LOS ANGELES Life is different these days for Eddie Furlong, a13-year-old who was pretty much like any other teenager nine monthsago, hanging out with the guys after school and playing video gamesat the local shopping mall.
Eddie, much to his surprise, is the star of this summer'sblockbuster movie frenzy.
Arnold Schwarzenegger may have started out as the mainattraction for audiences viewing "Terminator 2: Judgment Day"(continuing at Chicago area theaters), but it is Furlong who hascaptured their hearts.
Critics have raved about his performance as John Connor, theyoung boy whom Schwarzenegger, as a cyborg from the future, is sentback in time to save. And all of a sudden he finds himself acelebrity, the newest star in the Hollywood sky.
Television talk show hosts are vying to have him on theirprograms. He is pursued by journalists, and it is hard to walk downthe street in his hometown of Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles,without people asking for his autograph.
All of which leaves young Furlong a little confused andperplexed.
"I really wasn't expecting any of this. I mean it's, like,`Wow! Is this really happening to me?' " he said in an interview ata Beverly Hills hotel.
But then, he wasn't expecting to be approached by a castingdirector when he was hanging out at a Boys Club in Pasadena, Calif.,with his friends last October, talking about baseball and discussingwhich mall to visit over the weekend.
"I'm just hanging out at the Boys Club and this woman, she was acasting director but I didn't know it then, looks over at me, and shelooks sorta weird. She's like staring at me and smiling and laughing.
"She comes up to me and she goes, `Can I talk to you?' I say,`Am I in trouble, what did I do?' and she says, `No, you're not introuble, would you like to try out for a movie?' I go, `Wow!Sure.' "
Several interviews, auditions, and four-hour sessions with adialogue coach later, Furlong was told he had the part.
"On the final interview, they told me I was going to find outthe next Friday, but then Jim (Cameron, the director) said, `I'd likeyou to do this movie, and I'm like `Oh my God, he (Cameron) just toldme he would like me to do this movie.' "
Although he had worked with Linda Hamilton, who plays his gutsy,shoot-em-up mother in the movie, during the auditions, Furlong saidhe did not meet Schwarzenegger until rehearsal time.
"Yeah, that was kinda scary," he recalls. "I thought he wasgonna be kinda stuffed up, because he was such a big star. But itturned out he was a real nice guy.
"Like, I went over to shake his hand. I'm, like, all nervous,so I give him a weak handshake and he just stands there. Thensuddenly he says, `Give me a harder one, real hard one, this time.'That kinda broke the ice and we're friends now."
Furlong, showing maturity beyond his years, said he had someregrets at being thrust into the limelight. But he was not sorryabout the way his life has been turned upside down.
"My life has totally changed. I really don't have as much timeas I did before for doing a lot of stuff I used to do. I miss goingout with friends and doing all sorts of other regular activities,hang out at the mall and things like that.
"But this is a real special experience. It's not somethingevery kid can have, to work on a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger."
"Terminator 2" has given him a career, he said. "Oh yes, Idefinitely want to be an actor."
He has already started work on his next movie, "American Heart,"with Jeff Bridges, which will be released next year.
But if Furlong's head is in the clouds, his feet are firmlyplanted on the ground.
"I know I have to work hard to be a good actor, and I know it'snot always the acting that makes you look good. It's the editing,the music and everything else. I thought I didn't play some of theparts that good, but the editing and the music made it look a lotbetter than it really was," he said.
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