoughts on the whole franchise, but then I remembered how much I like to talk and it went fine.

Arnie: We’d always had a two-person format, but since Brock had never seen a Friday the 13th film I thought it would be great to bring in that third perspective to balance my fandom and Stuart’s jaded dislike of the series.

Brock: I rented the first Friday the 13th back in high school because I was curious enough to see what spawned all the endless sequels. And I had enough with that first movie. Didn’t feel I was missing anything. I prefer suspense horror movies to slashers. I acknowledged the brilliance of the idea – a fan, a casual or jaded fan, and a newbie discuss each movie in the series leading up to the new movie. But wow, some of those movies felt like I wasted my time watching them, though talking with the guys about the movie didn’t feel like a waste of time at all. Who knew my lack of horror movie experience would pay off?

Arnie: Brock and his wife came to visit us while we were recording the series. As a foursome, Brock, Elisha, Marjorie, and me, we watched Jason Takes Manhattan. I was laughing at the movie, but laughing more at the mortified looks on Brock’s and Elisha’s faces. They weren’t seeing the humor I was in it.

Brock: I found the movie insulting, like it was challenging the viewer to see what depths of dreck they could get us to watch. Being from the suburbs of New York, what nonsense that they think they’d get away with anyone believing that was shot in Manhattan! On a positive side, Arnie and Marjorie were great to have us over to watch the movie, and it was a blast to record with Arnie in person for the first time. Arnie and Marjorie also introduced me to the infamous Springfield culinary concoction known as The Horseshoe! 

Arnie: It was never intended to be a long-term thing, just a one-off that wouldn’t even be in the main Now Playing series. Then we saw the download numbers skyrocket, and the rest was history.

Brock: Week after week the numbers kept exploding, getting larger and larger. I remember phone calls with Arnie about the numbers, how the first shows in the series continued to rise, meaning new people were finding the show as we went on, and likely people were returning to listen again. We were just flabbergasted by the response. It was unbelievable. 

The Friday the 13th retrospective would establish a number of Now Playing firsts. In addition to establishing the three-host format, it was the first series to receive its own credits – narrated by Brock – with the famed Part III theme used in the introduction and outro. However, longtime listeners recognize the “rawness” of the first retrospective, which lacks the standard plot summary, outtakes, and was plagued by recording challenges. 

Brock: I was helping to edit the show back then, and to make it sound as good as it does was a bit of a challenge. Listening now you can clearly hear a difference in sound quality with this first series, but still completely listenable today. The headset mic I had back then wasn’t very good, and my “p’s” would pop something fierce, especially recording the credits. If you listen to the end credits of the Friday the 13th series you can hear how the “p” was edited to be softer on the word “retrospective,” and less noticeably on the ones in “Now Playing Podcast.” It was so hard to not pop my “p’s” saying the name of the show. I recorded those three words over and over and over to get a cleaner recording. The credits back then were so much simpler than what we have today. They were perfunctory, blatantly explaining the format and the concept of the show to the listeners. Arnie was really just starting to skim the surface with interspersing the quotes from the movies into the credits. We took both the podcast concept explanation and movie quotes so much further with the next series, Star Trek

Arnie: When we recorded the Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan episode, it was a laugh riot, but a mess. I told Stuart and Brock that we had to redo the show because we were all laughing so hard; we were having fun but there wasn’t any context to the jokes — only those who were intimately familiar with Jason Takes Manhattan could follow along. 

Brock: While watching the movie was not so enjoyable, the three of us had such a blast busting on that movie together, making each other laugh. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a cohesive show.

Arnie: So we re-recorded the entire episode (one of only four or five shows that we’ve had to do that with in more than a decade). That second recording was solid and had a great explanation of the film, but not the mirth because we’d told each other the jokes. It was pretty flat. 

Brock: To recreate it was no fun, we spent all the jokes. It was like your dad having you tell that same stale joke he likes to another one of his friends.

Arnie: I knew what had to be done. I spent about a dozen hours Frankenstein-ing the two conversations into one. The second recording was the skeleton, giving the conversation structure, and the first recording was the meat, the really good part of the show. So I found a place for all of the first recording to liven up the second, and to this day I still think it’s one of our best shows.

Stuart: It’s hilarious to think about now, but I was actually worried that being so opinionated on the podcast would turn me into a Hollywood pariah. Like, Kane Hodder would totally be asking me to write his big horror movie comeback, but then somehow the Jason Takes Manhattan show would reach his ears and he’d start smashing my face in a typewriter or something. Turns out I was pretty good at getting industry doors slammed in my face without Now Playing’s help.  

