FROM THE PATRIOT TO HUNTERS: WHY WE LOVE LOGAN LERMAN

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Fans of Logan Lerman know the likeable actor primarily from the Percy Jackson films. In 2010 and 2013, he stood in front of the camera for the fantasy film adaptation – at that time still very young. In the meantime, however, the sweet teen has become a real man.

Logan Lerman was born on 1992 in Beverly Hills, California. He comes from a Jewish family from Poland, Russia and Lithuania. When he saw a Jackie Chan movie at the age of three, Logan Lerman decided to become an actor. By his own admission, Lerman didn’t take acting all that seriously at first, saying he went to auditions just to get out of school. Then Lerman found himself getting roles.

After appearing in a few commercials, the up-and-coming talent made his film debut in 2000 in Roland Emmerich’s historical drama The Patriot with Mel Gibson, playing the latter’s youngest son. And that same year, he was back in front of the camera with Gibson in Nancy Meyers‘ comedy What Women Want, playing lead character Nick Marshall in Childhood. Lerman actually wanted to quit acting in this period despite these plum gigs. Being all of 10 years old, he changed his mind and continued to work steadily.

His best-known role to date was in the 2010 film Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, in which he played the demigod Percy Jackson.

When asked about the possibility of playing Poseidon, he admitted that he is still interested to revisit the franchise and is open to playing a new role that would fit him. “Yeah, potentially, it just depends. It’s early right now you know. It usually starts with an announcement like this for a big project. So, they announced the development of this show. I wonder when they will be ready to make it. They’ve got to approve scripts, budget it, and cast it. Do this whole thing. So, it could be a ways away for them, you know. I’m curious if there would be a role that would be interesting for me or something like that. I’d definitely consider it.”

The Percy Jackson novel franchise began with The Lightning Thief, which proved to be a smash hit and spawned four sequels, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth and The Last Olympian, with five supplement books and graphic novel versions of each being released shortly after.

The biggest hint to Lerman’s ability came in Stephen Chbosky’s adaption of his own novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a tender coming-of-age tale. Lerman was not only getting good mainstream parts, but he was making solid sleepers as well. One of the most acclaimed of these was this movie, where he played the lead role opposite Emma Watson and Ezra Miller.

Meanwhile Logan Lerman is already one of the most sought-after young actors in Hollywood. You might then expect to have a steady lineup of dystopian young-adult adaptations or house-party comedies in the pipeline. But this one is in a different direction entirely: industry veteran James Schamus’ Philip Roth adaptation Indignation.

The role, Lerman says, is exactly the kind of material he’s attracted to, and he doesn’t mind turning down more cookie-cutter (and lucrative) parts in order to find his own path.

“Let the other actors take the bad roles,” he joked in an interview, only using a different word for “bad.” ”I’m trying to figure out who I am through the choices I make. I don’t know myself well enough. I’m still trying to figure out what person I want to be.”

In Indignation Lerman stars as Marcus Messner, the only son of a Jewish butcher in Newark, New Jersey. While the Korean War is raging, he goes to a Christian college in Ohio, where his rigid principles are challenged by a forward but fragile young woman and a rigid and judgmental dean (Tracy Letts).

He was a producer on Indignation, telling: “I’m just there to help, and to be a partner in the process of pre-production, production, and post-production. So, it’s more of a creative involvement in all the other mediums involved and all the other stages, rather than just showing up to do my part as an actor.”

The directorial debut of Schamus (the longtime writing and producing partner of Ang Lee and the former head of Focus Features), Indignation is a revelation of the maturing talent of Lerman. His performance is subtle and smart, but also with the kind of confident charisma that can make stars out of young actors. In the film’s lengthy 20-minute centerpiece, he volleys back and forth with Letts, holding his own with the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and veteran stage actor.

“It was terrifying, but I like that. I mean, I didn’t enjoy myself. But I wanted the challenge. I want to be the guy who can take the responsibility to try to tackle difficult obstacles,” says Lerman. “When we got to set it was like two boxers getting ready for the fight. I had trained and been focused and brought a lot of caffeine.”

“One of the great joys for me was Logan. He was a complete unknown to me,” says Letts. “He’s so good in the role and so smart and so prepared. He’s the real deal. I left very impressed with Logan Lerman.”

Logan has been steadily acting in movies, yet, he hasn’t appeared on the small screen since the short-lived series Jack & Bobby. Amazon Prime’s new drama Hunters – a series about a group of people fighting Nazis in 1970s America – changes that. One of the stars is Al Pacino, who is enjoying a resurgence after roles in two Best Picture nominees: Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. 

In an echo of Indignation, Lerman plays protagonist Jonah Heidelbaum, a 19-year-old who knows little about his grandmother’s time in Auschwitz during World War II. However, that changes when his grandmother is murdered, and a new world is opened up to him by her friend, Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino).

“He’s a young man, struggling financially with his grandmother,” Lerman said of his character. “He has to make sacrifices for the path he wants to take in life so he can stay and support his family.  „Making this series just felt like the right opportunity. I was curious about it. And compared to the films that were out there, it seemed like a good project to be a part of. There weren’t a lot of film scripts that I was reading that were sent to me as an actor that I was really passionate about. I was holding off. I kind of just dip out for a while too, when I don’t find material that I like. I’m not someone who’s like constantly in your face, like a bunch of things, because I really have to be passionate about what I’m working on. But… it was the strongest script out of everything that I was reading at the time“ .

I’m Jewish, so it was a personal connection to it, Lerman said too, but that aside, it’s not really what I look at when assessing if I like [a role]. I don’t really try to look for a connection or something that I feel personally connected to. I just look at the character. I assess whether or not I care about them. I assess whether or not they’re integral to the story. And I really look at what they want and whether or not I care about that. Like, what does this character want and is that interesting enough to, for me as an audience member, to want to watch this full season of television or multiple seasons, whatever it will be. And, yeah, it’s really just focused on that, not really that personal connection to the material.

His project in 2020 was a film that came out at Sundance Film Festival called Shirley, which is a Josephine Decker movie. It’s about a famous horror writer finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple.

Logan said: „There are some other films that I’m making as a producer and as an actor and things that are coming up. They’re really all of them, at the moment, they’re all independent films, independent projects…. I’ve been producing for probably seven years now, made three films and hoping to make more.. It’s a miracle when it comes together. I love the process so much because I can’t explain it. And it’s just a matter of chance and hard work.

And that’s why we love Logan Lerman.