How 'IT' changed Nicholas Hamilton's Alstonville life

THE teen actor is still surprised by the horror film's box office success, and the new opportunities it's opened for him.

'IT' TEEN: Alstonville local Nicholas Hamilton will be seen in some exciting film projects this year including the hyped remake of Stephen King's IT. Picture: Marc Stapelberg

TWO weeks after coming from Los Angeles, back to his life in Alstonville, Hollywood star and local teen Nicholas Hamilton is still dealing with the tidewave of exposure after the release to the film It and some of the consequences of the project's success.

It, the adaptation of Stephen King's book into cinema, wowed the global box office with a massive $179 million on it first weekend.

The film scared off The Exorcist's 44 year-old record to become the highest grossing horror film of all time, breaking the $500 million in September.

The success of It has prompted the studio behind the film, New Line Cinema, to fast-track a sequel, which has already been given a September 2019 release date.

Nicholas Hamilton, 17, born in Lismore and an Alstonville High Year 12 student played Henry Bowers, the mullet-doning bully of the film.

Are you surprised by the level of success of the film?

It's awesome but it is more than what any of us expected.

Even now, I'm still tying to get my head around it.

For a movie made on a budget of US$35 million, to make US$550 million in the first month is properly insane.

But you knew there was a lot of expectation around the film, right?

Yeah, we knew, but I think the first confirmation that the film was going to be OK was when Stephen King watched it and sent out a tweet saying it was up to his standards and he really liked it.

After that, if everyone else in the world had hated it, we would had been OK with it.

What kind of feedback have you got after this film?

I try not to read reviews but I get feedback via social media.

The main questions I get is whether Henry will be back in Chapter 2.

Obviously that's not a question I can answer yet, because I don't know.

Are you involved in Chapter 2?

I don't know at all. The script is currently being written, so nobody but the scriptwriter really knows. It will be as much of a surprise to me as to anyone else.

So what are you working on at the moment?

There is definitely some stuff in the pipeline, but nothing I can talk about yet.

I keep getting auditions and I love keeping busy.

I'd be happy to work in Australia, or overseas, as soon as the project offers me an interesting character and it has a good plot, something that I am really exciting to do.

I've been doing auditions for film and TV, I'm not fuzzy either way, as soon as the character is complex and layered, I am happy to do it.

What has been the most memorable off-screen moment of your Hollywood experience so far?

While we were filing It, the cast of Captain Fantastic (2016) was nominated to a SAG award, so we flew to Los Angeles and one of my fellow It cast members, Finn Wolfhard, is also in Stranger Thing and they werre also nominated, so both crews met.

That night I met Meryl Streep wich was just insane. She said she watched our movie and loved it.

Stuff like that takes your breath away, that people I have watched all my life know I exist is properly insane.

How do you reconcile that with coming back to Alstonville?

This time it's definitely been different. I came back from Los Angeles two weeks ago to the last week of Term Three at school.

I arrived on a Friday, went to school on Monday, and it was a massive difefrence and this time, for some reason, I felt it more this time, maybe because It was such a big project.

I am definitely going to live in L.A. in the future, there is no doubt about that, but having these moments here with my family and my friends, and just being Nick, is something that I need and I enjoy having.

You did your first sexy photoshoot at age 17 for online magazine Rawpages recently, how did that feel?

(Laughs) It was difficult but I had fun with it. I saw it as an acting job and went with that. Fans see you as an adult, not as a child.

It's hard to explain but I love playing something that I am not, because I don't go through life trying to be a sexy character, but I have to admit it was a fun experience.