BH Interview: Logan Lerman on the 'Perks' of Touching Lives Through Film

Logan Lerman may be just 20 years old, but he’s already accumulated the film resume of a gentleman twice his age.

Still, the star of “The Three Musketeers,” “My One and Only” and the “Percy Jackson” franchise says he’s never made a film that moved audiences as much as his latest feature, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”

Lerman stars in the screen adaptation of author Stephen Chbosky’s 1999 novel about a high school freshman who comes out of his shell when he meets a pair of eclectic seniors.

“It actually can be a little bit more than [just] a movie .. a lot more than that. It really helps some people,” Logan tells Big Hollywood of the film’s impact.

“It’s about the importance of investing your trust and your love and everything into somebody else, being able to open up to them,” says Lerman, adding he’s gotten plenty of positive reaction from audiences during its theatrical run.

Logan stars as Charlie, the shy freshman who stumbles into a stirring bond with both the eccentric Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson of “Harry Potter” fame).Logan read the book before tackling the film, but he had what he called a walking, talking “cheat sheet” on set. Chbosky wrote and directed the film which earned mostly raves from critics. Still, Logan didn’t keep a dog-eared copy of “Perks” by his night table during the production.

“It was a luxury to have the author there ,” he says. “I didn’t go back and reference anything. A lot of it was on the [screenplay] page already. The rest was left for the cast and I to figure out.”

Left to his own devices, Lerman fell back on some peculiar inspirations to flesh out the quiet, troubled Charlie. He watched the somber 1980 drama “Ordinary People” as well as a series of unrelated documentaries like “Gladiator Days: Anatomy of a Prison Murder.”He wanted to soak up “the emotional value of watching real people and their pain,” he says.

“Perks” hits home video in early 2013, but the following year promises a film that could be bigger than anything the young actor has been a part of – so far.He plays Russell Crowe’s son in “Noah,” director Darren Aronofsky’s version of the classic Biblical story.

Lerman couldn’t share much about the high-profile project, one that may include as much environmental preaching as the spiritual kind. Lerman insists the movie will confound what people expect from a project like this. 

“This is going to smack them in the face … it’s a pretty crazy apocalyptic story,” he says.