HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 4, 2000 — For two years, audiences wondered if Chris O’Donnell had vanished. From “Men Don’t Leave” to “Scent of a Woman” and “Circle of Friends,” the actor who once trounced former “School Ties” co-stars Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Brendan Fraserfor roles finished 1997 with “Batman and Robin” and promptly took a three-year leave of absence.
So where was he? Doing what most 27-year-old actors aren’t: getting married. O’Donnell tied the knot with his teacher girlfriend of four years (and the sister of his roommate at Boston College), Caroline Fentress, in 1997. And it was only after spending quality newlywed time together that he ventured back to the big screen.
When O’Donnell began filming “Vertical Limit,” little did he know that he would soon be promoting the snowbound action-adventure as the young father of two children.
“I’ve been laughing about it,” says O’Donnell, now 30 and with no sign of aging on his baby face. “You know, when I got cast in this movie, I didn’t have any kids and now I have two.” Christopher Jr. was born on Oct. 24, but Lily Anne, now 1 year old, was born during the film’s shoot in New Zealand. And nothing, not even mountain altitude, kept O’Donnell from witnessing the birth.
“I was up on Mount Cook, which is two-and-a-half hours away by helicopter from where the hospital was,” O’Donnell recalls. “And the plan was when she went into labor, they would helicopter me over. And I said, ‘This is nuts because if the weather blows in, I’m gonna miss the birth of my child.’ And so what we did was, my wife got induced on the due date and I was able to come in the day before and be there for her.”
It seems logical, then, that O’Donnell would pick his latest project (he first returned to the screen with Robert Altman’s “Cookie’s Fortune” and The Bachelor,” with Renée Zellweger) based on its family-based story. “Vertical Limit,” while offering an icy adrenaline rush from director Martin Campbell (The Mask of Zorro,” “GoldenEye“) and a supporting cast that includes Bill Paxton, Scott Glenn and Izabella Scorupco (“GoldenEye”), is centered on a brother and sister (O’Donnell and Robin Tunney).
When a family trip results in the climbing death of their father, Peter Garrett (O’Donnell) gives up the sport altogether while his sister, Annie (Tunney), who blames him for the accident, is driven to be a world-class climber. As she accompanies a millionaire (Paxton) up K2, the world’s second-highest peak, they are buried in an avalanche, and Peter enlists a crew of climbers to rescue her.
Getting trained by real Everest climbers and filming on tops of mountains might be a thrill for any young actor, but ironically, O’Donnell’s draw was the family theme at the heart of the movie.
“One of the things that really attracted me to this story and this role is it really reminded me of ‘Into Thin Air,'” O’Donnell says. “And there were some beats in that book that were just heartbreaking. … You read about the [dying climber] who … gets patched through to his wife in Australia who’s pregnant. And you know it’s the last time she’ll ever talk to him. And just to put yourself in that woman’s shoes and think what she would’ve done, what she would’ve given to try and save his life. … It was exciting to play a character who will stop at nothing to try and save his sister.”
To the relief of his family, O’Donnell won’t be scaling any wintry peaks himself. He’s perfectly content with working — or not working (“Just being a dad,” he says when asked about future film projects) and raising a brood of youngsters.
“I always wanted to have a big family,” says the youngest of seven children. “Timing’s about right, I think. I’m pretty much on track to what I thought, maybe a couple years early, but that’s about it.”
“Vertical Limit” scales theaters Dec. 8.
