If Ian fell off, his bones, which are so brittle, would just snap. Joey Mazzello, who was always very protective of Ian, said, ‘I can’t do this.’ He was right. “In the script, there’s a scene where Simon rides on the handlebars of Joe’s bike.
“I always tried to take Ian’s disability and turn it from a negative into a positive,” says the filmmaker. Johnson often picked up his leading man to take the pressure off his legs, and he made sure a chair was available for the youngster to rest on after every take. Special precautions had to be taken to guarantee that the 11-year-old star was comfortable.
The challenges didn’t stop when “Simon Birch” began filming.
SIMON BIRCH TRUE STORY MOVIE
“The day after the play, John saw the movie and told me he liked it very much,” says Johnson. Though there were rumors that Irving had distanced himself from the flick, he and Johnson got together last month in Los Angeles to see a play adaptation of the novelist’s “The Cider House Rules.” Finally, John said, ‘You’re right.’ He gave me his blessing and helped me come up with new names for the characters.” I also didn’t have anything new to say about Vietnam. “When I sat down with John Irving, I told him about the changes I planned to make and he said, ‘My novel is about two things - Vietnam and religion - and you’re taking out one of the elements.’ I explained to John that there’s no way to set parts of a movie in Vietnam without it becoming a Vietnam movie. Because the novel is not represented in its entirety, the title and names were changed. Completely excised from the movie were long passages involving Simon Birch’s Vietnam-War era stint in the National Guard. He had to condense a story that spanned the characters’ lifetime into one year and keep the essence of the characters intact. In adapting “Owen Meany,” Johnson’s challenge was two-fold. “It was just too personal,” says the first-time director. Once Johnson finished the final draft, he couldn’t imagine turning the script over to anybody else to direct. Luckily for Johnson, whose previous screenwriting credits include the “Grumpy Old Men” movies and “Big Bully,” Caravan Pictures optioned the novel for him. When Johnson first read John Irving’s best-seller about a pint-sized powerhouse, he couldn’t put it down.
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