Sixteen-year-old Corbin Allred is a video-movie star these days, and as you might expect, he's in the money. But don't ask him how much he makes. He hasn't the slightest idea.
There is, no doubt, enough to buy a car or two. But despite the driver's license in his wallet, he won't be getting a vehicle of his own until he's 17. And then it will be a modest car . . . probably used.Why? Because Corbin's acting career is on an upswing, and while his parents, Diane and Mike Allred, support their son's young career choice, they also want to do everything they can to keep him rooted and real. No way is he going to become a casualty of the Hollywood fast-lane.
So far, it seems to be working. And Corbin doesn't feel at all deprived. He likes it this way.
In fact, while he enjoys acting, Corbin loves rock-climbing. And though he has a good time on movie sets around the world, he gets homesick and can't wait to return to Salt Lake City, to be with his family and hang out with his friends. What's more, despite a desire to continue acting into his adult years, he plans to study medicine and become a doctor.
What? No ambition to direct movies?
Well, maybe a little.
In his latest high-profile venture, Corbin is starring in a new straight-to-video cliffhanger series for kids. He has the title role of "Josh Kirby . . . Time Warrior!" (You may have heard or seen him on local radio and television stations Friday as part of a national publicity tour for Paramount Home Video.)
The first two films in the series - "Planet of the Dino Knights" and "The Human Pets" - have been in rental stores since late October. A third, "Trapped in Toyworld," was released this week. And three more are finished and will be available for rent over the next few months. (Next up is "Eggs From 70 Million B.C." Can an action-figure toy be far off?)
"They're for kids 8 and under," Corbin says. "They're going for the `Power Ranger' age-group, with people riding dinosaurs and fighting with swords."
Corbin also had the lead role in his first film, the straight-to-video "Quest of the Delta Knights," a medieval sword-and-sorcery yarn. That led to a bit part in Mel Brooks' "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" and a supporting role in another video movie, "No Dessert Dad Until You Mow the Lawn."
But there's no question that the "Josh Kirby" series has been his greatest challenge so far.
The job came in the usual way - auditions galore. Early last year, the Allreds went to Los Angeles for "pilot season," to read for new TV shows. "There were sometimes four auditions a day," Corbin said, "and I was there two-to-three weeks at a time (over a two-month period)."
In addition, he went to tryouts for "Josh Kirby . . . Time Warrior!" "What I didn't know then was that it was actually for six movies - serials with cliffhangers, with each one being resolved in the next episode."
After several callbacks, the role of Josh Kirby was narrowed down to three boys, then two - and then he heard the usual words: "We'll get back to you."
"I went back to school (in Salt Lake City) and forgot about it." He also continued to fly into Los Angeles periodically for more auditions. At one point he thought he had landed a TV sitcom, but it fell through. "I was told I was hired, but that's the business. That's the way they treat people. They will tell you whatever they need to tell you to keep you happy at the time. But that's the way it goes. They'll make and break your heart, but you have to get used to it."
Corbin's parents got the call about "Josh Kirby" while he was in school. "One day, in my sixth-period gym class in the ninth grade, I got a call from my dad. He says, `Hey, it looks like you got it, but you've got to kind of hold your cool for the next two periods.' Right. My Dad gets more excited than I do."
Corbin was signed for three months of filming in Romania, where medieval settings could be used for the first two movies and cheap labor could be had for all six. But three months slowly dragged out to six months.
"Well, trying to film six full-length movies in three months - there's no way," Corbin said. "Some movies take three months alone, and big ones will take a year."
There was also great disappointment when the Allred family arrived in June of '94 to find that the Romania of the Communist propaganda brochures they had been given did not reflect the reality of their surroundings. But a year after finishing the films and returning home, Corbin is philosophical about it. "Right now, I'd probably say it was the best experience of my life. But it wasn't always the most positive.
"Luckily, being Josh Kirby, I worked every day - and that was what kept me sane. I actually watched people go crazy. They would lose it."
One problem was a communication gap. All the crew-members were Romanian and couldn't speak English, while the cast, directors, producers, etc., were Americans who couldn't speak Romanian. "And the little things, the food. We ended up taking four suitcases full of tuna fish, soups, crackers - anything we could eat. I had to live off Oreo cookies for a while."
Another frustration was that instead of the usual film used in bigger-budget productions, the cameras for "Josh Kirby" were filled with "short ends," leftover pieces of film that were not completely used up. "I'd never heard of short ends before. Short ends of film stock are supposed to have a certain amount of film left. But then there's no film in there.
"We would go through one scene, and it would roll out (usable film would run off more quickly than expected). `Roll out,' they'd say, and we'd start back up. Then it's, `Roll out again' - before we even get to the point we got to before!"
To get through it, the cast-members stuck together. "Fortunately, we all got along well. I mean, we lived together for six months - you're always together. Barry Ingram (who plays Irwin 1138) was like my father, and Jennifer (Burns, who plays Azabeth) was like my big sister. You loved each other like that, you would do anything to help each other out, and we became very close."
Corbin said the first two films in the series are probably the weakest, but he assures fans that beginning with Episode Three, they get better.
Since filming the six "Josh Kirby" films, Corbin has landed guest shots on a couple of TV sitcoms, "Step By Step" and "Saved By the Bell," and won a supporting role in a movie, "Address Unknown." The latter came through the usual L.A. audition, but he didn't know it was going to be filmed in Utah. The film turned out to be a production of Salt Lake-based Leucadia Films. It was the first work he'd ever done locally, and he hopes to do more.
As they've plunged into the upside-down world of Hollywood over the past few years, the biggest surprise for the Allreds is that it really hasn't been all that difficult for Corbin to hang onto his values - on-screen as well as off. "My manager is a very, very religious person, a very strong Catholic with very high morals," Corbin says. "She's a great lady and she understands that there are things I just won't do."
For one thing, he won't even attend an audition for a movie that has sex or nudity. And if his dialogue includes profanity, he simply substitutes other words. "If I'm supposed to swear, I will ask to do it without swearing - and I've never had a problem with that. No one has ever said, `Oh, no - you have to swear here.' "
He also tells the story of telling a casting director he'd rather not audition for a role that had a character smoking. "I just said I would rather not do that. I mean, I have nothing against (others doing it), but my own thing is I just don't want to portray somebody who does that - even though people would say, `Well, it's just acting (and they use herbal cigarettes) and that's the job, that's what you do.' I say, `Yeah, but if I adopt that image, people see it and it looks real, and kids who see me, the little kids I know around my neighborhood, would say, `Wait a second, that's Corbin. He's smoking cigarettes. He's not supposed to do that.'
"From my own perspective, I just don't see the need to have to do that."
Of course, the big career question at this point is, will there be more "Josh Kirby" video-movies in the future?
Corbin's answer is terse:
" `Josh Kirby Goes to Hawaii,' maybe."