Transition students interview the Dublin girl whose 'project' was making a movie
"I DON'T plan on shaving my head," says Sarah Bolger, the 17-year-old Loreto Beaufort, Rathfarnham student who is so sensible that she describes herself as "quite a boring person".
This total opposite of Britney began acting at the age of five and at the age of 10 wowed critics as Christy in Jim Sheridan's In America, playing alongside her younger sister Emma (13), who has since given up acting in favour of academic pursuits.
For her transition year project last year, Sarah played Mallory in the fantasy adventure film, The Spiderwick Chronicles, which is getting rave reviews in the US, where it grossed $55 million (€36 million) on its first weekend and is expected to have made $85 million by the time it opens in Dublin next weekend.
So who more appropriate to interview Bolger than a couple of transition year students?
"Sound" was the verdict of Tiffaney Ellis (16) and Sienna Mac Anna (16), from St Andrew's College, Dublin, after discovering that Sarah has never been to 'Wes', has only one or two close friends and never wanted a Bebo page. She is mad about her pet dogs (a Shih Tzu and a shiht-poo - half Shih Tzu- half poodle); and has a younger sister, Emma, who steals her clothes and shoes.
"She's so normal. Like when she said she wouldn't go to Wes [the Wesley rugby club disco], and that she has a math test on Monday she can't get out of and described her father as the 'baldy butcher'. We'd love to have her as a friend," said the transition years.
Bolger's mother, Monica, says that Sarah has had a difficult time in school with jealous classmates. Sarah says that even though her parents allow her to act only occasionally so she can have a normal life, there are still people in school who think she's full of herself even though she's not.
"Some people judge you by their idea of who they think you are, rather than getting to know you," she confides. Apart from her "very grounding" parents, Monica and Derek, sister Emma is her stalwart. "Emma's gas. She's very loud, she lifts your spirits. We have serious arguments, but she's my best friend, honestly she is."
Before long, the three secondary students are in fits of laughter, describing failed attempts at making apple tart for Junior Cert home economics. This is when you see the real Sarah Bolger, who was nervous about going on The Late Late Show last night. When I offer a bit of motherly advice - "just be yourself" - she responds with a shrug and lifts her beautifully sculpted eyebrows as if to say "whatever that is", like most girls her age.
"Surreal" is how she describes acting, which doesn't feel like work even though for Spiderwick it meant waking at 5am, spending three hours in hair and make-up and then working in minus-7 degree temperatures in Montreal while wearing summer clothes.
One minute she was sword-fighting against a tennis ball (that's how actors film scenes with special effects characters), and the next she was being made to sit down and do algebra.
"Would it have helped to draw a face on the tennis ball?" Tiffaney and Sienna ask.
"I'd have burst out laughing and wouldn't have been able to stop!" Bolger says.
In daily life, Bolger loves Simon and Garfunkel and Queen and is so "shy" that she's happiest when out walking her dogs. But when she's acting something else in her spirit takes over. In two years' time, she'll be 19 and ready to become a full-time actress.
She'd love to make a film as good as Mean Girls, which was directed by Mark Waters, who also directed The Spiderwick Chronicles. She wants to make a comedy next. "But you couldn't top Mean Girls," she says.
She has no intention of succumbing to the Hollywood lure of becoming a sex symbol ingenue.
"There's pressure if you want to live that life, but I don't intend to be growing up too fast."
