Sean Astin’s family is as close to Hollywood royalty as you can get.

His mother Patty Duke was a star of stage, film and television, winning her first Academy Award at the age of 16. She went on to become president of the Screen Actors Guild, while also winning three Emmys and two Golden Globes. His adoptive father John Astin is most notably known for his role as Gomez in the much-loved TV series The Addams Family, andhis uncle Ray Duke, brother Mackenzie Astin and eldest daughter Ali Astin are all actors. But Sean is best known for portraying some of the most loved and recognised characters of the last 30 years ­– and he is about to bring his cult status to Australia’s biggest pop culture expo, Supanova, which arrives in Sydney this week.

After he greets me with a ‘G’day’, the Lord Of The Rings star talks candidly about fame, fatherhood, films and becoming forgetful at 45. “Often people will come up to me and say they enjoyed this movie or that movie, and I think, ‘Oh right, I almost forgot I did that!’” he laughs. “But I am getting on in years, so I can be forgiven for getting a little forgetful.

“I’m blessed to have such a body of work and I seem to just keep trudging along doing things, and every now and again something is massive, but other times I’m just doing little independent films and sometimes I’m producing them.”

Astin’s producing, writing and directing credits include the 1994 Academy Award-nominated short film Kangaroo Court, as well as 2003’s The Long And Short Of It (made with the help of LOTR director Peter Jackson and some of the cast), and more recently Video Games: The Movie, which he also narrated. “It’s a love letter to the video games industry, and we’ve actually turned it into a television series – a kind of doco series called Unlocked: The World Of Games, Revealed.

“I’ve also just finished Remember The Sultana, a documentary, which is this amazing Civil War story about the tragedy of 1,100 soldiers who died in a boat accident right at the end of the war. It’s a totally unknown story. It’s the biggest maritime disaster in the history of the country, but nobody knows about it, so we had to do a documentary – but I don’t know when you’re going to get to see it, unfortunately.”

As comfortable in front of the camera as he is behind it, Astin has tackled comedy, drama, adventure and horror across his career. “I’ve done a couple of little horror movies,” he says. “I recently did one called Dead Ant [with Jake Busey and Tom Arnold], and I can’t wait to see how that turns out. We play rock’n’rollers, and the character I play is absurd!

“Oh, and I’m in The Do-Over with Adam Sandler and David Spade. Full disclosure: don’t watch it if you have any delicate sensibilities, and it’s definitely not for kids, but it was fun! And there’s another film called Range 15 that I’m in. It’s produced and written by, and stars, Iraqi and Afghanistan war vets – it’s a zombie apocalypse movie. I’m not in it a lot, but it comes out in limited release in a week or so.

“And of course [TV series] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that’s on Down Under. I’m the voice of Raphael. We just had a big recording session today – it’s been going like gangbusters! The big feature film is out now, so that also brings attention to it.”

Astin’s interests are as varied as his film projects. He’s a long-distance runner and an Ironman; he graduated from UCLA with double degrees; he acted as campaign manager for his friend, Democrat Dan Adler; and he has the power to make you an honorary Goonie – something he plans to bestow upon worthy fans at Supanova.

“We [the cast of The Goonies] celebrated the 30th anniversary last year, so this year’s convention is going to be fun. One of the cool things about this convention setting is that all of a sudden you can have a real connection with people, instead of them just watching you in a movie theatre. My father always taught me that every human interaction is sacred, and so I try to enjoy the moment with people.”

Family is extremely important to Astin, a proud father of three girls, but he admits that they don’t always seem so impressed with him. “The eldest is in university studying drama, but she is yet to come to me for advice on the craft of acting. Although I think she respects the fact that I’m working in the entertainment business … I think they get how cool I am!” he jokes. “But that’s not something that anybody focuses on in my family, really. I try to tell them when I come back from Australia that being in a Supanova convention shows how cool I am, and they say, ‘Yeah, yeah, we get it!’ Cool is relative, and I think you can never be that cool in the eyes of your kids.”

Sean Astin appears at Supanova Pop Culture Expo 2016, alopng withTravis Fimmel, Juliet Landau, Brianna Hildebrand, Holly Marie Combs and more, at Sydney Showground, Friday June 17 – Sunday June 19.

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