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Lone Star Outtakes: On the set
05:10 PM CST on Thursday, December 11,
2003 FRISCO – C. Thomas Howell sat in the kitchen of an opulent
model home that costs more than the budget for A Killer Within and talked about
life in the biz. The indie isn't his first gig in
Texas. The Los Angeles native, who turned 37 Dec. 7, made a film in Houston called A
Tiger's Tale. Then there was that unfinished flick about a soccer team. It had a
Middle Eastern flavor and shot in Austin in 2001. Named All-Around Cowboy 1978-80 by
the California Junior Rodeo Association, the wiry son of stunt coordinator Chris Howell stunt-doubled for young actors as
a kid. In fact, it wasn't his acting that got him cast in E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial,
the film that changed his career. "I got cast in E.T. because I could ride a
bike," he says. Tom, whose pug, Maggie, accompanies
him, started acting at 4. "I worked so much as a child," he says. "Very few
make it as adults." But from Ponyboy in The Outsiders to affluent lawyer
Addison in A Killer Within,
he's racked up nearly 80 perfs and is starting, he says, "to become a much better
actor and, to be completely frank, just starting my career." And while the daddy of Isabelle,
10, Dashiell, 6, and Liam, 2, says he didn't vote for The Terminator, he
hopes the new governor of his state realizes what's become of the once-flourishing dream
factory and reacts. |