Brock: I too was worried that if I crossed over to the movie critic side of things it would come back to bite me. Like if I ever decided to come out of retirement from performing I would be confronted, chewed out and denied opportunities by angry performers, producers, and filmmakers. 

Despite two edits to make the show listenable, there remained some issues that took years to iron out.

Arnie: When I saw Jason Takes Manhattan in theaters I was 14 and my (much) older sister and brother-in-law took me. At that showing my brother-in-law went on and on about how Peter Mark Richman, who plays the McCulloch character, was the guy who played Dr. Smith on Lost in Space. He talked about it endlessly and, him being older and having watched a lot of Lost in Space, I believed him; and I passed that misinformation on to our listeners on the show. Man, did I get lambasted for that. For a decade I’d constantly get emails from new listeners telling me that the actor was Peter Mark Richman, not Jonathan Harris. Finally, in 2019, for that episode’s 10th anniversary, I went back to the original file and edited the show again to remove that error. I hadn’t edited it before because it seemed like a cop out but finally I excised that one sentence that people fixated on.

With no new entries since 2009, Friday the 13th is the oldest Now Playing retrospective without a sequel, remake, or reboot on the horizon. A legal battle between the first film’s director and screenwriter has kept Jason Voorhees off the screen for more than a decade; fortunately the hosts have their favorite entries to fall back on. 

Stuart: Sticking with the “proper” entries in the series, Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives  is still the most technically proficient and exciting. Plus, that Alice Cooper song was dope!

Arnie: For the solo Jason films, I agree that Part 6 is the best, but I like Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter  just a little bit better. Corey Feldman was the best Tommy Jarvis of the three, plus there’s Crispin Glover’s weirdness, Teddy watching vintage porn; it had so many memorable characters and moments that I always enjoyed watching it most. It’s the only Friday the 13th to cast a shadow. No other protagonist returned for any other sequels, only Jarvis came back.

Brock: The one I remember liking the most is Jason X, because it had all sorts of enjoyable moments, I felt I was in on the joke the whole time, and what a fun ending. It is absolutely wonderfully insane enjoyable entry in the series. 

Stuart: Freddy vs. Jason is clearly the best movie, though maybe not the best Friday the 13th movie.

Brock: Recording Freddy vs Jason for this series I felt so lost when the guys were talking about how it was more of A Nightmare on Elm Street movie. When we came back to it again for the Nightmare series, it was an entirely different experience. 

Arnie: The outhouse death in Part V is classic [but] Freddy vs. Jason is the best movie with Jason in it. It’s funny, fun, and brings a lot of action into the brawl. I think that movie was why I was so excited for a new Jason film. 

The Now Playing Podcast Friday the 13th Retrospective Series wrapped on February 20, 2009, with a “wrap-up” episode in which the hosts looked back at the series. To this day, it remains the only “wrap-up” for a retrospective. The state of the Friday the 13th franchise remains in limbo, with no new film in production as of November 2020.

November 13, 2020 Posted by | Movies, News, Now Playing Podcast | , | Comments Off on An Oral History of Now Playing’s ‘Friday the 13th’ Retrospective

‘Navigator’ Star Recounts Pitfalls of Child Stardom, Redemption in ‘Life After’ Documentary

By Heath Chamerski

On August 1 1986, Walt Disney released Flight of the Navigator. Considered a seminal family sci-fi flick, it grossed $18 million at the box office on its way to becoming a cult hit on VHS and cable. Navigator is the story of 12-year-old David Freeman, who mysteriously disappears in 1978 only to return eight years later, not having aged a day, and before long he’s whisked away on an alien spacecraft and with the help of a robot named Max, discovers the truth behind his disappearance.

Flash forward to 2016, and the film’s star, Joe Cramer, who battled drug addiction in the intervening years after deciding to step away from an acting career, found himself in the spotlight once again as he was arrested for holding up a bank in British Columbia, and was subsequently sentenced to two years in prison. The motivation for the crime, Cramer explains, was not financial; rather, it was a way to gain access to a rehabilitation program at Nanaimo Correctional Centre, which was only available to those incarcerated at the facility. 

The 2020 documentary Life after the Navigator chronicles the behind-the-scenes story of the film, but more importantly, it is the story of Cramer himself, as he begins his recovery and attempts to get his life back on track. In the lead-up to Life after the Navigator’s Blu-ray release on November 9, Now Playing Podcast Heath Chamerski discussed the documentary with Cramer, Flight of the Navigator director Randal Kleiser and Life after the Navigator writer/director Lisa Downs.

