Issue date: December 3, 2000

In this article:
Chris' early career
Into thin air: filming up high
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Movies

Chris O'Donnell's Climb to the top

The Boy Wonder grows up, finds fame and discovers family keeps him grounded.

By Jeffrey Zaslow

IN THE EYES of two infants, Chris O'Donnell has watched himself become a man. The actor and his wife, Caroline, have two children, a 5-week-old son and a 15-month-old daughter. "You hold your little son and daughter, and they're looking in your eyes, and it's as if they're saying, 'You've got to protect me.' When I first moved to Los Angeles, I wanted a house on a golf course, with a pool, a view of the ocean, blah, blah, blah. Now all that matters is having a house in a safe community with sidewalks and good neighbors."

O'Donnell, best known as Robin in two Batman movies, turned 30 this year. "I never considered myself an adult," he says. "Now here I am, having these real grown-up thoughts."

Raised in the wealthy Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Ill., the youngest of seven children, O'Donnell knows well that a child's safety never can be guaranteed. In 1988, while he was in high school, a disturbed woman named Laurie Dann delivered poisoned juice boxes to children's homes in Winnetka, then entered an elementary school and began shooting. One child was killed and five were wounded before the woman killed herself.

O'Donnell and his classmates were locked in their classrooms, he says, as news spread that "someone was gunning down kids in Winnetka." Telling the story, he pauses and looks at his arms. "I'm getting goose bumps just talking about it. But it really shook us up. This was a sheltered environment, a great place to raise kids. Yet someone could walk into a school and start shooting. It was horrifying."

Vertical Limit, O'Donnell's new movie, out Friday, explores the issue of how parents are bound to protect their children. (His daughter was born in New Zealand, where the film was shot.) Early in this action- adventure story about mountain climbers, O'Donnell's character has to decide whether to cut his dad's rope to save his sister and himself. The father, desperate to save his kids, and knowing he'll die as a result, keeps screaming, "Cut it!" Filming the heartbreaking scene, O'Donnell brought the necessary anguish to it by imagining having to make such a decision in his own family. "It was a tough scene for him," says director Martin Campbell. In casting O'Donnell, Campbell says, "I didn't want your standard action hero. Chris has this vulnerability. He's a good-looking Everyman."

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O'Donnell's career has evolved as he's matured. He started modeling at 13, and soon after began filming TV commercials, including a McDonald's spot in which he served breakfast to Michael Jordan. At 18, he won his first film role, as Jessica Lange's son in Men Don't Leave. "He was a brash, cocky thing -- very charming," says former agent Maureen Brookman. "His family worked hard to keep his head level. They'd tell him when he was full of it. He'd get red in the face and sputter." O'Donnell was made for fatherhood, Brookman says. "Family ties are so much a part of who he is. He has all those values."

O'Donnell was ambivalent at first about acting. When he arrived at Boston College, Men Don't Leave hadn't come out yet, and he never told anyone he was an actor. "Then one day I came home from the library and my roommate said, 'Hey, O.D., Barbra Streisand just called for you. What the ---- is that about?' " Streisand had called to say she was replacing O'Donnell, who'd been cast as her son in The Prince of Tides, with real-life son Jason Gould. (He still got his full salary and appreciated that she told him "straight.")

His star ascended with roles as Al Pacino's foil in Scent of a Woman and Minnie Driver's dream boy in Circle of Friends. Not all of his 15 other films have been hits. One he turned down: the Men in Black role that went to Will Smith.

In 1997, he married longtime girlfriend Caroline Fentress, then a kindergarten teacher, who he says helped him mature: "I'm Mr. Know-It-All, and she's very patient, very calm."

When he first moved to Los Angeles, his real estate agent pegged him as a young star in need of a hip bachelor pad. "She showed me places that were ridiculous -- one-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot houses with indoor pools." Two of the homes were owned by L.A. Lakers, and "all the countertops were up to my neck."

Now he fantasizes about a house with an endless supply of bedrooms. "My wife wants to have four kids. I'm thinking five. We'll see. But if they'd all turn out the way the first two did, I'd have 15."

Contributing Editor Jeffrey Zaslow is an advice columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Filming Vertical Limit in New Zealand, O'Donnell found he didn't have the personality for slow, meditative mountain climbing. During the eight-month shoot, the crew endured ice, snow, wind and rain and worked at altitudes as high as 12,000 feet, commuting daily by helicopter. "Chris is impetuous, energetic and gregarious, and that doesn't work for climbing," says Barry Blanchard, a world-class climber who trained O'Donnell. "Someone like Chris is great on a basketball court, but lunging around, gravity will take you to the ground." Still, O'Donnell did many of his own stunts, once hanging from a 2,000-foot sheer drop. Says director Martin Campbell: "He was safety-roped, but still, it took bravery. I wouldn't have done it." On days off, O'Donnell recalls, "I'd look at a peak and say, 'I'm going to climb that.' " Those hikes always ended with: "Now how the hell am I going to get down?"

Photo by: JULIE DENNIS BROTHERS for USA WEEKEND (shirt and pants: Dolce & Gabbana; scarf: NY Basics; shoes: Jimmy Choo); Vertical Limit photo: COLUMBIA TRISTAR