Do you ever find yourself wondering where that adorable little Irish boy from the 1997 blockbuster Titanic ever ended up? We can't imagine it's kept you up at night but at this point we expect you might like to know now all the same.
The actor's name is Reece Thompson and he's now almost thirty years old, would you believe? Funnily enough, his scene stealing turn as 'Irish Little Boy' in the Leonardo di Caprio romantic hit was his first and last ever acting gig. We suppose if you're to hang up your acting boots with only one movie under your belt, Titanic is a pretty good swan song.
"It turned out to be one of the highest-grossing films in history, so it's pretty bizarre in retrospect," Thompson said in an interview with Business Insider. "My mom was like: 'Let's just do it. It'll be cool. Even if the movie sucks, we'll see it.' Obviously, it ended up exploding, so that wasn't a bad decision on her part, that's for sure."
Whilst most would agree that Titanic certainly did not suck - it went on to win an impressive 11 Academy Awards - Thompson's attempt at an Irish accent is not one of the beloved film's greatest strengths. "If you listen to it, it doesn't sound very Irish," he admitted. "It just sounds soft-spoken. I remember trying to mimic what the speech coach was trying to do. That's as close as I got."
These days Reece is too busy in his role as a digital marketing director at Brian Head Resort, a skiing resort in Utah, to think about Hollywood. However, although he may now be focussing his attention on other ventures, it seems his claim to fame is still proving to be a nice little earner for the marketeer.
The child actor revealed in the same interview that he was originally paid $30,000 for his role in the movie which was swiftly put away into a bank account to cover his education and other expenses. He also explained that he still to this day receives royalty checks for his appearance in the film.
"It's weird because it's not present in my mind anymore," he said. "It's not like, 'Oh, when am I going to get a new "Titanic" cheque?' When it happens, it's like, 'Oh, cool, an extra $100.'"
"There have been a couple of times where it's been like: 'Oh, wow, that's a $250 cheque. This movie's 12 years old. That's pretty bizarre,'" he said. "But hopefully, they keep playing it a lot, because that means more money for me."
We certainly wouldn't say no to a random $100-200 cheque popping through our letterbox every so often.
What's more, Thompson also revealed that in the early years immediately after the film came out, these cheques would often be in the 'low thousands'. Not bad for a gig you completed when you were just seven years old.
Featured Image Credit: Paramount PicturesTopics: Ireland