‘Blitz’ Star Elliott Heffernan on Crying on Command

For his film debut in “Blitz,” Elliott Heffernan had a tall order.

He had to perform in perilous scenes that found his character running through WWII battlefields as bombs dropped, leaping from a moving train and getting caught in a flash flood. But when the now 11-year-old actor faced his most challenging moment – having to cry on cue – he was able to use his greatest fears to pull it off. “I pretended my mom was taking away my PlayStation,” Heffernan reveals.

It worked; the young actor is earning raves for his turn in the Steve McQueen epic, playing George, the mixed-race son of Saorise Ronan’s single mother Rita. As WWII rages on and London endures an aerial bombardment, Rita makes the agonizing decision to send George away to safety in the country, despite his pleas. George ends up fleeing and, in his effort to return to his family, encounters a series of new threats. But there are also beautiful moments of unexpected humanity that help him to reconcile with his identity. The film hinges upon his lead performance and it helps that Heffernan is almost impossibly adorable and compulsively watchable onscreen. But this is no Disneyfied child star turn – it’s a complex, deeply emotional performance that actors five times his age would struggle to deliver. 

On this October day, Heffernan is on the tail end of a whirlwind tour with the film, having just played both the London and New York Film Festivals. He’s visiting Los Angeles for the first time, but there isn’t much time to play tourist. His father Chris is joining him for the interview prior to meeting up with the rest of the family to attend a Q&A.

Prior to making “Blitz,” the British-born and raised Heffernan had never acted professionally. But his talent had been on display in his first school play at eight years old, where he starred as the Genie in “Aladdin.” After that scene-stealing debut, he reveals his teacher “ran up to my mom and said, ‘You should get him into acting now!’”

So when his mother, Samantha, saw an open casting call on Facebook looking for a boy of mixed race between 9-12 years of age, his family enlisted the help of acting coach Simon Pollard and Heffernan recorded his first audition tape. Months passed and Heffernan says he didn’t really think about it – until he got a call to meet with McQueen and casting director Nina Gold. He didn’t meet with his onscreen mother until much later in the process; and Ronan claims he wasn’t impressed. “He told me his sister watched ‘Little Women’ and ‘Hanna,’” the four-time Oscar nominee reveals. “I was like, ‘Oh, so did you like those films?’ He was like, ‘Well, they were just on in the background.’”

For his part, Heffernan says he was intimidated – noting that he’s not used to seeing celebrities out and about in the UK. But he says both Ronan and McQueen soon put him at ease and the shoot – despite the onscreen dangers and the fact he did many of his own stunts – was never harrowing. “It was fun!” he enthuses. When asked about the sequence where George is swept away by a flood, which involved shooting in a water tank, Heffernan lights up. “That was my favorite part!” he says.

McQueen, who admits he was worried after penning the script that he wouldn’t find an actor to play George, also says the shoot wasn’t particularly challenging because of his actors. “This movie is about love and George and Rita have to have a real connection,” the director says. “And there was this appreciation that reverberated on screen. They really liked being with each other. And we were very lucky to have that because everything else is easy after that. You can get through floods or stunts or difficult scenes. You could learn a scene, but you can’t learn genius. You’re just lucky to have it.”

It’s been two years since “Blitz” began filming, and Heffernan has tackled one other acting gig since – the lead role in his school production of “The Greatest Showman.” (Asked who he played and he responds “Hugh Jackman – I forget the character’s name.”) He would love to continue his promising career on screen, and there’s one show in particular he’s dying to be on. “My favorite series to ever exist is called ‘The Rookie,’” he says of the Nathan Fillion-led ABC drama. “It’s funny, it’s serious, it’s so cool in every single way.”

Asked if there are any specific genres he wants to play in, and he takes a moment to think. “Just ‘The Rookie,’” he replies. “’The Rookie’ is its own genre because it’s just the best.”