EXCLUSIVE: Chicago-area 4th grader Theo Clark Leber has landed a starring role opposite Dwayne Johnson in Lizard Music, Benny Safdie’s adaptation of the 1976 novel by Daniel Pinkwater for Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists.
The 10-year-old comes to the potentially career-making opportunity following a months-long casting process. Lizard Music marks his feature debut.
A live-action/CGI hybrid, Safdie’s film follows a boy (Leber) left to his own devices who stumbles upon a secret late-night broadcast of lizards playing otherworldly music, a hidden door to the extraordinary swings open. His search for answers leads him to an eccentric and whimsical old man nicknamed The Chicken Man (Johnson), and his beloved companion, a 111-year-old chicken named Claudia — two kindred spirits who found each other at just the right time. United by this shared vision, they set off on an adventure that begins as a hunt for a hidden society but blossoms into something far greater: a voyage through invisible worlds, unexpected harmonies, and the unbreakable bond between lost souls who discover magic not only in what they find, but in each other.
Safdie wrote his follow-up to The Smashing Machine, the A24 sports drama also starring Johnson, which brought him a Golden Globe nomination for his turn as former amateur wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr. Producers on Lizard Music include UA’s Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt, Safdie for Out for the Count Productions, Johnson for Seven Bucks Productions, and Magnetic Fields Entertainment’s David Koplan.
An up-and-comer from Evanston, IL who loves lacrosse, football, hanging with his best friends, and anything to do with art and history, Leber was most recently seen in a production of Leopoldstadt put on by Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois. He is represented by Matt Fletcher at Arise Artist Agency, Laura Alexander at Talent X Alexander, and attorney Jeff Hynick at Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
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