{"id":912529,"date":"2026-10-01T18:24:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T18:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912529\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T18:24:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T18:24:31","slug":"joseph-zada-on-east-of-eden-hunger-games-james-dean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912529\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Zada on ‘East of Eden,’ ‘Hunger Games,’ James Dean"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere\u2019s an old bit of Hollywood lore about how James Dean<\/a> got cast in East of Eden<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the story goes, Dean\u2019s first meeting with Elia Kazan at the Warner Brothers offices in New York was a total bust. The 23-year-old method actor spent most of it slumped in his chair, barely looking up, mumbling and fidgeting through the conversation \u2014 behaving pretty much exactly the way you\u2019d expect James Dean to behave. Kazan was less than impressed.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the meeting wound down, though, Dean asked if Kazan wanted to go for a ride on a motorcycle he had parked outside, and for some reason the middle-aged director said yes. What followed was a wild tear through midtown Manhattan, as Dean dodged cabs and weaved through traffic, Kazan clinging for dear life to Dean\u2019s back. When it was over, the shaken filmmaker realized he\u2019d found an actor every bit as reckless and impulsive as the character he was casting. He climbed off the bike and offered Dean the part of Cal Trask on the spot.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeventy years later, casting Cal, East of Eden\u2019s tormented, wayward son, has become considerably less life-threatening. In fact, Joseph Zada<\/a> got the part with a Zoom call.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was like a get-to-know-you sort of thing,\u201d the 21-year-old Australian says of his conversation with Kazan\u2019s granddaughter, filmmaker Zoe Kazan, who cast<\/a> Zada in Dean\u2019s old role for her own version of East of Eden, a seven-part adaptation that arrives on Netflix Oct. 1. \u201cShe asked me about getting into acting, what I thought about acting. I think she was just trying to figure out if I had it in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThen,\u201d he jokes, \u201cI took her for a ride on a jet ski.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTaking on a classic role once inhabited by a full-blown Hollywood icon is a daunting prospect for any young actor. Just ask Alec Baldwin, who once squeezed into a torn T-shirt to play Stanley Kowalski in a 1995 TV adaptation of Streetcar Named Desire, or Vince Vaughn, who went nuts trying to portray Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant\u2019s 1998 Psycho remake. Neither of those performances made anyone forget about Marlon Brando or Anthony Perkins.<\/p>\n

\n\tPlaying younger incarnations of iconic screen characters has proven a much safer bet \u2014Robert De Niro even won an Oscar for his twentysomething version of Brando\u2019s Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II. Luckily for Zada, he\u2019s got one of those parts too. This November, he\u2019ll be portraying 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy in The Hunger Games<\/a>: Sunrise on the Reaping, a prequel set decades before the character aged into Katniss and Peeta\u2019s grouchy, alcoholic mentor. It\u2019s the sort of high-profile franchise opportunity that can catapult a career from District 12 straight to the Capitol, even if nobody ends up forgetting Woody Harrelson.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth parts \u2014 on top of his previous biggest role, playing one of the teenage cousins on Amazon\u2019s 2025 psychological drama We Were Liars, a character Zada will be reprising in a prequel currently shooting in Canada \u2014 will obviously put the actor under an intense spotlight this fall. Comparisons will be inevitable. Expectations will be brutal. But one of the great advantages of being a talented young actor first breaking into Hollywood is that, like Dean on a motorcycle, there\u2019s a tendency toward fearlessness.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEveryone is like, \u2018You\u2019re stepping into Woody\u2019s shoes,\u2019\u201d Zada says on a Zoom call from Canada, sounding not the least bit haunted by the ghosts of movie stars past. \u201cNo, I\u2019m not. These are my characters and my movies \u2014 not James\u2019, not Woody\u2019s. I\u2019m stepping into my own fucking shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotography by Lenka Ulrichova<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tZada is not his given name. Until he changed it three years ago, when he turned 18, it was Joseph Cumpston.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cZada was my grandmother\u2019s name,\u201d he explains the rebranding, tracing his ancestral lineage to his great-great-grandfather, Kahn Zada. \u201cHe came over from Afghanistan during the First World War and built the first mosque in Australia. I just loved the name \u2014 there\u2019s a power to it. I\u2019m convincing my siblings to change too. We all want to stick together as a family and make films together. It\u2019d be awesome for us to have a production company under the same name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are four of those siblings and every one of them is an actor \u2014 or likely will be at some point soon.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis older brother Hal, 27, has assembled an impressive list of screen credits of his own, with roles in The Walking Dead: World Beyond and Hulu\u2019s Nine Perfect Strangers. His younger brother, River, had a small part in the 2024 Australian drama Just a Farmer, while his younger sister is currently modeling, always a potential acting gateway. The youngest is only 11, \u201cso he\u2019s just playing video games and surfing all day,\u201d says Zada, sounding confident he too will end up joining the family business.<\/p>\n

