Devon Interview

Young veterans of the teen pinup trade aren't always able to make the leap from the bedroom wall to big-screen credibility, but Vancouver-born Devon Sawa is destined to arrive safely. With three new films in the can and scripts pouring in, it seems safe to say that the dirty-blond charmer's Seventeen magazine days have cleared up. He's ready for a new kind of breakout.

ANDY BAILEY: When did you start acting?

DEVON SAWA: I started in theater when I was eleven and worked my way up to film. By the age of fifteen I had got the part of Casper [1995].

AB: Did you read for that part?

DS: It was a nationwide search. They put kids on tape in every state and province. It was my lucky break.

AB: You've been on the cover of a lot of teenybopper magazines. How difficult is it to transcend that and get yourself taken seriously as an actor?

DS: It was extremely difficult. It got to the point where I needed to take a year off.

AB: It seems very similar to what Leo DiCaprio went through.

DS: It's been a little easier for him. Give a kid a movie like Titanic and away you go.

AB: You were mobbed by two hundred young female fans at the premiere of Wild America. What did that feel like?

DS: It was scary at the time, but I can't complain. When I took my year off, the fan base died down a bit.

AB: Your next movie, Final Destination, comes out in March. What's it about?

DS: It's an edgy thriller about a guy who has a premonition about a plane going down before it takes off. He gets kicked off the plane along with six other people who try and calm him down in the terminal. In the background they see the plane take off and explode. He's basically beaten death's design. Now death is after him and the other six people by order of their seat numbers. They have to figure out how to cheat death.

AB: Apparently "Devon" is Australian for "packaged meat."

DS: I've heard that. Sawa is Polish, and Devon came straight out of a baby book. My dad's Polish and my mom's a little bit of everything.

AB: How did they feel about their little boy running off to big bad Los Angeles?

DS: I still have to call my mom every night.

Back 12.31.2007.