Selbyville 9-year-old to make silver screen debut

She may be the shortest in her fourth grade class, but Jillian Lebling may also be the most famous.

Jillian makes her debut on the big screen this weekend in the movie, “Bridge of Spies.”

The film, which was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Matt Charman, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, tells the story of James B. Donovan, an American lawyer who helped rescue a captured pilot detained in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s.

The 9-year-old Worcester Preparatory School student from Selbyville plays the role of the lawyer's daughter, Peggy, in the movie.

About four weeks after she auditioned for the role, she visited her agent for what she thought was a callback. She was told to read two cards. The second one said she got the part.

"I said that and I was shocked," Jillian said. "I didn't know what was happening."

While this is her first film role, this isn't her first acting job. She was on two episodes of NBC's "The Blacklist" which aired earlier this year. She also spent 15 months on Broadway acting in the Tony Award winning musical, "Once."

Filming for "Bridge of Spies" took place over the course of three weeks in October 2014 in Brooklyn, New York. Schoolwork was sent ahead of time and a tutor was on set to help, Jillian said.

"The movie sounded fun because I could get to be on the big screen and I would get to meet a lot of new people," she said. "It was really fun to get to work with all those people."

She won't be the only familiar face to local moviegoers. Her parents are played by Tom Hanks and Amy Ryan.

"He’s really nice and fun to work with," Jillian said about Hanks. "He joked around with me in between scenes so it was really fun to work with him."

While the actress said she was not nervous during the experience, her mother, Jessica, was excited about the idea of seeing people going to the movie theater to see her daughter's work, instead of sitting and watching on the television at home.

"She doesn’t get nervous," Jessica said. "So I was the one who gets nervous for her."

As Jillian hopes to continue her acting career, she has projects in the works, but they can't be discussed at this time, Jessica said.

Jillian wants to be an actress when she grows up and is eager to learn about other parts of the business, including directing and casting, she said.

"I just can't really think of other things I would want to be," she said.

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