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Levi Miller takes flight as next Peter Pan

Brian Truitt
USA TODAY

For a boy who’s not supposed to grow up, Pan star Levi Miller is failing in his duties.

Levi Miller has his big break as the orphaned Peter in 'Pan.'

The Australian actor just turned 13 last week at the Japanese premiere of his big-screen fantasy adventure (in theaters Friday), so he’s that much closer to adulthood — though he’s still got a tweenager’s high-pitched voice. Miller has already fallen hard for co-star Rooney Mara, and she’s not even his first crush (though he’s quick to point out that “she’s very beautiful”). And he was caught getting kissed by another colleague, supermodel Cara Delevingne, in a London red-carpet situation.

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But ask him about getting in a harness to fly around like the Peter Pan of legend or working in the colorful jungles of Pan’s magical world, and it’s less talk of autographs and selfies and more Miller just being a little kid in awe of his big break.

“It’s an 11-year-old boy’s imagination, and that’s what Neverland is and what makes it cool,” says Miller, a native of Brisbane.

In director Joe Wright’s prequel of sorts to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, Peter (Miller) has grown up in an English orphanage after being left there by his mother — his only connection to her is the pan flute necklace he wears on his neck. When the minions of the notorious Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman) come in a flying pirate ship to nab orphans to mine fairy dust in faraway Neverland, Peter steals a ride to the wondrous landscape and joins the fight to save the place as well as find his mom.

Director Joe Wright and Levi Miller on the set of 'Pan.'

Many interpretations of Peter Pan over the years have featured girls in the title role — a thought that did cross Wright’s mind, he says. Yet while that might work in the theater, “I didn’t think we’d get away with it in the film.”

Instead, Wright went through the trial of appraising more than 4,500 boys before finding his Peter. “When Levi popped up, it made it all worthwhile,” he says. “It was an easy epiphany.”

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Wright found the right sense of openness and wonder in Miller’s eyes that he was looking for — Peter “couldn’t be cynical or ironic,” the director says — but the youngster liked playing the mischievous Peter’s various personalities.

“He’s the brave hero of Neverland and the orphanage. He is also quite selfish,” Miller says. “He’s going on this whole adventure to find his mother, which is a definitely a reason, but still, it’s for himself.”

'Pan' star Levi Miller get s a kiss from co-star Cara Delevingne at the movie's world premiere in London.

​One of the great privileges of making Pan for Wright was watching Miller’s confidence grow as he came into his own as an actor.

“In the second week of rehearsals, he would call Hugh nothing but 'Hugh Jackman,' ” Wright recalls. “He’d say, ‘Good morning, Hugh Jackman,’ and ‘I don’t need a cup of tea, thank you, Hugh Jackman.’ It took about a week for Levi to call him Hugh and stop blushing whenever he came into the room."

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New American fans will be able to see Miller again sooner than later — he plays Carter Grant, the son of Calista Flockhart’s media mogul Cat Grant, in CBS' upcoming Supergirl series.

So far, Miller says, Hollywood has been a “crazy” experience, especially for a kid far from being a jaded grown-up. “There’s so much going on and so many jobs and so many things. Every time you go on a set, it’s a whole different world, and I love that.”

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