2012's New Star: Morgan Lily
Roland Emmerich's new doomsday disaster flick 2012 is in theaters now... and it's garnering mixed reviews at best. But there has been one standout: nine-year-old Morgan Lily, who plays the daughter of the main character, a writer (John Cusack) struggling to save his family from armeggedon. Though Morgan's role in the film isn't large, she's gotten noticed for it, and Entertainment Weekly magazine named her "a star to watch."
Morgan is no newcomer to the entertainment industry. She began modeling at age 4, has done over 20 commercials, had bit parts in three films before 2012, and also does ventriloquism and magic. 2012 might just prove to be her lanching board into child stardom. Morgan herself seems to hope so: she attended premieres for 2012 in Los Angeles and Tokyo and made her first-ever talk show appearence (on The Bonnie Hunt Show on November 25) to promote the film.
When Bonnie asked Morgan what the hardest thing about filming 2012 was, Morgan replied that it was leaving her pets behind while they shot on location. "I was in Vancouver for four and a half months," she said, "and I have five dogs back at my own house, and a cat and a bird and a hamster. When I got home, my dogs were so much bigger. Hopefully, the next thing that I film, I'll bring my dogs."
Morgan's next movie, the romantic comedy Flipped, is due for release in September 2010. She'll play the young version of 13-year-old Madeline Carroll's character.
Surveying the destruction in 2012
At the premiere in Los Angeles
On The Bonnie Hunt Show
I haven't seen 2012, but from what I've read, Morgan's role in the film greatly resembles Dakota Fanning's in War of the Worlds. (And that's not necessarily a bad thing, although I did get mighty tired of all the child-in-peril roles Dakota did as a kid.) Both are apocalyptic popcorn movies relying heavily on special effects, and in both, a divorced dad (Tom Cruise, John Cusack) must suddenly save his son and daughter (Dakota, Morgan) from some sort of armageddon (an alien invasion, the end of the world). At one point in 2012, Morgan is looking out an airplane window at the destruction, and one of her parents puts a hand over her eyes -- just what Tom Cruise did to Dakota in War of the Worlds when they came across dead bodies floating in a river. Whether Morgan, like Dakota, spends most of the movie being toted around by her dad, I don't know, but I think it's a safe bet.