Article 2

(Taken from Indonesian Magazine "Gadis" 1994)

 

This cute boy appeared for the first time in a movie directed by Joel Schumacher named The Client. Brad played the character of Mark Sway a teenage boy who is chased by a group of mafia because he accidentally saw a murder. Mark comes from a poor family. He lives with his mother and his younger brother. His mother works as a laborer in a factory. Mark is described as a naughty little boy with a bad temper, just like a typical "broken-home" kid. But he loves his mother. Brad Renfro played all those characteristics brilliantly.

In reality Brad Renfro's life is similar to Mark Sway's. He lives in a small town named, Knoxville, Tennessee, "only" with his grandmother. "Because no other family member wanted to take care of me. Sometimes Mom said that she wanted to live with me but she can't handle me, " said Brad.

Brad's parents have been divorced for a very long time. Brad once lived with his dad for a while but then his dad got remarried and moved to another city with his new wife. "But dad is Ok, he is my best friend! If at the end he left me well...I think that is the best for him. It's fine with me, " defends Brad.

Joel Schumacher, the director of the client is the one who got Brad into Hollywood. Joel introduced Brad to Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, from Warner Bross.

"The meeting was kind of funny," said Joel. It was funny because Brad showed up at Lorenzo's office wearing a jeans and a Megadeth's T-shirt.

"You like Megadeth? They're a cool group." Said Lorenzo.

"You like Megadeth too?" asked Brad in amazement.

"Yeah...!" answered Lorenzo in a cool way.

"Wow I thought you would never want to hear Megadeth and has the same opinion with the other grown-ups who are always saying, "when I was at your age I liked better kind of music," answered Brad again in amazement.

He began to see Lorenzo as a grown-up who understands his teen world.

His friendship with Lorenzo keeps going on, along the making of the movie and so is his with Joel. Joel even decided to adopt Brad and to take care all of his expanses until he has grown up. "When I am 16 years old, I would have graduated high school and then I will go to UCLA majoring in movie and then I would become a famous director. And at that time Joel would have been an old man, ha...ha...," said Brad.

It seems that this little boy has fallen in love with his new "dad". Not only because Joel is very nice but because Brad thinks that Joel understands him and never think of him as "little". Well, even though Brad is still young, he wants to be treated as an adult, who is free to expressed his will and dream. Including his dream to be a great actor or to be a great director like Joel Schumacher his best pal in Hollywood.