the family's been on the run from the people who created the drug lot 6 and the experiment that
they were in and they've been hiding they've been hiding for years when the film opens
but charlie's ability uh and how it manifests when she gets upset has put them into danger the shop
knows where they are and they've sent somebody named rainbird to come and bring charlie in
and that's kind of where we pick up firestart is about a family who's going to extreme lengths
to protect their daughter who has this telepathic ability from a group of people who want to harness
her power their daughter's ability is new she's not used to controlling her power and her parents
really really don't want her to use it but through the film we discover that they have these special
abilities and those abilities put them all in a ton of danger i think the most important theme
of the novel is how do we manage our own pain and i think that uh all the characters in firestarter
are wrestling with that and what is great about stephen king's work is he puts kind of a
a worked lens on human emotion so it enhances parts of the continuum of human feeling but
they remain recognizable so the idea that rage can kill is something that all children believe
in charlie's case it's true and that metaphor is an extraordinary way to explore how we handle
our own despair anger and suffering i love the really grounded kind of very natural
scientific take on what these powers would look like you know how they would feel the damage they
could cause and if you put a child with these powers in a very real world what would happen
what would it look like at the same time that is how you can get these suspenseful moments
of if charlie gets upset what's gonna happen charlie is played by ryan kira armstrong and
she has a special telekinetic ability that her parents have always encouraged her not to use
they encouraged her really to bury it um down inside of herself but it's bubbling up and and
when she gets emotional her emotions trigger that ability so when she's scared or she's upset or
when she's frustrated it's really easily brought to the surface but charlie's inability to control
her powers and the fact that evil forces want to learn more about it and potentially use it
to hurt charlie and others puts her and the people around her in a lot of danger it was
that inner turmoil and emotion that ryan was just amazingly able to summon up like on the spot um
ryan's edition her first audition i could see it ryan just had this inner sort of
tension and this sort of combustion for lack of a better word
that just kind of you just see in her eyes um and so you know
the minute we saw her we knew like she would just be ideal for this
zach is a terrific actor and has always had range and has i think over the course of his
career been expanding and if not really expanding it demonstrating to the world how much he can
do um and so i think this sort of taking a this role of a father uh riddled with guilt riddled
with compassion um and willing to do anything to save his child was sort of the natural next step
in the evolution of of the roles he's taken um and i just thought he was spectacular we really
wanted to be true to the book in a different way that movie existed people had that story
let's tell it a little differently but be truer to the emotional content of the book and the kind of
this dynamic between charlie and the family and how her powers develop hope you enjoyed this
behind the scenes look at fire starter and learned some really cool stuff about the pyrotechnics used
on this film it's amazing to see how powers could be a burden as well as a blessing and see how
characters with anger and using it against people and how that can manifest into um in this film the
way it does so let me know down in the comments down below the cool things that you've learned
on this film and uh don't forget to hit the like subscribe and i'll see you here next time later