Robert Sean Leonard, who portrays a tormented and misunderstood young man in the new movie, "Dead Poets Society," describes working with actor Robin Williams and director Peter Weir as "his baptism."
"I've learned so much," Leonard said the other day in a Manhattan restaurant as he talked about growing up in Ridgewood and his early fascination with acting.
The movie, which stars Williams, is being touted by Touchstone Pictures as the thinking man's alternative to this summer's crop of adventure movies.
Leonard, 20, moved to New York City two years ago and now lives in a studio apartment in Chelsea. His parents moved to Waldwick. Between acting jobs, he attends Fordham University in the Bronx where he is majoring in history. "I think studying history is much more interesting than studying acting," he says. "Besides, I learn more about acting by performing." Leonard made his film debut in "The Manhattan Project." He also appeared in "My Best Friend is a Vampire." He has a string of stage performances to his credit, including "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Breaking the Code," in which he played a British schoolboy opposite Derek Jacobi.
It's a brutally hot day and Leonard is poking at the shrimp in his seafood platter. He is dressed casually in a cotton shirt and slacks.
And yes, that well-scrubbed look and innocent eyes that are so convincing in the movie are very much in evidence.
He began acting at age 12. His first speaking part, he says, was belting out the song "Gary, Indiana" at the top of his lungs in a Ridgewood summer stock production of "The Music Man". He took morning classes at Ridgewood High School and pursued his acting career in the afternoon.
A few years ago, he said, his father retired from his job as a Spanish teacher at Pascack Valley High School. His mother still works as a private nurse. His sister teaches English in the Park Ridge school district, and his brother recently graduated from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
Leonard has just completed a nine-week engagement in a Philadelphia stage production which, he says, had a mercifully short run. He is preparing to audition for several parts in this summer's New York Shakespeare Festival, which explains why he's carting around a copy of Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus."
Right now, he'd much rather talk about his role as Neil Perry in "Dead Poets Society." The movie, which opens locally this week, stars Williams as John Keating, an irreverent English teacher who challenges the rigorous academic life at a boys prep school in Vermont in the 1950s.
Keating urges his young students to free themselves from the shackles of conformity and live life to its fullest.
The idea appeals to seven young men in his poetry class, including Perry, who decide to revive the school's defunct Dead Poets Society in order to experience love, passion, and life through poetry.
Perry is a romantic who yearns for an acting career but is thwarted by disapproving parents who are hell-bent on getting him into medical school.
Perry goes against his father's wishes and performs in the school's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." His Puck wins tumultuous applause. But he is hustled out of the school auditorium by his irate father, who takes him home and informs him that he will be sent to another school and will become a doctor.
Perry's confrontation with his parents takes place in their impeccable living room, and the background music swells as his stern-faced father asks him to explain his undisciplined behavior. Perry searches for the courage to tell his father that he wants to be an actor. When his courage fails, the movie audience gasps.
"I couldn't believe the reaction," says Leonard, who attended a screening of the movie the previous night. "People were actually yelling at the characters on the screen."
To him the movie was wonderful, creative work. But it was an effort, he says, that would not have succeeded except for the talents of Williams and Weir. "This has been my baptism," he says. "Peter Weir taught me so much."
"Yes, it was hard work and the days were 14 hours long. But I've never worked with a director who was so intense, so creative, and so giving." Leonard downplays his performance as he talks about the filming of certain key scenes. The scene in which he urges a classmate to throw away a desk set, the second in a row he received as a birthday present from his parents, is his favorite, he says, because Weir allowed him to improvise.
The scene begins with Todd, the classmate, sitting dejectedly by the desk set. When Perry tells him to throw the desk set away, it's as if someone understands Todd's inner agony for the first time. "Don't worry," Perry says. "You'll probably get another one next year". This is Leonard ad-libbing, and the screening audience loved it. "I didn't think it was funny when I said it," says Leonard. "It just seemed to be the natural thing to say." Leonard says Weir encouraged the actors to perform spontaneously, although he kept a tight reign on the antics of Robin Williams. "Robin wanted it that way," explains Leonard.
And what did Leonard learn from Williams. "He told me not to become famous," Leonard said, smiling.
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