Asa Butterfield is something of a tech geek. When he’s not filming, the British actor dabbles with the latest gadgets for his phone, tablet, or camera, always wanting to stay on top of trends. He even designed an iPad app with his father.
So when it came to his starring role in The Space Between Us, in which plays a teenager born on Mars who visits Earth for the first time, Butterfield became fascinated by the science behind the premise as much as he did with his character’s emotional journey.
“I’m very interested in advances in technology. I’m always trying to keep up to date with kind of things that are being developed, and the prototypes that are coming out,” Butterfield said during a recent stop in Dallas. “I like sci-fi and fantasy — anything where you can get your head into a different world with different possibilities. I would love to play a character that wasn’t, in fact, human.”
That’s not quite the case with Gardner, the boy he plays in the coming-of-age drama. Taking a page from the Elon Musk playbook, the film theorizes about the ramifications of a space shuttle mission to colonize Mars sometime in the near future — validating the dream of a scientist (Gary Oldman) who oversaw the project.
Only after takeoff does one of the astronauts (Carla Gugino) reveal that she’s pregnant. Without revealing the identity of the father, she dies during childbirth. Her son is subsequently raised by her colleagues in the colony on the Red Planet.
Flash forward 16 years, and Gardner is a precocious teenager with a sheltered upbringing who dreams of visiting Earth. When that desire becomes reality, he finds that social awkwardness is only part of the challenge as he attempts to track down an online pen pal (Britt Robertson) and ultimately find his father.
“With what Elon Musk has been saying about Mars, it’s seeming more and more probable,” Butterfield said. “A lot of sci-fi films set in the near future are possible, or even probable. We definitely will go to Mars. This film kind of highlights that. It’s coming out at a relevant time.”
Butterfield, 19, said director Peter Chelsom (Shall We Dance) allowed room for exploration and experimentation within his character.
“A lot of his view, when he comes to Earth, is this sense of childlike wonder and curiosity, which was really fun to tap into,” Butterfield said. “Can you imagine never seeing anything before? And he’s super smart and analytical.”
Butterfield previously starred in Ender’s Game, a sci-fi fantasy that allowed him to train with harnesses in a zero-gravity environment. As it turned out, the time spent on Earth was more difficult for him because of Gardner’s limitations.
In an effort to replicate the experience of a teenager subjecting himself to gravity for the first time, Butterfield attached weights to his ankles and wore a weighted vest, then would jog or walk during rehearsals and between takes.
“The physical side of it was challenging,” he said. “You get so much more tired just from these few weights. It really affects how long it takes to catch your breath and how fast you move. Then I’d take the weights off, watch the video, and try to re-create it and keep it consistent. We wanted it to be noticeable, but not comically over-the-top.”
So does that mean Butterfield wants to be on the first space flight to Mars once the technology allows it? Not exactly.
“I would love to go to space and experience zero gravity. I’m fascinated with the possibilities,” he said, “But I don’t think I would go to Mars. It’s a few million miles too far.”
