Thomas Mann

“No one has ever been to a party even remotely close to this one,” declares 20-year-old Texan actor Thomas Mann of Project X, the screwball teenage nightmare movie (he describes it as “Risky Business meets Cloverfield) in which he makes his lead-role debut this spring. A typically fist-biting offering from the makers of The Hangover, Project X follows a day in the life of social outcast Thomas (that he and Mann share the same first name is completely coincidental) who is convinced by one of his friends to throw a party in an attempt to be “cool for one night”. Needless to say the party is a hit, and needless to say it gets out of control. Guest numbers surge, cars end up being driven into the family pool and, ultimately, riot police arrive. Surely a movie about a wild all-night party must have been, well… kind of a blast to film?
           “It was really fun,” says Mann, “but we shot for five weeks with lots of night shots. Eventually you get tired of it and you remember that it’s work. Though it was the best disguised work that I’ve ever had to do.” In reality, Mann is not so much of a party animal… yet. “In high school I was kind of a good kid, I didn’t do too many bad things,” he says. “Hopefully my craziest party is still to come.” Well, he’s certainly in some crazy upcoming movies, namely Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters, a fantasy horror from Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola. “It’s very gory,” he says. “Lots of blood and guts.” That’s what we like to hear.

[Originally published in Wonderland issue 29, February 2012. Photograph Aingeru Zorita.]