Thirteen-year-old Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin was anxious to get to lunch during a Canada media stopover for the film My Sister’s Keeper.
She’s approaching the end of a three month strict “no-clothes buying spending diet” imposed by her father. She is scheduled to have lunch at a mall and its only mid-June. The diet doesn’t end until July 1.
“Oh yes!” she assures. “He never said anything about shoes or jewelry or purses, he just said clothes. That’s a very limited arena.”
Breslin’s film, based on Jodi Picoult’s novel, looks at the damage caused by a mother’s obsessive fight to keep alive a daughter gravely ill with leukemia. Breslin plays the second daughter who was scientifically conceived and altered to be a source of body tissue and organ donations for her older sister’s procedures.
Breslin’s character decides she’s had enough, and sues her parents for medical emancipation.
“It teaches us a lot. What you have today you might not have tomorrow. It also shows that the whole family does love each other. It’s definitely a hard situation to be in to have to decide what to do. Every situation in the movie is hard and my character, she’s between her sister and her family and that is definitely hard, “ Breslin says.
“I see the mother’s point of view,” she continues. “That’s one of the things I liked about the movie. There are no real bad guys, everybody’s doing what they think is right and best and not trying to do anything bad.”
Breslin’s sunny face darkens ever so slightly. “People tell me they wept watching it. Well, I cried making it. It’s definitely a hard movie to watch but at the end of the day, it’s about a family who, even though they are disconnected, they still love each other.
“That’s really important. It makes you think, it taught me not to take anything for granted, especially health. It shows what a really horrible disease cancer is. And one day I want to be able to say it used to be but it’s not any more.”
There are some less heavy roles on Breslin’s horizon, including the animated features The Wild Bunch, Rango and Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey, along with horror-comedy Zombieland.
The young actress is quick to change back to cheerier subjects.
“I definitely like acting, and I like fashion, I like clothes,” Breslin says. “And I’m double-jointed.”
With that, she bends her thumb right up against her wrist, then jumps up, turns her high-heeled feet in opposite directions and walks, one foot facing completely backwards.
• My Sister’s Keeper opens in theatres on Friday. For movie trailers, photos and more info, click here
