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Personally, Ill never forget the first time I saw that butt.
Then came the butt scene.
I did not think about death for a long time after that.
His pale white tush gets many, many seconds of screen time.
The girls gasp and gawk, and Thora Birchs Teeny turns to her friends, grinning.
I saw his penis, she says wryly.
Implacable rumors have long swirled that Sawasactual junk is on displayif you pause the film at the right time.
Devon Sawas butt is now shared cultural shorthand for the first time I was able to conceptualize horniness.
That changed as I was confronted with the stark reality of Devon Sawas butt.
He was my bisexual gateway drug.
If ever a film was shot from the Young Female Gaze,Now and Thenwas it.
What distinguishedStand by Mewas the psychological soundness of the story, Ebert wrote.
We could believe it and care about it.Now and Thenis made of artificial bits and pieces.
But earlier this year, he gamely agreed (why not?)
Do you remember your audition forNow and Then?Like it was yesterday.
And we clicked and got along and she recommended me.
Youd have to ask her why, but it was a very sweet thing to do.
As you were gearing up to shootNow and Thenyoud already doneCasperandLittle Giants,both of which were hits.
Steven Spielberg was [producing] them simultaneously and put me in both.
But the teen magazines werent big in Canada.
There was no internet.
Crossover between what America was loving at the time and what Canada was loving was always a bit different.
With toys, with what we watched on TV.
Teen magazines werent as big, but young girls in Canada werent really into those things that much.
So when I hit all those magazines, nobody really cared out there.
Was there a specific moment?It was a long moment of figuring out.
Listen, it was very flattering.
When youre 17, its overwhelming.
But I felt very lucky.
It felt … not real.
It felt like a Beatles thing, and we shouldnt be in it, you know?
It felt a little surreal.
Im just lucky I had very supportive parents and grounded friends, so it didnt translate over.
I was a normal kid while all of this was going on in America, kind of.
And then there was one day I woke up and said, I hate this.
I wanted nothing to do with it anymore.
What changed for you?It was just my age, I think.
I didnt want to be the pretty boy or whatever they were calling me.
I didnt want to talk about my favorite food or where my first kiss was, you know?
My most romantic song.
These things werent interesting to me.
Did you ever regret making that shift?No, because I started doing stuff I really enjoyed doing.
And so it was a shift that happened organically.
When people approach you now, what do they speak to you about the most?Casper.
Final Destination.And probablyIdle Hands.
Most women my age feel that way about your early films.
Is that weird for you?I know the piece youre talking about.
It was very sweet.
Ive come to terms with that, I guess.
TheCasperscene it couldve been anybody.
A lot of people could have done it.
Everything fit into place the way they shot it, and JJ Abrams wrote that scene.
It was the most perfect ending to a movie.
Did the scene affect your real romantic life?
Did you operate in that space for women?I hope not!
No, Im much more awkward.
Id never look at a girl and ask, Can I keep you?
Im way more awkward than that.
I had to be approved by a bunch of people Spielberg, the director.
The last person I had to go see was Christina.
The school room had Red Hot Chili Peppers everywhere.
An autographed 8-by-10 Red Hot Chili Pepper poster, red chili pepper lights.
This 13-, 14-year-old girl!
Big Chili Pepper fan.
I had no idea who they were.
It sounds like it.She was a little intimidating.
She had a little bit of a Im the boss around here vibe.
But she warmed up quickly.
We had chemistry right away, I think.
We clicked as friends really quickly.
Shes a really sweet, really cool girl.
We spent a lot of time onNow and Thentogether, hanging out a lot.
It was very safe, we filmed in Savannah, Georgia.
Was there teen drama playing out behind the scenes?
Crushes, fights?All of that.
We were like, 13, 14, 15 years old.
Everything you could imagine in a childhood camp went on.
Bickering between the girls, bickering between us.
Then the next day everyones friends again, then somebodys not talking to somebody.
It was so childish and so innocent.
I dont think anybody would recall what it was all about.
I dont know who said it.
It may have been taken out of context.
We were all so young.
Apparently there was a contest to win you over.Oh, boy.
And they said Christina Ricci won.
Is that accurate?She wouldve.
Meaning?I plead the Fifth.
Thora Birch already sold you out.That Thora.
Loose lips Thora, were gonna call her!
You already know more than I would tell you [about what we were up to on set].
Thora wasnt smoking, but the rest of us were.
We were doing things we shouldnt have been doing when parents werent looking.
Did you feel that way?I didnt.
Girls mature a lot faster than boys.
They werent just average girls, either.
These are four of the top young ladies in Hollywood, who were witty and smart.
They were old for their age, all four of them.
They were little thespians.
But I was immature all the way up Im still growing.
It was a little young for me once it came out.
It was for everybody, though!
Did the critical reception at the time bother you?
Did it even reach you?There was no way to pay attention back then.
Back then you only saw what your publicist and agent wanted you to see.
Its not like right now, when Im constantly Googling Fanaticreview.
You couldnt do that back then.
Wed get positive reviews in the mail, but other than that, you didnt know.
Theres no Rotten Tomatoes to check.
What scene stands out in your mind when you think back on filming?The Can I kiss you?
I was just doing it.
Maybe it was the chemistry?
Plus the director was phenomenal.
It was big for its time.
I was supposed to be nervous, luckily.
We didnt rehearse it.
It all played into it.
It was so overly protective that thats what made it kind of weird.
If wed just done it, it wouldnt have been so weird.
It was because they were being so overly protective, it felt very awkward.
But really, for years, people have been like, I paused the scene, and Listen.
Theres no way New Line Cinema is letting four young boys run around a set naked.
She hadnt seenCasper, she hadnt seen this.
Theyre too young for any of my movies.
Its really weird to show them me as a 14-year-old boy; its really hard to explain to them.
Theyre 5 and 3.
The first one I tried wasWild America.
I thought,This is the goofiest movie and it didnt survive the test of time.
Its like, What is going on in this movie?
They venture to shoot their own wildlife documentary!
So basically it was an excuse to get you and JTT in the same movie.Exactly.
It was basically them trying to capitalize on theTeen Beatthing.
It was a big-budget movie but we still had dudes in bear costumes and rubber snakes.[Laughs.]
It was the weirdest do you know what I mean?
Im talking to JTT again for the first time in 20 years.
Were you actually friends as kids?Yeah, we were.
Two different kids, but definitely friends.
Why do you still keep in touch with Zachery Ty Bryan?Why are we friends?
I dont even know why were friends.
Were two polar opposites, me and Zac.
But we still get along pretty great.
It strikes me thatTeen Beatwould die for these details.Somebody needs to start those back up.
Thora Ive spoken to a few times, but we dont all really keep in touch.
None of us did after the film.
It was like summer camp, and that was it.
We all went our separate ways.
And I just fell in love.
Does any part of you resent having been a child star?No.
I never had any bad experiences.
It was always very positive; the people I worked with were very great.
I had to miss prom and all of that, but the things I did do Im very fortunate.
But its not always the case.
Some kids didnt want to be doing it like I did.
Would you say you avoided the classic path of destruction?I had a little path of destruction.
But I genuinely always wanted to be on set.
It didnt matter it wasnt about the fame or anything like that.
I loved being in theater.
What was your destructive path?When I was in my 20s.
I wasnt reading scripts.
I wasnt doing art anymore.
I took a bit of a nosedive, but I got out of that.
I didnt want to do that anymore, so I quit the business.
I went back to Canada, didreal-estate stuff.
I put myself on tape.
I started only doing things I loved to do after that.
It was like,Oh, here I am again.
This is what I want to be doing.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
