It’s not often an 11-year-old can ride to the rescue of a Robert Redford movie — then again, not many adolescents are platinum-album-selling soprano prodigies like Jackie Evancho.
Redford hadn’t found someone to play his daughter Isabel in Friday’s “The Company You Keep” and he was in Vancouver, just days from the start of production.
“It’s a story where you take a risk and it pays off,” said the film legend who stars and directs “Company.”
“I always want to see a child just be and not act. So I was frustrated in the interview process because the kids were too busy acting.”
Surfing the TV in his hotel room, “Boom! There was this angelic vision singing. The camera pulled back, there’s this symphony hall, huge orchestra and this little girl just belting this music out. Right away something clicked.”
Evancho, who turns 13 today, was called, did a scene on tape and suddenly was in a movie.
“She was hired on Tuesday, we filmed on Wednesday. I am one lucky man,” Redford added.
Sitting in a Manhattan hotel room for a Herald interview, Evancho seems more normal teen than spellbinding artist.
Of Isabel, the motherless girl she plays, “My family calls me ‘Sunshine and Rainbows’ because I never hate anybody, I just slightly dislike them. This character is a little bit sadder than I am and doesn’t know what to do.
“She just lost her mom and her dad just abandoned her. She doesn’t know what happened and has to trust that he’s gonna come back. So she’s scared and worried at the same time.”
Evancho’s musical tastes include “people like Family Force 5, which is a really crazy band, Maroon 5 and, while I never really have a favorite, favorite song of forever, I have a favorite song every once in a while. Right now that is ‘Viva la Vida’ by Coldplay.”
As someone who’s broken records with Billboard Top 10 hits, sales and stardom on “America’s Got Talent,” does she worry it’s all downhill from 13?
“Nope. I kind of feel like there’s always gonna be bigger things. You’re always gonna be able to take another step up.”
(“The Company You Keep” opens Friday.)
