A Dog’s Way home star Bryce Dallas Howard spills on Rocketman and Star Wars
Bryce Dallas Howard knows she has a lot to live up to with her father being Oscar winning director Ron Howard. But the star is determind use the experience of playing Elton John’s mother to guide her as she steps into the director’s chair for the up coming Star Wars TV spin off.
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Bryce Dallas Howard has always lived a dog’s life.
Although she’s the daughter of child actor, turned Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, the Jurassic World star grew up a world away from the bright lights of Hollywood, raised by her parents in upstate New York and on a farm in Connecticut with her three siblings and surrounded by a menagerie of various beasts.
“My parents are just crazy about animals so I grew up surrounded by dogs and cats and chickens and donkeys and horses and all of that, which was really, really incredible,” she says.
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But canine companions have a special place in her heart. Indeed, she says her laugh, which she uses often and admits is “a little big” is directly attributable to the family Jack Russell terrier that helped draw her out of her shell when she was just a toddler. So the theatre-trained, Golden Globe-nominated Howard jumped at the chance to voice the part of Bella, a rescue dog that undergoes an epic, cross-country journey after becoming separated from her owners in the family friendly mutt movie, A Dog’s Way Home. And clearly the love of animals ran in the family — she based her sweet-natured, endlessly optimistic personification of the plucky pooch on her younger sister, Paige.
“I don’t think I have even told her this yet,” she admits, with a slightly guilty laugh. “My sister Paige is like a puppy herself and is one of the most genuine, beautiful spirits I have ever encountered. We have very, very similar voices — like people in my family often mistake us for one another but I am slightly more cynical sounding. She has a kind of a twinkle behind everything that she does, so I was definitely thinking about Paige when I was doing this.”
Howard, who shot to fame in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village in 2004 and has also appeared in the blockbuster Twilight, Spider-man and Terminator franchises, is now a mother of two herself, with son Theodore and daughter Beatrice. Just as much part of the family is her dog, Arthur, who she describes as “a biggish dog, a little needy — and hilarity ensues”. Dogs, she says, help people live their best lives, pointing out the valuable role they play in therapy and as companions.
“It’s beautiful and it’s real and I think animals and dogs in particular are so present. It’s kind of like being around kids — it’s impossible not be lost in the present moment when you are with a dog. There is also an inherent optimism that is also quite infectious and that’s why there are a lot of service animals for therapy. It’s their ability to be there with you, it’s very, very healing.”
“It’s like you become yourself when you with your animals — there is no judgment, there is no pretence, you get to be yourself with another being and oftentimes that being is showing you unconditional love, which is the most extraordinary gift that can be bestowed on any creature. They are the best.”
While Howard will only be heard in A Dog’s Way Home — with an extraordinary real-life rescue dog called Shelby taking care of the action — in May she’ll be back on the big screen playing Elton John’s mother in Rocketman. The biopic, with Brit Taron Egerton in the leading role is helmed by Dexter Fletcher, who saw through Bohemian Rhapsody after original director Bryan Singer was fired.
Howard, who says she never had an easier time coming through UK Customs once officers found out what she was shooting there, thinks Rocketman has every chance of doing for John (and his back catalogue) what Bohemian Rhapsody did for Queen.
“He’s a treasure for all of us,” she says of the Australia-bound hit maker. “We all kind of have a personal relationship with Elton John’s music, particularly in the UK. He’s a hero and an icon. It’s awesome getting to do that film.
“Dexter Fletcher is a remarkable filmmaker and this is something that he has been involved in for so long. While we were making it we were sort of like ‘oh wow — this is something special’ and you always hope that translates. And of course with Bohemian Rhapsody it’s really exciting how that film and Queen’s music has resonated with audiences and that’s exciting because I kind of think that Rocketman is going to do that as well.”
After that, don’t expect to see Howard in front of the camera any time soon. While she’s signed up for a third Jurassic World film, due to be released in 2021, she’s following in her father’s famous footsteps into the world of directing. Her first major assignment — the eagerly anticipated Star Wars TV spin-off The Mandalorian — is something of a homecoming for Howard. Her father and Star Wars creator George Lucas have been close for decades and collaborated as director and producer on the 1988 cult fantasy film Willow. And it’s only since Howard started work on the secrecy shrouded project for Disney’s coming streaming service that she realised just how big a part that galaxy far, far away has played in her life.
“There is kind of a familiarity that I feel with Star Wars that I think simply comes out of my experience being a kid and growing up around George and hanging out at Skywalker Ranch,” she says. “George’s oldest kid is the same age as me and his second oldest is the same age as my younger sister and so we all just grew up together and my Christmas gifts were always Star Wars figurines.
“I kind of remember Willow like it was yesterday — and I am not really exaggerating. It was something that is such a vivid recollection for me because I turned six years old during that movie and I was on set constantly and it was incredible getting to work on this — I was getting to see people that I first met when I was that age on that set and the Lucasfilm family is a tight family. So it’s been kind of wild.”
A Dog’s Way Home opens on Thursday. Rocketman opens May 30.
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