Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Pratt puts real-life experiences into ‘Everwood’ BY KATE O’HARE KRTCAMPUS • In some ways, the stories of both Bright Abbott, a struggling small town Colorado high-school senior, and Chris Pratt, the twentysome thing actor who plays him on The WB’s family drama “Everwood,” are about overcoming expectations. At 19, Pratt decamped from his home in Washington State to Hawaii, where, for a time, he lived in his car. While most actors try to get a break working as waiters in Hollywood, Pratt got his break at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company in Maui, where he met actress Rae Dawn Chong. He impressed her so much that she flew him to Los Angeles to ap pear in the comedy-horror film “Cursed 3.” After a role as a snow boarding secret agent in the unsold pilot “The X-Team,” Pratt landed the role of Bright in “Everwood,” now in its second season. On the fictional side, Bright dis tinguished himself on the football field, only to have his dreams fall apart when poor grades got him benched in his senior year. Facing an uncertain future — and with his family torn apart by his sister Amy’s (Emily VanCamp) emo tional problems — Bright has struggled to get his grades up in hopes of still getting into college. In next Monday’s episode, called “Last Looks,” he learns whether those efforts have paid off with a college acceptance letter. “What you’re going to see,” Pratt said, “is how an average high-school student deals with the pressure of choosing a college. It’s that kind of feeling I know I had in high school. I felt, ‘If I don’t get into college, my life is over.’ “There’s that pressure for ev ery kid, if you don’t have college, you have nothing in your life — which I don’t necessarily believe is true. But the pressure is very real. That’s something the writers are very smart to bring up.” Pratt has worked hard to make the most of his role, and the writ ers have rewarded him with an in creasingly layered and complex character. “They’re taking chances,” he said. “My friends have been pretty excited. My friends are support ive, and they’d watch anyway, but now I’m on this cool show, and they got all hooked. “They’re like, ‘I don’t know, last year you just popped in for one sentence, and I’d laugh and go back to watching the show. This year, I’m over the fact that it’s you and into, what’s wrong with Bright?’ So that’s great. Bright’s figuring some stuff out. He’s grow ing up a little.” Painful as it is in itself, this pro cess has brought Bright into direct. conflict with his father, Dr. Harold Abbott (Tom Amandes), whose pride in his son’s football prowess has masked a disdain for the boy’s intellectual abilities. Dr. Abbott couldn’t believe that Bright could improve his grades — and said so. “That was some real-life thera py,” Pratt said, “going through your parents thinking you’re dumb. You want to make it as real as possible, so you have to think about these things that you’ve locked away. You go to these dark places, put your head in the clouds, life your feet off the ground for a little bit. “You expect to put your feet right back down, but it’s, ‘Oh, no, I’ve got to reorganize all this stuff with my own father. Oh, no.’” Unlike Bright, Pratt has felt parental support, even when he was living in a car. “My mom was always acting proud of me,” Pratt said, “no mat ter what I was doing. She just has this way of making you feel good about yourself, no matter what. My dad has always been proud of me, but isn’t very vocal about it. But that’s OK. He was the strict one, with the rules and whatnot, kept the kids in line. My mom was all about love.” The other father/son relation ship in “Everwood” is between teen Ephram Brown (Gregory Smith) and iconoclastic physician Dr. Andy Brown (Treat Williams), who is trying to make up for lost parenting time in the wake of his wife’s death. This has led to frequent verbal clashes, which apparently don’t sit too well in the Pratt household. “My whole family hates Ephram,” Pratt said. “In my fami ly, you don’t yell at your own dad. Dr. Brown just caves in, ‘You’re right, I apologize.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, God.’ My dad and my cousins watch, and they’re like, ‘I’d like to see my kid try to talk to me like that.’ It’s pretty funny, with 40-, 50 year-old men getting all passion ate about ‘Everwood.’” Asked to speculate about Bright’s future, Pratt said, “He’d be a great forest ranger or a camp counselor, maybe a teacher/coach at the high school, ski instructor — robot, maybe. Maybe you’ll find out that Bright Abbott is actually a robot, like on ‘Small Wonder.’ See, that’s why my ideas would never work. “I tell my ideas to the writers, and they’re like, ‘Ah, I think I saw that on “Full House” once.’” With his head in his books, Bright hasn’t had much time for romance, but Pratt thinks that may change. “I think he will get a girlfriend. I think Bright has to get over the surface value. He thinks, ‘If the girl’s hot, that’s good enough for me.’ He’s going to have to get over that and find someone that is more than just hot, but un derstands him and appreciates him for what he does, because no one seems to appreciate Bright. “OK, Ephram does now.” Stupidity ample punishment for uncommon capers, crimes BY MIKE PINGREE h'RTCAMPUS AFTER ALL, HE WAS A THIEF A woman in Port Macquarie, Australia, whose car had been stolen, sent text messages to the thief on her son’s cell phone, which she had left on the front seat, begging him to return her vehicle. She told him birthday presents for her son were in the trunk. The thief apologized and told her in a message where she could find her car. But he did steal the . cell phone and the birthday pre sents. A LOT OF CRAZY DRIVERS OUT THERE An 86-year-old man was stopped for driving the wrong way on a divided highway in Bern, Switzerland. He told the po lice that he thought everyone else was driving the wrong way. SOSAYETHTHELORD In a light-hearted competi tion, pub patrons in Britain were asked to suggest an 11th Commandment. Among the top entries: “Thou shalt not con sume thine own bodyweight in fudge.” COME ON, YOU CAN DO IT! SPLAT! A man driving down a Pennsylvania highway at 65 mph saw a turkey on a guardrail sud denly take off and fly across the road right in front of him.putting bird and windshield on an un avoidable collision course. After the turkey made his un ceremonious, high-impact en trance into the vehicle’s passen ger seat, the man said, “I kept hoping that he would get higher, but he didn’t.” DOES THIS MEANS ‘DESSERT IS OFF? A chef who has a TV cooking show in England, playfully pre pared a roast at his home for his wife while in the nude. Unfortunately, he got too close to the oven and burned his pri vates. ITS OK, WE LIKE THIS MUCH BETTER A Pennsylvania woman was jailed for putting on a strip show at her teenage son’s birthday par ty after becoming intoxicated on pills and alcohol. The striptease was a last minute tling, which came to pass when plans for a go-cart ride fell through. Alamo CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7 all their human frailty through in ternal struggles with past deci sions and former sins. By the end, although the audience knows the outcome of the historical battle, viewers still hope that somehow history can be reversed and the Texan army will triumph over Santa Anna at the Alamo. Because the well-known story of the Alamo might leave audi ences hoping for a new spin on the old fable, the movie relies heavily on the actors to outperform the heroes they are portraying. While Dennis Quaid (playing the alco-, holic General Sam Houston) only has limited screen time, his per formance is one of the best in the film. Wilson plays the lieutenant colonel with a brooding silence that can be unsettling, but eventually shows Travis’ humanity with quiet spouts of loyalty and fearlessness. Because Bowie is dying through out most of the movie, Patric’s per formance is limited, but he por trays the character without depth. The best performance in the movie is that of Hollywood bad boy Thornton. His depiction of an American legend only adds to his own status as a true actor. With an inspiring monologue and quips of humor, Thornton adds dimension to the coon-cap wearing, fiddle playing Crockett. Although the movie falls short of achieving the status of a true American classic, the actors’ per formances boost the film’s sagging I story, and some of the speeches about loyalty and patriotism do evoke hope for these obviously de feated men. “The Alamo” is a mediocre movie that pushes the right — al though obvious — buttons of hu man emotion. Yet it fails to achieve distinction as a true American epic. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockfeatures(a)gwm.sc.edu -1 ^ Congratulate your graduate Ilid Ad! A Grad Ad consists of a favorite photo of the graduate and a special, brief message to him or her. Prices range from $40 to $185. CaU 803.777.5064 for more mformation. ^k YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A MATH MAJOR TO CALCULATE THIS! 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