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Tales from MARK
RENDALL Blond, blue-eyed, dimpled and freckled-faced, Mark Rendall lights up a room with his smile. People are drawn to him, like moths to lighting. The 12-year-old-boy has an infectious enthusiasm and natural charm. “He had a dynamic presence and personality at his audition,” says Andrea Kenyon, casting director. “He also interacted remarkably with the other kids. He tried to make them all feel comfortable and confident. “ Only a year-and–a-half ago, out of the blue, Mark announced to his parents that he was interested in acting. Coincidently, in Toronto, the London Touring Company was holding open auditions for children for the stage musical Oliver. His parents took him to it, for the sake of the learning experience, and prepared him for disappointment. He got three of the roles: as one of the orphans, as Spider and as Oliver’s understudy. Out of the 86 shows that the touring company performed in Europe, Mark played Oliver 24 times. He acted, sang and danced – and loved every moment. “It was difficult to learn hundreds of lines,” Mark says, “but once I learned them, I didn’t have to think about them. They just came to me naturally. I actually became the characters! “ Mark had neither formal acting training nor singing lessons before he was hired for Oliver. But he did perform a song on stage once a year from the age of four. His father, Henry Rendall, ran an annual lip-synch fundraiser at Toronto’s Allenby Public Elementary School that Mark’s two older brothers – and later, Mark himself – attended. “Every kid who auditioned would get to perform,” says Mark’s mother, Cathy Rendall. “It was an opportunity to get whoever wanted up on a stage.” Mark says he loves acting because “it’s fun,” and “I get to pretend to be other people.” He definitely wants to be an actor when he grows up, no ifs and buts. Off stage and away from the cameras, Mark is an average Canadian boy who plays baseball, soccer and golf in the summer and skis and plays hockey in the winter. He also takes karate and drum lessons. And much like a normal Grade 7 boy, he complains about too much homework. Mark says that Bastian, The Neverending Story’s hero, is also just a normal kid before his mother dies as a result of a car crash. “He sometimes lives in a fantasy world, like many kids do. He can’t get his mind and his hands off his Gameboy,” Mark says. Indeed, when we first meet Bastian, his mom is driving him to school, and he’s not listening to her because he’s lost in Gameboy. “But Bastian becomes a big reader after his mom dies,” says Mark. “It’s his way of coping and losing himself in his imagination. His mom always loved books and was a children’s book illustrator.” Bastian has a fantastic imagination. He creates an enchanted world called Fantasia, which is inhabited by dragons, dark knights, werewolves, centaurs and assorted heroes and villains. His alter ego, Atreyu, is a young warrior who battles against the sinister force of The Nothing, which threatens to destroy Fantasia. “Bastian has such a strong imagination and belief that he can see and hear his mother in his dreams,” Mark says. “His mom is like the Childlike Empress, who is the ruler of Fantasia. She stays with him always.”
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