Justin Bateman and Zach Mills in "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium."
We had a chance to sit down for an exclusive 1-1 with “Mr. Magorium” star Zach Mills. He will be seen next in Kyle Schnickner’s “Steam” which opens in Los Angeles theatres and in the Ann Peacock (“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”) written “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” starring Abigail Breslin.
Question:
Were there quite a few kids auditioning for the part?
Zach Mills:
“I thought it sounded like a really good script so I went in to audition. The director Zach Helm really liked me and put me in the part. Actually there were twelve hundred kids, when I found out about that I was pretty amazed too.”
Question:
Did you think you related to the character?
Zach Mills:
“I think I do relate to the character a little bit, yeah, except for the part where he can do amazing things like jump seven feet high.”
Question:
Can you talk a bit about working with Natalie Portman on this project?
Zach Mills:
“Natalie Portman was just so nice to me; she was like a big sister. We also both like books and she, like at the end of the movie, gave me lots of these books.”
Question:
In the film, the toy store looks incredible, what did the actual store you filmed in look like to you?
Zach Mills:
“The store was amazing. It was just full of toys, not magical but there were toys! And the store was huge, they had all these sections of toys; like a book balcony, and all these things. It was pretty cool.”
Question:
Do you have or did you had a favorite toy?
Zach Mills:
“Cube World. It’s these two cubes and in the center is a screen, there are these three buttons and you push one and this stick figure pops up on the screen and they have all these magnetic things on the side and you can connect them then you can create your own cube world and they can interact, it’s really cool.”
Question:
With all the computer games coming out these days, do you think hand played toys are losing their life?
Zach Mills:
“Well I do think that video games and computer games are a little more dominant but I’m a kid that actually likes the hand toys better. I like Legos and connects and stuff because there’s endless possibilities to those but I do think a little bit that computer games are taking over a little bit.”
Zach Mills in "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium."
Question:
So you have a bit Lego collection?
Zach Mills:
“Yes! I like Legos a lot, they actually had a lot of Lego sculptures on the set. They look really…some were like animals, boats, cars you name it, there were really cool ones.”
Question:
Favorite parts in making this?
Zach Mills:
That’s a hard one because the whole movie was just so much fun. I think like spending time with the people on the set. Dustin Hoffman, he actually plays lots of musical instruments and he would play jazz music or he would be playing the trombone and I would be playing the bongos. And Jason Bateman has this really cute dog named Goose, a British bulldog and I could just play fetch with him all day. It was really fun.”
Question:
What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
Zach Mills:
“I like to read, swim, act of course, go to The Grove and be art like, see movies. When I’m not making movies I’m normally seeing movies.”
4:15 PM on November 2nd, 2007.
