By Jyoti Thottam
A little hurricane is blowing through Long Island City, and his name is Mitchell Taylor Jr.
The 13-year-old son of a Long Island City pastor plays the young Rubin “Hurricane” Carter in “The Hurricane,” a feature film about the boxer's life starring Denzel Washington. The rising star said he hopes this role, his first in a feature film, represents his first step toward a career in Hollywood.
“I got a really good break with that,” Mitchell Jr. said from the office of his father's church, Center of Hope International, on 40th Avenue in Long Island City. “'I was surprised to see my name up there. It was great.”
The film tells the story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who was a contender for the middleweight boxing title when he was accused of murdering three people in a New Jersey bar in 1966. Two key witnesses recanted their testimony and prompted a new trial in 1974, but Carter was not released until 1988.
For Mitchell Jr., Carter's story taught him a bit about the recent history of race relations in the United States.
“That was back in the days in New Jersey when the police could just walk in through neighborhoods and just break through doors and take people,” Mitchell Jr. said.
But for the most part, he remembers the film shooting as a series of long waits in Manhattan buildings, which doubled for New Jersey in the film.
“It was kind of hard, but my mom, she woke me up,” he said.
The highlight of the project was meeting Denzel Washington, who has been nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Carter.
When the young actors auditioning for the role had been narrowed down to six, Washington met with them, and the final cut was made.
“He asked me, do you think we look alike?'” Mitchell Jr. remembered. “I said, I think so.”
The hardest part of acting a film, he said, was learning to perform without looking at the camera. Mitchell Jr. has been modeling for about five years, doing primarily print work for clothing companies and music videos for singers such as Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, Eve and Foxy Brown.
“I'm used to looking at the camera,” he said. “They tell you, do not pay any attention to yourself, but it's kind of hard.”
An enthusiastic reader, Mitchell Jr. said he has no trouble memorizing lines. A student at IS 204 in Long Island City, Mitchell Jr. compares acting to reading comprehension – the actor has to absorb the context and motivations of the characters from just a few lines of text.
“You got to be really quick with your reading,” he said.
After missing some school for his acting and modeling assignments, however, Mitchell Jr. said he is looking forward to high school at a school for actors.
But even if he leaves the Crescent Street school, Mitchell Jr. wants to stay close to home – he has relatives living in the Queensbridge Houses housing development, and his father is the pastor of a thriving congregation. In many ways, he is also a typical 13-year-old kid. He said he likes comedians Adam Sandler, Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy as much as Denzel Washington, and he is as likely to be playing with his Sega Dreamcast as he is reading a new script.
With an HBO series, “Soul Food,” in the works, and movie scripts coming in regularly, Pastor Mitchell Taylor Sr. tries to keep his son's screen success in perspective.
“As long as he's humble, the Lord will continue to bless him,” he said.
