You know how it is. You’re at a party. Just standing around. Then some older dude comes up to you and strikes up a conversation. You bond over art – particularly your abstract expressionist work – and then next thing you know, you’ve been cast as the lead in the old dude’s latest film.
Happens all the time, right? Well, if you’re Henry Lee Hopper – son of Dennis – it does. For that’s how he came to be cast in the lead role in Wes Craven’s latest psycho thriller, 25/8.
Hopper, the (roughly) 18 year-old son of the Blue Velvet star, will play a character named Bug, which may or may not be the lead role, in the movie, about a serial killer, thought to have died fifteen years earlier, stalking seven teens who were born on the titular date.
He’ll be joined by an eclectic cast of highly promising teens, including Shareeka Epps, so good alongside Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson; Denzel Whitaker, from The Great Debaters; and Emily Meade. As with Scream and A Nightmare On Elm Street, Craven is committed to casting unknowns, so the audience won’t be able to tell who gets bumped off and when.
But, given his unique story (the party he met Craven at was a party for his godfather… Julian Schnabel) and background, it’s Hopper who’s being singled out at the moment. 25/8 will mark his first film and, if he’s as good as his dad, it could mark the start of a very long career indeed. We hope, though, that he doesn’t go down the Jake Busey ‘series of villains in straight-to-DVD dreck’ route.
Mind you, a young Frank Booth movie would be absolutely awesome... anyone agree?