\n\tZada\u2019s father is, unsurprisingly, also an actor \u2014 with a day job as a physician. In fact, Jeremy Cumpston is relatively well-known in Australia for playing a fictional nurse on a popular Aussie medical drama that ran in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Zada\u2019s parents divorced when he was five, but his mother is in the business, too, producing Australian films and TV shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tNot surprisingly, watching movies was something of a family obsession growing up in Sydney. \u201cWe had a hundred DVDs and they would just go on rotation,\u201d Zada says. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of what we spent all our time doing. Every night, we\u2019d put on a movie. Stand by Me was on constantly \u2014 River Phoenix is one of my favorite actors. Drop Dead Fred was influential. Ponyo \u2014 I think I watched that a hundred times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe started acting at 14, but against his will.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time, he was on the verge of flunking out of high school, mostly because he wasn\u2019t bothering to go. \u201cI hated, hated school,\u201d he says. His parents took it in stride. \u201cIt\u2019s a weird thing to say \u2014 and it turned out lucky \u2014 but they were very happy with me doing whatever I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut one day while he was loafing in his room, his father popped in and dumped four scenes from Romeo and Juliet onto his bed. A family friend was mounting a stage production. If Zada wanted to continue playing hooky, his father told him, he\u2019d have to help out by playing one of the parts.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI went into it kicking and screaming,\u201d Zada recalls. \u201cI was not going to get on stage and embarrass myself.\u201d Despite his best efforts, though, he caught the bug. \u201cI would go to rehearsals trying to convince myself that I wasn\u2019t enjoying it. But the truth was, I was very much enjoying myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotography by Lenka Ulrichova<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom then on, high school didn\u2019t stand a chance. Zada continued blowing off classes as he pursued auditions and small roles in Aussie TV projects like The Speedway Murders and Total Control. He missed so much classwork, he got kicked out of private school, re-enrolled in public school, then dropped out of that a month before graduation. \u201cIn my last four weeks I was given an ultimatum by the principal during a sit down with my mum,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI had to come to school every single day, or they couldn\u2019t legally finish me. But I had a final callback the next week and I just looked at my mum and I was like, \u2018I\u2019m leaving.\u2019 And she just said, \u2018Yeah.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat final callback was for Invisible Boys, a TV drama about gay teenagers dealing with being closeted during Australia\u2019s 2017 same-sex-marriage plebiscite. Zada landed one of the starring roles, a rebellious young punk rocker who gets outed on social media. And he literally hasn\u2019t stopped working since, rolling from one part straight into the next.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile still shooting Boys, he auditioned for We Were Liars, Amazon\u2019s adaptation of E. Lockhart\u2019s 2014 YA bestseller about the Sinclairs, a wealthy Kennedy-esque brood misbehaving on a private island near Martha\u2019s Vineyard. Zada nabbed a major role as Johnny \u2014 the cool, cocky, charming cousin, who, as the story eventually reveals, also happens to be dead \u2014 and flew to Nova Scotia for his first brush with a big American production.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was nuts, fucking nuts,\u201d he says. \u201cJust the amount of money and the amount of people and the amount that was at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA ton of cash is likely being spent on that second season he\u2019s shooting in Canada right now, a prequel set in 1999 about the previous generation of misbehaving Sinclairs \u2014 although how Zada\u2019s dead Johnny will fit into its plot is too convoluted to get into here. (\u201cBasically, they\u2019re merging two timelines\u2026\u201d)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotography by Lenka Ulrichova<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was while shooting the first season of Liars, in 2024, that Zada had that Zoom with Zoe Kazan \u2014 she\u2019d been impressed by a self-tape audition Zada had sent in \u2014 about playing Cal Trask in her East of Eden redo.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI knew this role could change someone\u2019s life, so I wanted to see how much of what he\u2019d done on the tape was a performance and how much was himself,\u201d Kazan explains why she invited Zada to Zoom. \u201cI remember asking him who his favorite actors were, and he said River Phoenix and Heath Ledger. And I said to him, \u2018Okay, JoJo, you have to start liking actors who made it past 28. If we put you in this role, we are not repeating history. I want you to start looking at actors who made it into middle age.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tZada must have agreed, because as soon as Liars wrapped, he found himself flying to New Zealand to star opposite Florence Pugh and Christopher Abbott, among a slew of others, in a role so steeped in Hollywood mythos it might make even Alec Baldwin think twice about taking it on.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cZoe begged me not to watch the original film,\u201d Zada says. \u201cShe was like, \u2018Do not watch!\u2019 She said it so many times. I was like, \u2018Okay, okay, I get it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was good advice. The 1955 drama wasn\u2019t merely James Dean\u2019s first major appearance on film \u2014 it was the birth of a whole new species of screen teen. Before Eden, adolescence in movies mostly meant malt shops and varsity sweaters and Andy Hardy puttering around in a jalopy. Dean blew all that up with a single twitchy performance, reinventing the on-screen teenager as a moody, brooding, alienated outsider, an archetype that\u2019s stuck to this day. The fact that he died in a Porsche crash just months after the film opened only makes the turn seem all the more mythic.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo pressure, JoJo.