Morquio syndrome

They are acting just like any other boys their age would be expected to act in a fancy restaurant. The 14-year-old is turning up his nose at the menu, with its escargot and lamb loins and fish with salsa sides. The 11-year-old he calls "the brain" is pushing up the thick glasses that keep sliding down his nose, and tugging at his Izod pullover, wondering what god he offended to be sentenced to this.

These, however, are not boys like others their age. The 14-year-old, Joseph Mazzello, is already a veteran actor with impressive credits that include "Radio Flyer," "Presumed Innocent," "Shadowlands," and both "Jurassic Park" movies. The 11-year-old, Ian Michael Smith, is not only smarter and more well-read than most young men his age, he is smaller a lot smaller.

Ian, who is about 3 feet tall, was born with Morquio's a rare enzyme disorder that affects the skeletal system and dramatically inhibits growth. Some days, he admits, having Morquio's can be a drag. It causes severe ear infections, so he has to wear two hearing aids, and he's spent entirely too much time in hospitals having complicated operations. On the other hand, Morquio's is also responsible for Ian getting the opportunity to co-star in "Simon Birch," a movie inspired by John Irving's novel "A Prayer for Owen Meany." It's about a tiny boy who believes he was put on Earth to be "God's instrument." It opens Friday.

"There was a lot of competition for this," says Ian, who has perched himself partly on the arm of his dining room chair in order to be seen and heard. "I was lucky."

Or, maybe like Owen Meany renamed Simon Birch for the movie (for reasons we'll get into later) Ian was blessed. Though his father, Steve Smith, had been an actor in college, it was hardly something he considered for his son, despite the fact that he was "born verbal, and was always real self-possessed." But when a Chicago hospital where Ian had been treated sent the family a fax about a search for a young actor to play a kid who has Morquio's syndrome in another film, Steven, wife Cheryl and Ian talked it over. Ian said he would "like to go for it."

Ian didn't get the role in that film "The Mighty" which is also being released this fall. The role went to Kieran Culkin, brother of actor Macaulay. Ian's father said they figured that was the end of it, "because, let's face it, how many serious scripts would we ever see with a role for a boy like Ian? And we obviously weren't going to let him be in something where he could be exploited, like a Munchkin or something."

But the director of "The Mighty," knowing a search was on for a child with dwarfism to play Simon Birch, asked for the Smiths' permission to send Ian's tape to director Mark Steven Johnson, who had adapted "Owen Meany" as "a labor of love."

Johnson, who had placed ads in trade papers and scouted various conferences and conventions to find his Simon, says that when he first saw Ian, he said, "That's Simon. That's who I had in mind all these years."

So certain was Johnson that he didn't ask him to test with Joseph, who would play Simon's best friend.

"It was a risk," says Joseph. "I mean, I've been in some movies where I didn't get along with someone, and it can show. But I guess Mark felt there would be chemistry between us, and I think there is. If you see the movie, you'll definitely believe we are really good friends."

Johnson also knew that Joseph, who played a young AIDS victim in "The Cure," an abused child in "Radio Flyer," and troubled boys in "Shadowlands" and "The River Wild," could convey the emotion required to tell Irving's tragicomic tale.

Like most of Irving's books, "Owen Meany" explores how life's fragility and ironies test the character and nature of God's creatures. Johnson's script boils that down to one fateful year in the childhood of the the two unlikely friends. That is what led Irving to ask for the title change, to avoid confusing fans of the book, which takes the characters into adulthood, and some even darker places.

"These two guys go through a lot together," says Joseph, seasoned enough to avoid giving away the film's twists and turns. "I read the script, and I wanted to show Mark how much I understood that, so I took what I thought were the three most powerful scenes and I videotaped myself playing them. I had no problem getting into character, feeling what he was feeling."

"You know, I think maybe the younger you are, the easier it is to feel sad," says Ian, "because no one is telling you not to cry and stuff.

"Oh, are you saying all kids are depressed?" says Joseph, needling him. "Speak for yourself."

Ian giggles, and continues his line of thought, noting that even though he had never been made to feel like the outcast, as is Simon, he does understand what it can feel like to be left out.

"It's like when the other kids take gym, and I can't," he says "You can't help but feel a little weird."

Ian was anything but left out on the set of "Simon Birch."

He and Joseph said they bonded over video games ("I do good on one-player, but on two-players, he kills me in like two seconds," says Ian.) And both Ian and Joseph made friends with other cast members. That includes David Strathairn, who plays a minister vexed by Simon's questions about God's mission; Oliver Platt, who becomes a surrogate father figure to both boys, and especially Ashley Judd, who plays Joseph's mother, and on whose many good qualities both boys avidly agree. They are, after all, boys.

Joseph, who attends a private high school in upstate New York, expects to be back on a movie set soon. Ian, a sixth-grader in a public school in a Chicago suburb, would do another movie if it is "something like this one." He understands that good scripts for three-footers don't come along that often, so he's considering a career in law. His school had a mock court last year, and he was the lawyer who won.

"Sure," says Joseph, who knows that a major part of being a pal is to bust chops. "But did you send anybody to jail?"

Copyright 1998
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