Steve Pratt discovers a Thing One or Two from the young US star of The Cat In The Hat, Spencer Breslin, who has discovered the importance of being presented with a Blue Peter badge.

SPENCER Breslin wears his Blue Peter badge with pride. Not that the young American actor was aware of the long-running BBC-TV children's programme before appearing on the show last week.

"I didn't know it was so important," he says of the badge pinned on his jacket lapel. "They just gave it me for being on the show."

Such are the trappings of film fame for 11-year-old Spencer, who was discovered as a three-year-old playing on the swings in a New York park.

"They had talent managers and scouts go out looking for new talent, and they approached my mum and wanted to know, 'if I was interested' - so we did it. I've been in it for almost nine years now," he says.

His previous films include The Kid (opposite Bruce Willis), Meet The Parents and The Santa Clause 2. Now he's starring in the live action adaptation of Dr Seuss' The Cat In The Hat with Austin Powers star Mike Myers.

A trip to London - and that Blue Peter appearance - to promote the movie are among the perks of the job. His mother sits in on the string of interviews he gives in a posh hotel, but he proves more than capable of handling the press on his own.

He even has a crisis-on-set story to tell. He had to have his appendix taken out during shooting The Cat In The Hat. "Not on the actual set, of course," he jokes. "It was a weekend, so we were off. But I got a stomach ache and then, later that night, we had to go to hospital. I was back four days afterwards. They just shot stuff that they didn't need me for.

"It's an easy surgery now. It takes 15 minutes. Pretty soon they're gonna have a drive-through. 'All right, can I take your order?', 'Yes, please, just my tonsils and appendix to go'."

In the film he and Dakota Fanning, as his young sister, have fun in the company of a six-foot talking feline wearing a red-and-white striped stovepipe hat and red bow tie.

The moggy with the distinctive headgear is played by Mike Myers, who proved a different sort of actor to Spencer's adult co-star in The Kid, Die Hard actor Bruce Willis.

"Bruce Willis, I thought, was really, really funny in The Kid, and he's known for his action movies," explains Spencer. "So they're both different kind of actors, but Mike Myers is more laugh-out-loud kinda funny.

"A lot of the stuff he did was improvised, so you didn't know what was going to happen until you got on to the set. After reading a script you know what's coming, but when he changes it around, it gets funnier each time."

Filming was fun, although the part he enjoyed most was the stunt scene where he, Dakota and Kelly Preston (playing their mother) had to jump up and down on the couch.

"There were trampolines under each cushion, and they put us in harnesses. So we'd jump up and down really high, and do flips and tricks all over.

"The stunts were a lot of fun, but the most difficult because it took a lot of preparation. You'd be hanging up in the air waiting to do a scene. It wasn't the most comfortable position."

His favourite character was Quinn, played by Alec Baldwin. He's an unscrupulous neighbour trying to win over the children's mother. He ends up covered in gunge, as did Spencer.

"He's a bad character in the movie, but really great to work with in real life. He's just a regular guy and didn't act like a big movie star, even when he was covered in that gunge," says the young actor.

"It smelled really bad, like beef jerky. I had that stuff on me in the end scenes, and it dries on your skin. They'd have to pull it off, and your little hairs would come off with it. And they'd have to refresh it all the time, but, hey, I got to work with Mike Myers and Alec Baldwin."

His sister, Abigail, has followed him into the acting business. They've recently appeared together, playing brother and sister, in the film drama Raising Helen, starring Kate Hudson.

Spencer's never attended a "proper" school, as he's taught by his mother at home and by a tutor on the set. His brother and sister are also home schooled.

His favourite subjects, he says, as "lunch and history". For a hobby, he likes directing movies with his video camera. Sometimes he makes documentaries about the movies in which he's appearing.

Despite working, he hasn't been able to spend the money he's earned. As his mother says: "He gets ten dollars a week - if he manages to do his chores".

* The Cat In The Hat (PG) opens in cinemas tomorrow.

Published: 01/04/2004