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Nikki Reed of “Thirteen”

Articles > Nikki Reed of “Thirteen”
- Posted on August 20, 2003 | From Cinema Confidential | Previous Next

As the credits rolled for “Thirteen” at the Sundance Film Festival, many were left shocked and moved by the film’s hard-hitting look at the life of typical 13 year-old girl growing up in suburban America. Drugs, sex, tattoos, boys – these are things many mothers choose not to think about when talking about their daughter. But don’t judge too quickly; some 40 year-old man sitting at home with a typewriter didn’t write this movie.

A real, young teenager wrote it.

“Thirteen” is based on dialogue, experiences, and discussions between then 13 year old Nikki Reed and long-time friend, Catherine Hardwicke, who has worked as a production designer on such films as “Vanilla Sky” and “Three Kings.” Together, they came up with an honest and contemporary look at the modern teenager. In addition to co-writing the script together, Hardwicke makes her directorial debut in “Thirteen” while Reed makes her acting debut.

Reed stars as Evie, the hottest girl in junior high. Much to the envy of Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), who sees Evie as everything she isn’t, Evie initially jeers and ignores Tracy. In an effort to gain notoriety, Tracy begins acting and picking up bad habits from Evie, including shoplifting, smoking, drugs, and more. As Tracy begins to fall more and more into a darkened lifestyle, her mother Melanie (Holly Hunter) can’t help but wonder what her daughter has become.

Now 15 years old, Nikki has about as much poise and charisma than most actresses twice her age. She was in New York City a few weeks ago, where she opened up about her own lifestyle and how that translated into what became “Thirteen.”

Was it hard for you to talk about your experiences?

I think it would have been if I knew that I was writing this for a purpose. If someone said to me, “Hey this is going to become a feature” then I think it would have been a lot harder because now I know how hard it is for a bunch of people to ask me about my personal life. It is difficult but because those weren’t my intentions, I think it was a lot easier for me.

Was it frustrating for you to not be able to step back and look at this from another perspective, or was it just natural to be able to act and write a movie based on your own experiences at the same time?

There were points where it was really frustrating, when Catherine was like, “Nikki, here’s this notepad. I need you to go and write down every funny thing your mom says.” I’m like, “What? My mom’s not funny. What would I do?” I think there were times like that when it was really frustrating, and Catherine would say, “You’re not looking at this from my point of view. Your mom is a great woman and there’s many other points to her.” It happened so fast, though, that it wasn’t like a three-year process where there weren’t that many rewrites.

Was there a point where you had to stop writing and focus on the acting?

They came up to me actually and said, “Nikki, you can no longer write for this’ because if I had gotten the part, it’s every actor’s dream to be able to write their own lines. Because I was planning on playing Tracy from the beginning, when they told me they would want me to start coming in for Evie, yeah, that broke my heart.

I was on set, and I remember saying to Catherine, “I’m not going to say that.” And she said, “You have to say it! You’re an actress, that’s what you do.”

I’m like, “I can’t change it?”

“No”

”I can’t rewrite it?”

“No.”

Describe Evie’s character…

Evie is insecure. She definitely grew up too fast and was faced with a lot of things. You never really know what’s going on with her because she lies a lot. Obviously, she’s been abandoned and she’s in survivor mode. She takes what she needs because all her life, she had to take care of herself. I saw her being four-years-old and watching her mother O.D.’ing on the carpet, or something like that. It was hard things like that that we shouldn’t see when we’re young. So her insecurities come out, fortunately for her, as being very confident. Putting other people below her makes her feel like she’s on top of the water and that she can breathe. I just think she needs a mom and someone to take care of her. Hopefully, she’ll find it one day in her life, like a household that’s stable.

Talk about the struggles you faced when you were 13, and then talk about the Evie-type character in your life.

There wasn’t an Evie in my life. There were a couple of girls in my life, and a couple in Catherine’s life – Evie’s actually the only girl in the movie that’s a composite character. The other ones are too, of course, things can [written] in. Like if Holly Hunter is playing her Melanie, then of course Holly brings herself into it. Evie is the only character that doesn’t have a specific character to match.

I went through a lot of things. The story’s not autobiographical, Tracy is very close to me and to a lot of stuff I went through. But it’s a movie. It’s an hour [and a half] long and you can’t have someone’s entire life or personality put into something that’s going to be on screen.

But what about some of the adversities you faced at 13?

I grew up too fast. I looked a lot older than I was but when I was 13, I looked how I did now so I don’t know if I look 18 or whatever now. There’s a lot of stuff too: Competition with my brother. When I was 13, he was 14 and he was still a little boy. I would walk down the street and people would say, “Oh, this is your little brother? He’s really cute.” So just normal stuff. I went through what I went through too young. Emotionally, it was really hard juggling all these things I was going through.

Who should see this movie? Should 13 year olds see it?

It’s hard to say. I know 13-year-old girls who are just like me, and I know 13-year-old girls who are still playing with Barbies. But I think that it’s a good film to see with your parents. It’s rated R and what does that mean? It’s just going to tempt kids more. If it was PG-13, I don’t think any kids would see it because they would say, “Why would we want to watch a PG-13 movie about 13 year-old kids? It’s probably stupid.” But hopefully, it provokes conversation. That’s what we’re hoping and that’s our goal here. Someone asked me, “Do you think this will have parents talk to their kids?” I do. It creates a safe-zone so parents don’t have to say, “Well, what are you doing?” People’s reaction so far has been positive.

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