<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, this is not your granddaddy\u2019s East of Eden \u2014 not even Zoe Kazan\u2019s \u2014 but a whole new telling of John Steinbeck\u2019s epic family saga. Unlike Elia Kazan\u2019s loose adaptation, which focused only on the last part of the novel \u2014 Cal\u2019s struggle with sibling rivalry and daddy issues set against the backdrop of looming World War One \u2014 Zoe\u2019s more faithful version explores the full sweeping, generational drama, going back to Cal\u2019s grandfather, Cyrus Trask, in the aftermath of the Civil War.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I saw the movie after I read the book, I was surprised that so much of what I loved about the novel wasn\u2019t in the film,\u201d Kazan explains her approach to the material. \u201cI felt like, well, somebody has to make the thing I saw in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe expansive scope of the series means that Zada\u2019s character doesn\u2019t make an appearance until the final two episodes, but it also gives him a different-enough part in a different-enough narrative to make comparisons with his predecessor in the role difficult. At the very least, it spares Zada the awkwardness of having to deliver any of Dean\u2019s old dialogue.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotography by Lenka Ulrichova<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI saw the similarities, the same angst and need for approval,\u201d Zada says of Dean\u2019s performance in the original, which he watched the day the Netflix series wrapped. \u201cBut it\u2019s such a different story with such a different feel. It wasn\u2019t the East of Eden we were making.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs usual, Zada was in the middle of shooting Eden when he landed his next gig, although this one took a bit more than a Zoom call to cinch. Indeed, winning the role of young Haymitch Abernathy was something of a Hunger Games all its own.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey wanted us to do improvised auditions,\u201d Zada recalls. \u201cThere was no script, no sides, no book. You were just supposed to do a monologue to the camera and show them your idea of what young Haymitch would be like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tZada over-delivered. He spent two weeks writing four scenes for a self-tape, then flew back home to Sydney to shoot it with his brother and father. \u201cWe found different locations, I got costumes, we even got a drone,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotography by Lenka Ulrichova<\/p>\n

\n\tHe delved even deeper after he signed for the part. \u201cFor about two straight months, I became obsessed with getting Woody down,\u201d he says. \u201cI watched everything. I watched White Men Can\u2019t Jump like ten times. I got his voice, the walk, the feel, the energy, the cadence of his speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut then, when shooting started in Spain in the summer of 2025, Zada decided to chuck all that preparation and take a totally different tack. \u201cThe challenge I set for myself was to be the opposite of Woody\u2019s character \u2014 make him happy, optimistic, caring \u2014 and then find a way to get to where he would eventually wind up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was only after he\u2019d shot Hunger Games that Zada met the original Haymitch. He found himself sitting next to Harrelson at a dinner party \u2014 and proceeded to totally blank on all the research he\u2019d done. \u201cWe chatted and he asked me questions about myself and told me stories,\u201d Zada remembers. \u201cBut everything I knew about him just went out of my mind. I couldn\u2019t think of any questions. I forgot everything I wanted to ask him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tThe next couple of months are going to put Zada in just about everyone\u2019s feeds, introducing him not just to an army of younger Hunger Games fans but also to an older slice of the audience whose reading habits lean more towards Nobel laureates than Suzanne Collins. Whether by accident or design, he\u2019s positioned himself, at 21, at a particularly advantageous intersection of the four quadrants, somewhere between franchise heartthrob and serious dramatic actor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe could be the biggest movie star in the world if he decided that\u2019s what he wants to be,\u201d Kazan predicts.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeantime, Zada will have the opportunity to do something he hasn\u2019t had much time for lately \u2014 get a life.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen he finishes shooting in Canada, he\u2019ll fly back to Sydney and spend the Australian summer \u2014 winter back in the States \u2014 with his family, as well as the girl he\u2019s been dating since last December. \u201cHer name is Polly and she\u2019s not an actress,\u201d he says. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t much care for the business which is perfect for me. Because she\u2019s helped me relax and not think about work so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter that, he\u2019ll be relocating to L.A. sometime early in 2027. \u201cRunyon Canyon maybe,\u201d he muses. \u201cSilver Lake? I don\u2019t know yet. But my reps are eager for me to move and for someone from Australia L.A. feels like Movie World. It\u2019s got literally everything I could possibly want.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tExcept, as it happens, a job. Ironically, just as Zada is about to become a full-blown star, he finds himself without a job for the first time in three years. For once, he has no idea what he\u2019ll be doing next.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve got nothing,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotography by Lenka Ulrichova<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an old bit of Hollywood lore about how James Dean got cast in East of Eden. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,479903,134,136791,431336,282869,18825,103327],"class_list":["post-912529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-east-of-eden","tag-entertainment","tag-hunger-games","tag-james-dean","tag-joseph-zada","tag-the-hunger-games","tag-the-hunger-games-sunrise-on-the-reaping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}