Fall of the Navigator
Cramer’s story is a tragic one. After carving out a promising career as a young actor in films such as Runaway and D.A.RY.L., Cramer, still in his early teens, left Hollywood not long after finishing work on Flight of the Navigator, and his issues with drug addiction began shortly after leaving his acting career behind. But as he discusses in the documentary, he thinks his decision to do so probably saved his life, as he believes he would have gone down an even darker path if he had remained in Hollywood.

Cramer’s decision to take part in the documentary was an easy one after Downs made contact with him while he was still serving his sentence. 

“Lisa had written me.” Cramer explains. “I was still in jail at that point and she wrote me a letter talking about it and I right off the bat thought ‘Wow, this could be a really cool thing.’ After speaking with her a bit more and kind of becoming pen pals and writing back and forth, I really found that her vision and intention for the film was something authentic and from the heart — a love of the movie, as well as a real candid look at my life after the Navigator, and what happened. So that’s when I really got excited and felt like it was really an exciting opportunity for me just to get my story out there and share with people in a really authentic way.”

What Happened?
After completing work on her previous film, Life after Flash, which chronicled the production of 1980’s Flash Gordon and the life of the actor who played Flash, Sam J. Jones, Downs said the idea to make a film on Flight of the Navigator came to her long before she knew about Cramer’s troubles, but after reading articles about his arrest, she knew there had to be more to the story than the headlines told us.

“When I started to look at news articles, I thought that this would be an amazing film because when you read the headline, there’s gotta be more to Joe’s story than that,” Downs says. “Like, why did it happen? What happened from him being in the film to getting arrested? And when you read those headlines you think, ‘Oh, another child actor, another product of the Disney machine,’ and it might not necessarily be the child actor thing. So, after reading that, I was just really curious and knew that Flight of the Navigator was the next one I wanted to do.”

Flight of the Navigator seemed like a natural follow-up for Downs as it’s been a part of her life for as long as she can remember. 

“For me, I grew up with it as part of this collection of films, such as LabyrinthThe GooniesThe NeverEnding Story, that I absolutely loved and I desperately wanted to be David and fly in the ship with him,” she adds. “It stuck with me from such an early age and has just been ingrained in my childhood.”

After completing his sentence in 2017, Cramer and Downs continued their contact and plans for the documentary were underway, with filming commencing in 2018. Cramer notes that the experience made his recovery process so much easier and that the film was just what he needed at that point in his life.

“I had been through a lot of self-development and a lot of work over the years but especially in the time leading up to the actual filming.” Cramer says. “The therapeutic community that I went through was really helpful and I worked through a lot of underlying issues and trauma, so I was really at a point where I was okay about opening up about what had happened.

“Lisa and [producer] Ashley Pugh made it so easy. Their film is a celebration of the movie for the fans, and including my story in there of the trials and tribulations of child stardom or just life in general that can in ways happen to the most normal people. You know, anyone can go sideways in a way that isn’t expected.”

Reuniting the cast and crew of Navigator nearly 35 years later turned out to be an easier task than expected, thanks to the tireless efforts and support of Kleiser, who personally tracked down many of the film’s cast and crew, including actors Veronica Cartwright and Cliff DeYoung, for a reunion seen in the documentary.

Taking Flight
Kleiser is still incredibly proud of his movie and recalls it being one of his favorite directing experiences in a career that has spanned more than five decades and has included iconic films such as GreaseThe Blue Lagoon, and White Fang.

“It holds up pretty well I think, it’s really two types of movies – an action film and then it’s a family drama because there were two companies doing it.” Kleiser says. “I think it’s very easy to identify with the character Joey plays — you know, being lost and having a family gone and being confused about what’s going on around you and then having an adventure and then being reunited with the family. 

“It has a really good structure – beginning, middle, and end — so I think the fact it has this fantasy type of sci-fi feeling, and the idea that a kid gets to become friends with an alien, always works. I mean look at E.T.? So, all those elements came together.”

Cramer too fondly recalls his time working on the movie, even with the heavy workload of having to carry a $9 million Disney film on his 12-year-old shoulders, with his character of David appearing in almost every scene of the film; and there’s a good portion of the film where he’s the only (human) character on screen. But it’s been a part of his life ever since.

“You know, having to carry a whole film at such a young age was quite a bit of work and Randal made it really easy,” Cramer says. “We had a great relationship, he’s a wonderful director and I felt comfortable. 

“Like, looking back on some other films I worked on, I remember tough things and having difficulties with scenes because it wasn’t as great an environment; but Navigator just flowed really nicely, and it made it really easy to do. I was really fortunate to work with all the people I did on that film, for sure. But to revisit it now these past few years and connect with these fans who still love it after all this time has been such a gift. I’ve heard these wonderful stories from people who still love the film, I’ve heard stories of parents showing it to their kids and now their kids love it and it’s spanning generations. And then reconnecting with Randal and reconnecting with the cast and hearing their stories, it’s just really amazing to be part of that.”

