There are few child actors as prominent right now as Jacob Tremblay. Breaking out with his astounding turn as a boy raised in captivity in the Oscar-winning Wonder, in which he plays Auggie Pullman, a child born with a facial deformity navigating school for the first time. It's a delightful, empathetic film powered by both his performance, and that of his on-screen sister Izabela Vidovic.
Screen Rant recently sat down with the pair to discuss their working relationship, as well as that with their characters' parents Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts, during which Tremblay revealed his love for some of his fellow child stars.
Screen Rant: So in the movie, obviously, you're siblings. How did you guys work together to make you sure you had a very honest sibling relationship? You're very loving but it's quite fraught, [to Izabela] especially on your side. How did you make that work?
Izabela Vidovic: We hung out beforehand, you know. We did a lot of games, right?
Jacob Tremblay: Yeah, we went to a football game as well.
IV: Yeah, a game. We fought a little bit... no [laughs] to really get into character. It felt very natural, we both have siblings.
Related: Wonder Trailer: Jacob Tremblay Was Born to Stand Out
SR: Ah, that's good. And, obviously, I have to ask about the prosthetic. Because that's obviously such a challenge to work under to convey such emotion. So how was that to work with, Jacob, and, Izabela, how was that to interact with an actor who has something there that sort of changes how they're performing?
JT: Well I'm not gonna lie, sometimes it was uncomfortable and I had to wake up before everyone else got on set because to put it on was two hours - but to take it off was half an hour. I had an iPad and I binge-watched Stranger Things on it and also watched some other fun movies. But when I looked in the mirror and I saw me wearing my prosthetics. it definitely did help to be Auggie.
IV: And I think that with Jacob in the full prosthetic makeup it helped me as well because we were both fully in character. We were our characters and he embodied Auggie completely, so I think it just helped everybody.
SR: And it's not just you two acting in the family. You've also got two acting legends as your parents. How was it coming in knowing you were going to be working with Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts and how were they to work with on a day-to-day?
IV: At first it was both exciting and intimidating because they're such icons in the industry, but after meeting that was all stripped because they're so nice and they made us feel very comfortable.
JT: Yeah. When I met Julia for the first time, I she was already so comfortable with me and it definitely helped me pretend that she was my Mom.
SR: And one final question. Jacob, you obviously in this movie got to interact with Chewbacca, and you are interacting with another sci-fi icon The Predator next year. I wonder if you could tell us anything about your part in that and what it was like being a kid in a very R-rated movie?
JT: I don't really give away too much but it's just a really fun movie and it was so fun to do.
