Emmaus native Dane DeHaan, star of 'Lawless,' is a hot commodity in Hollywood

He was a theater junkie from the first time he played Tiny Tim in a production of "A Christmas Carol," and Dane DeHaan can still recall being scolded by a high-school teacher for spending too much time doing what he loved.

"I was in a [Civic Theatre] production of 'The Miracle Worker' and we were touring schools with it," recalls DeHaan, who was born in Allentown and raised in Zionsville.

"Some of my teachers at Emmaus High School were very angry about me missing classes to do theater. One of them pulled me aside and told me that I should quit acting because he knew I'd never be able to make a living at it."

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Less than eight years later, DeHaan is being touted as one of the hottest up-and-comers in Hollywood. According to publications like Entertainment Weekly and British GQ, DeHaan has the talent and the charisma to go all the way to movie stardom.

DeHaan is in demand. Since making his film debut in John Sayles' 2010 film "Amigo," he's shot six movies, including the Beat-era drama "Kill Your Darlings" with Daniel Radcliffe and Michael C. Hall, and "Devil's Knot," the Atom Egoyan-directed thriller about the wrongful conviction of the West Memphis Three. Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon co-star.

This fall, DeHaan also will pop up in "Jack and Diane," a lesbian horror romance starring Juno Temple and Kylie Minogue, and "The Place Beyond The Pines," a gangster saga in which DeHaan plays the love child of Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes. "Jack and Diane" opens Nov. 2 and "The Place Beyond the Pines" premieres at September's Toronto Film Festival.

First up for DeHaan is the Prohibition thriller "Lawless," which does much to confirm the promise he showed in "Chronicle," the low-budget superhero movie that shocked Hollywood by earning $126 million.

"My life is going a whole lot better than I ever thought it would go," says the actor, 25. "I can't spend too much time thinking about it because it becomes overwhelming. I try to take it day by day and, literally, every day there's something very exciting for me to do It can be exhausting. But getting to give so much of yourself to something you! love is ! an incredible feeling."

Set in Franklin County, Va., in 1931, "Lawless," centers on the true story of the Bondurant brothers ("Dark Knight Rises" star Tom Hardy, Jason Clarke, Shia LaBeouf), bootleggers who must defend their business from a crooked lawman named Charley Rakes (Guy Pearce.)

In the film opening Wednesday, DeHaan plays the small but pivotal role of Cricket, a shy, crippled teenager with a knack for making cars go fast and hooch taste good. Cricket becomes key to the plot when LaBeouf decides to sell moonshine directly to flashy Chicago gangster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman). Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska round out the cast.

Director John Hillcoat credits DeHaan with elevating the character of Cricket beyond caricature. "Dane completely nailed the part in his audition tape," says the director. "It was just like, 'Oh, there's Cricket.'"

"He had a very hard role to pull off. The hillbilly character is so entrenched in popular culture that there is real baggage to it and he had the brunt of it. There was the fact that his character had rickets, the fact that he had this huge spirit and was extremely bright.

"[Cricket] basically invents NASCAR. NASCAR actually came out! of the r! unning of moonshine and outrunning the law. One might think at first glance that Cricket was insubstantial and dumb, but Dane beautifully conveyed Cricket's heart and intelligence."

As directed by Hillcoat ("The Road") and scripted by singer Nick Cave ("The Proposition"), "Lawless" is as much about the boys' pursuit of the American dream as it is about the turf war that erupts between the brothers and Rakes. The movie is set in a time, not unlike today, when the gap between the rich and the poor seems to be ever-widening.

DeHaan sees other parallels as well. "I think moonshine [stills] are the equivalent, in a way, of modern meth labs," notes the actor. "Just like moonshine, meth is cooked in secret, and is sold illegally, untaxed. Obviously, meth is a whole lot worse for you than moonshine but just in terms of the culture of it, there's clear similarities."

Before shooting began, DeHaan prepared by doing research into rickets, the condition which left Cricket with twisted, bent legs. In an attempt to understand Cricket's pain, DeHaan tried to literally walk in his shoes.

"I worked with the costume department to develop these shoes that, on the inside, were on angles so I could more consistently maintain a bend in my legs," he says. "I wanted to make [his limp] as subtle as possible because I didn't want the focus to be on his disabilities but on his strengths."

After he read the script, DeHaan was eager to foster a friendship with LaBeouf, who plays his buddy in the movie. Worried about how to create a bond in only a few days, the actors opted to drive across country together from Los Angeles to the film's set outside Atlanta, Ga.

"The characters have known each other their whole lives and that's a hard thing ! to act," ! says DeHaan. "I have to actually get to know the person. And Shia felt the same way."