RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Add Page Six on Google "Boyhood" star Ellar Coltrane is far removed from his child actor past.
Coltrane — who spent 12 years making director Richard Linklater’s groundbreaking 2014 film, “Boyhood,” from ages 6 to 18 — is currently doing manual labor and working on becoming an EMT.
Coltrane, now 31, told Variety in a Q&A published Tuesday that he also lives "in the middle of nowhere."
"I’m pretty far away from film," he said.
Although he's acted in a few short films over the years and is involved in the independent film community in El Paso, Texas, he noted that he's "moved on."
"I do manual labor, and I’m a volunteer firefighter, and I’m working on my EMT license right now," he shared.
Still, he admitted he does miss collaborating, and would be open to working on the right project with a director.
"When I can get into that head space with an artist and work closely with them to figure out how I can express what they’re trying to express, I think I can do really good work," he mused.
"But just showing up on a big set with a million producers as an actor, I don’t know how to do that," he continued. "I was never really trained as an actor. I was trained by Richard and [co-star] Ethan [Hawke] as a collaborator and part of the machine of the film. So I’m hoping for more small, independent passion projects that I can be a part of, because I have a lot to offer."
Coltrane, who was homeschooled and raised by the arts community in Austin, Texas, said he was grateful for the experience of filming "Boyhood," which he likened to summer camp. He's also thankfull he avoided the pitfalls of being a traditional child star.
"A big saving grace for me, in that context of being a child actor, and later interacting with the Harry Potter kids and other people who starred in a long-term project or started a career around the same time, for them there was something released to the world also in childhood," he noted. "I didn’t have to experience that and I am grateful for that, because when I did experience celebrity, it was a lot."
Aside from Coltrane and Hawke, the epic coming-of-age drama also stars Patricia Arquette and Linklater's real-life daughter, Lorelai Linklater.
Coltrane plays Mason Evans Jr. from ages 6 to 18 — the film shot from 2002 to 2014 — as he grows up in Texas with divorced parents (played by Hawke and Arquette) and his sister (played by Lorelai).
Arquette won an Oscar in the best supporting actress category for her performance as his mom, Olivia Evans.
Hawke praised his on-screen son back in September 2014.
“The biggest, best mystery is this kid Coltrane,” the actor said in a conversation with Linklater for Austin Way Magazine.
“He is handling himself so beautifully . . . When I asked Charlie Sexton [Bob Dylan’s guitarist, who has a role in the film] what he thought about the movie, he told me the biggest miracle . . . is that the kid didn’t turn out to be a jerk.”
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