Unfortunate Son
Liam Aiken just missed being the most famous child actor in the world. Twice. Then his house burned down. His future has never looked brighter.
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(Photo: Ann Weathersby) |
On a cold Jersey day, not so far from the maw of the Lincoln Tunnel, Liam Aiken, the 14-year-old star of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, clomps down the creaky stairs of his old home (which will catch fire just a week later). He passes his sticker-splattered guitar cases and a beat-up skateboard (thoroughly smoked-up in that same fire), with hands plugged deep into the pockets of a worn denim jacket (one of the few articles he’ll save from his soon-to-be-uninhabitable bedroom).
If the gleefully macabre narrator Lemony Snicket were telling this tale, the happy dog yapping at Liam’s scruffy Chuck Taylors (and who survives the fire) might instead be a symbol of the nagging misfortune that follows this brilliant young actor around, and of how coolly he bears it. After all, he twice missed being the most famous child star in the world: first by passing on the The Sixth Sense part that went to Haley Joel Osment, and then being touted as Harry Potter, only to be dumped in the end.
So it’s no wonder that Liam says the role of Klaus Baudelaire—the indefatigable bookworm orphaned by a house fire at the outset of A Series of Unfortunate Events—is “more like me than any role I’ve played.” But it is surprising that he says this one week before his own house burns down.
On November 23, Liam and his mother, Moya, were in Los Angeles to promote the film with co-star Jim Carrey when a friend called to tell them that their house was in flames. They caught the first flight back to JFK. It will take six months of rebuilding before they can move back in.
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sooooo cute! especially when he played “klaus” in Lemony Snicket’s Series of unfortunate events movie!!!!…. i hope they make a sequel. here’s a few more pics ok?
