Article 6

(Taken from Black Book Magazine - Spring issue)

    He's worked with both Indies and mainstream heavyweights and he's poised for cult stardom with a new film by Larry Clark-but Hollywood still can't take the South out of a young actor Brad Renfro.
     Renfro's insistence on positioning himself outside Hollywood's madness is where his uncool comes together with his cool.
    When Actor Brad Renfro describes his character in the upcoming film Happy Campers, he might as well be describing himself. "Some people miss the point because he's very cool," Renfro says, "but uncool."
When it comes to his films, Renfro ticks off a cool list of new projects, including Happy Campers (written and directed by Dan Waters of Heathers fame), Deuces Wild (directed by The Basketball Diaries' Scott Kalvert), and Bully, the latest film from director Larry Clark.
Renfro has reason to be confident. The young actor made is debut at age ten in Joel Schumacher's The Client (1993) and went on to star in Barry Levinson's Sleepers (1996) and Bryan Singer's Apt Pupil (1997). And judging from the names on his current resume, Renfro knows how to pick his projects.
But when it comes to life off screen, Renfro, like his character in Happy Campers remains sweetly, intently cool. He still lives with his grandmother in Knoxville, Tennessee. He cruises the lakes of his hometown with his dad on a "big-ass" pontoon boat that is so slow, he says, that any real speed would "devastate our antiquated system." He plays the banjo and the blues guitar and, with a slow, smooth drawl, he says that he still dreams of becoming a musician.
Renfro's insistence on positioning himself outside Hollywood's madness is where his uncool comes together with his cool. "I just try to believe in what I'm doing," he explains, "because if I don't believe it, you're not gonna believe it."
The work that's made a believer of Renfro lately is Larry Clarks Bully. Based on the real-life story of a young man named Bobby Kent, who was lured into the Florida Everglades and murdered by seven so-called friends, Bully is reported to carry the same brazen sincerity as Clark's Kids and his infamous photographic work before it.
"Tulsa is beautiful," says Renfro earnestly about Clark's notorious 1971 book.
"I was a Clark fan before [the movie] came about--very smart, very smart guy. I had a great time making a film with him. We're both just open-up-and-bleed filmmakers,"
As for the future? Renfro is tempering his desire to open up and bleed with his down-home sensibilities, a goal which is best articulated--in a combination of teen slacker speech and an honest effort to express himself--when he sums up the theme of Happy Campers: "just, like, give it up," he says. "Quit trying to be shit," Finally, sound advice from a young Hollywood actor.

Contributed by: Tara