When you get to the place that Steven Spielberg has reached in Hollywood box office success, you don't expect to run across someone like J.J. Hardy.
Most young actors simply genuflect in the great director's presence, but not Hardy, a wide-eyed and brash yet likable high school senior from Mission Viejo, Calif.During the filming of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," in which Hardy plays Herman, the overweight and comical sidekick of the teenage Jones in the first 17 minutes, Hardy said he thought he had a better idea than Spielberg on how to film a particular scene.
So the young actor, who turned 18 this week, sat down with Spielberg and explained how the scene should be shot.
"Can you believe I had the nerve to tell Steven Spielberg that I thought my way was funnier than his?" Hardy asked with a face contorted into a wince. "He looked at me in disbelief and then cracked up laughing. He said: `Listen, J.J., I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll let you direct the next movie, but, for now, let's do it the way the script says.' "
The scene was shot Spielberg's way and presumably the director knew what he was doing - last weekend the movie enjoyed the biggest box office opening ever. But Hardy did wind up making his own directorial contribution to the film, albeit an unintentional one.
In one of the movie's earliest scenes, Hardy provided one of the screen hit's biggest laughs when the then-290-pounder fell off his horse. That wasn't scripted, according to Hardy. He simply fell off the horse.
"My leg hit the backpack as I was trying to get off and I lost my balance," Hardy said sheepishly. "Steven thought it was so funny that he tried to do it again the next day so he could get some close-ups, but they had to forget about the close-ups because they were afraid I'd get hurt.
"But he loved the scene so much that he kept it in, which I didn't know he was going to do until I saw the movie at the premiere."
The movie's staggering performance at the box office has made Hardy somewhat of a celebrity with his Mission Viejo High School classmates as well as with some Indy Jones fans he's never met.
"People have been driving by and waving and I've been waving back, but I have no idea who they are," he said. "And the kids at school have been great, although some kids were upset because they waited in line for two hours and couldn't get into the theater because it was too crowded.
"I can't imagine waiting in line two hours for any movie."
Hardy said filming the Indiana Jones movie, his third after small roles in the movies "Nobody's Fool" and "Little Spies," was the most fun he's ever had.
"I had the best time of my life, and I fell in love with everybody on the set," he said. "Sometimes I get choked up thinking about the fact that it's all over and about the friends I left on the set."
But friends aren't the only things he left on the set.
When Hardy played Herman, he weighed 290 pounds, which was one reason he lost his balance and fell off his horse. He now tips the scales at a svelte 175, and he's not through.
He's lost 115 pounds in five months on a program he devised himself, which includes a hefty amount of exercise (he jogs five miles a day and works out for two hours on a cross-country skiing machine) and a balanced diet (chicken, fish, vegetables and fruit).
"There are times when even I can't believe I've done it," he said. "And you should have seen everybody at the premiere. People were running up and hugging me.
"Even this casting agent came up and hugged me. She told me this would open me up to a whole world of new roles. I needed to hear that because I was worried that I wouldn't get good roles anymore."