“When people hear I’m from Beverly Hills,” says Logan Lerman, “they get these wrong ideas.” In fact, the nineteen-year-old actor, whose family is in the prosthetics business, is charmingly unaffected both on- and offscreen. Hollywood has noticed. After playing the demigod hero of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, he stars as the swashbuckling D’Artagnan in the recently released reboot of The Three Musketeers and as the shy, Salingeresque freshman who gets shown the ropes by Emma Watson in the upcoming The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
With his black Beatles T-shirt and sweet demeanor, Lerman at first seems more like an easygoing college student than a hot young movie star. Yet once he starts talking, you’re struck by his dedication, whether it’s training for months to wield an épée ambidextrously (“I find the idea of me being a swordsman hilarious”) or studying how favorite directors like David Fincher and Paul Thomas Anderson achieve their vision. “I love acting, but making films—that’s what I want to do more than anything else,” he says.
One who’s sure he’ll succeed is director-producer Chris Columbus, best known for launching the Harry Potter movie franchise, who directed Lerman in Percy Jackson. “He’s one of those rare actors who can give you layers of emotion and still be natural,” he says with a chuckle. “But I don’t think he’ll be only an actor for long. He already knows more about filmmaking than some directors I’ve worked with.”