STACK #166 Aug 2018

DVD & BD FEATURE

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Julian Dennison has done everything from Hunt for the Wilderpeople to ads for Lynx Australia. He’s also taken his acting career up a notch with a supporting role in Deadpool 2 . Words Alesha Kolbe

K iwi actor Julian Dennison is only 15, and yet that hasn’t stopped him from being one of the most loveable faces you’ll find on a screen. His role as little Ricky Baker in Hunt for the Wilderpeople alongside Sam Neill catapulted him into the limelight, and he’s now ready to roll with the likes of Ryan Reynolds and Josh Brolin in Deadpool 2 . Dennison plays Russell Collins, aka Firefist. Speaking to STACK over the phone from Sydney while promoting the DP2 theatrical release, he tells us that the filmmakers wanted to separate the movie Russell from the comic book Russell. “The team said they wanted to take the character in a completely different direction,” Dennison says. “We worked a lot on making him more of an angry character. Firefist is a kid from the comic in the ‘90s, so not many people remember who he is.” Landing the role seemed to be

a case of right place, right time for Dennison, who just so happened to be in LA when they were in the process of casting for the film. “We were in LA for something else, and we met up with the director and I did a screen test with Ryan Reynolds, and they sent it off to Fox who ended up saying ‘yeah, we’d love to have you play Firefist.’” Speaking of Reynolds, what must it be like to share a set with the very man who personifies Wade Wilson? “Working with Ryan was great – he’s a really cool dude,” offers Dennison. “And working with Josh Brolin [who plays Cable] as well – he seems so intimidating, and he put on a lot of muscle for the role and he seems really huge, but in reality he’s such a nice, down to earth guy.” Going from New Zealand indie hit Hunt for the Wilderpeople to a big-budget Hollywood production like Deadpool 2 involved a lot of

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AUGUST 2018

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