A Decade in Review
The 1980s often stands above all others when it comes to nostalgia and seems to be an exalted era among film fans. For Downs, her love of 80s movies is still as strong today as it was for when she was growing up.

“The 80s was just this innocent, magical period of storytelling and fantasy and adventure and it was this magical time with this amazing run of films with amazing stories and amazing characters and they’re films that are so special that they stay with you,” she says. “I don’t know what films coming out now might stay with kids who are 9-12 years old in 20 or 30 years. 

“And I just think ’80s kids were really lucky that they happened to grow up in the greatest decade for children’s films. I do think the 80s is still special for the magic it created with the physical models and I think that’s why audiences and filmmakers still connect with this era is because of how magical these films feel.”

Kleiser believe it was the hard work and effort that it took to get sci-fi and fantasy films on screen and the focus on storytelling back in the 80s that is part of the reason why they endure to this day.

“Today I think because films like the Marvel movies have so many effects, it’s like a firehose in your face and you know it’s all fake so it’s not the same as looking at something and knowing it’s actually there and being photographed,” he says. “And also, the effects were so hard to achieve, you used them sparingly, nowadays they’re so easy that they do so much of it that you can’t have a break.”

Life After the Navigator achieves the not inconsiderable task of being both a retrospective documentary and also a very human story of hope and redemption. It is this aspect of the film that Downs thinks sets it apart from similar documentaries.

“I wanted to have that point of difference because you do have this trend at the moment of having these celebration documentaries come out but as amazing as those films are and they celebrate the Back to the Futures and the Ghostbusters, they’re still just the making-of element,” she says. “I wanted to have a point of difference and so for me the point of difference was having that extra access to the main star and spending more time with them and getting to know them and telling their personal story and I think that’s a side of these people that you don’t normally know. 

“You can Google the headlines of Joe but you can never know what happened. Why did he end up like that? I hope that’s a point of difference in these Life After films.”

Family Reunion
The paternal bond evident between Kleiser and Cramer during the production of Navigator is still something the duo share to this day, with Cramer stating that he always looked up to Kleiser as a father figure, particularly as his own father was absent for much of his life, and Kleiser is proud of the progress Cramer has made in recent years.

“Well, I do feel kind of parental towards him” Kleiser says. “Because I see he went through a lot of troubles and I’m happy to help him get back on his feet and I think that’s what this movie has done so far. I’m just hoping that he gets some nice acting parts now. You know it would be great if he could continue on and do what he really wants to do.”

It’s impossible not to be moved to tears by certain aspects of Cramer’s story while watching Life after the Navigator, especially in the moments where he discusses the tough decisions his mother made in an effort to help him beat his addiction and also as Cramer discusses the robbery itself and the sadness he feels for the trauma and pain he caused the bank employee he confronted. While people may not have lived through the same circumstances Cramer has, he believes everyone can take something positive away from his story.

“Everyone goes through stuff, maybe not as extreme as I have been through, but people go through things, so I think to see that we’re all human and we’re all just living our lives the best that we can and that we can always overcome and connecting to people is one of the best ways to do that,” Cramer says. “We can all relate to feeling insecure, feeling unworthy, feeling less than — all of those self-doubts that come in, and then realizing, ‘It’s okay, that’s what makes us human; all of those little flaws.’ 

“When we can just embrace those things, it opens up our lives to so many other amazing opportunities. Once I shared all of those deep dark secrets it almost freed me from this prison.”

Life After ‘Life After the Navigator’
Downs is currently in production of her third Life After movie, titled Life After Atreyu, which explores the life of The NeverEnding Story star Noah Hathaway. 

Cramer, meanwhile, has rediscovered his love of acting again, having already completed work on a few short films, with the documentary a catalyst for him to rediscover his love of the craft. As seen in the movie, he’s become part of the convention circuit and has enjoyed connecting with Navigator fans for the first time in a long time.

“It’s a journey, it’s an ongoing process, but it’s been wonderful,” he says. “When I was younger, I fell into acting and everything exploded and I went from a play to a commercial to features and then boom; everything blew up and I understand that’s like one in a million. 

“So, I’m not expecting anything like that to happen but what I’m finding is that I just love learning the craft and realising that all of my experiences in life are helping me become a better artist. It’s exciting and I absolutely have faith that we’ll see me again. I’m going step by step.”

November 6, 2020 Posted by | News | , , , , | Comments Off on ‘Navigator’ Star Recounts Pitfalls of Child Stardom, Redemption in ‘Life After’ Documentary