Emile Hirsch Enters the Wild

At 22, Emile Hirsch is on a pretty well-worn track to superstardom. He plays ill-fated traveler Christopher McCandless in the Sean Penn-directed adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book Into the Wild, which opens in theaters today. Last year, he starred in Nick Cassavettes’ Alpha Dog, and he just wrapped production on a live action version of Speed Racer. In a recent Esquire article, Jack Nicholson compared him to Leonardo DiCaprio. So if Hirsch is destined to become larger than life, at least he’s landing meaty roles: The actor brings sincerity and liveliness to the McCandless persona, creating a tragic and empathetic character. I sat down with Hirsch at the Toronto International Film Festival where, after [a brief discussion about the merits of Werner Herzog], Hirsch told me about his experiences on the set of Into the Wild. The movie is currently screening at AMC Loews Lincoln Square (in IMAX) and the Landmark Sunshine Cinema. Read my review of the movie (paired up with Larry Fessenden’s creepy horror film The Last Winter) [here](http://nypress.com/20/38/film/erickohn2.cfm).  

Your character, Christopher McCandless, was very much a real person—one with intricate motives. What’s it like for you, in interviews, to answer for his motivations?

Well, it’s really more of a thought experiment. They want me to speak for McCandless, but I can’t really speak for him. I play the character in the movie, but that doesn’t mean I can sit down and speak as if he told me all these answers. One of the things that I really like about McCandless is that the conversation he provokes in people varies from person to person. People go crazy—they hate him. There are people who love him. People are indifferent to him. People are confused by him.

How do you feel about him?

Every one of those things. It’s such a complicated feeling. It’s love, disappointment and awe.

Did you meet any of his family?

Yeah, I met his sister and, ultimately, McCandless’ parents. They were really helpful. I can’t pretend like I know what they’ve gone through.

Could you tell if they were uncomfortable with the movie being made?

I mean, it’s gotta be weird for them, having some actor walk through the door who’s going to play your son—who died. I can’t imagine what that’s like. It’s pain. It’s sadness. Couldn’t be anything other than that.

The movie has a very complicated structure. It’s told out of order, and some of McCandless’ letters flash across the screen—things like that. Could you tell the way that Sean Penn envisioned the movie as you were performing in it?

Because of who Sean is, I just trusted him completely. Some of that stuff was in the script and some of it wasn’t. But anything we did on the set, I just trusted him. I respect him and wasn’t worried about any problems.

Problems aside, did you know what the movie was going to look like?

I didn’t know that there would be certain stylistic things, like the use of split screen. Is that still in there? I haven’t seen the final cut yet.

Yeah, it’s in there.

So there are certain stylistic things that he had in his head the whole time. He just knew what he was shooting. I was happy. I had envisioned some of it, but I didn’t get to see the whole scope of it.

Did you read the script in its entirety before you took the role?

Oh yes. There was a long script. It was like 160 pages. Actually, Speed Racer [which Hirsch just wrapped] was 160 pages. This was 145 pages. But, still, that’s two hours and 20 twenty minutes right there.

You do feel that running time, but it doesn’t get boring. There are some movies…

…that drag. But I think the second half of Into the Wild really picks up the pace. Some movies get really slow at the end. In this movie, the stakes just get higher and higher. You’re sad [at the end], but at the same time, but at the same time, he died alive.

The death scene has this remarkable final shot that tracks back from the trailer where McCandless lived and rises up to an aerial view of the wilderness. What was it like on the set for that scene?

There was an elaborate crane shot that went into this helicopter shot. There were a lot of elements that we had to get right. That shot was one day. They got this crane shot and CG-ed it up with the helicopter shot. You’d never be able to tell in a million years.

Must’ve been tough.

There were raindrops that would hit me in the eye. We had to wait for the weather to blow over. It was really, really cold, too.

And you were really emaciated.

Really skinny, yeah.

Do you feel like you became Christopher McCandless to some extent?

I feel like that would be kind of aggrandizing to say that.

But in the moment where your character is literally taking his last breath—

[Hirsch inhales, then exhales deeply.]

Yeah, it was something. It was a hard day for me.