Joe began with the film “Presumed Innocent” as Wendell McGaffney nut came to the public’s attention when he appeared two years later as ‘Bobby’ in Richard Donner’s poignant “Radio Flyer” along with another talented child star in Elijah Wood. The two young actors carry the film rather brilliantly, I recalled when seeing the red wagon on the film poster it would be a fun children’s film but is far from that as it touched on a tough subject.
That same year he also appeared in “Jersey Girl” but hit pay dirt in 1993 as ‘Tim Murphy’ in the Steven Spielberg hit “Jurassic Park,” the same year he appeared in Richard Attenborough’s “Shadowlands” and Mazzello was on a roll. He followed those up in 1994 with one of my most loved films “The River Wild” with Meryl Streep as they take a wild ride down a violent river the film is filled with spectacular scenery and terrific acting from the leads.
The following year saw him playing ‘Dexter” in “The Cure” with the late Brad Renfro and “Three Wishes.” Two years later with the sequel “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” and the sci-fi/adventure “Star Kid “ things started to slow down for Mazzello, in 1998 after playing ‘Joe Wenteworth’ in “Simon Birch” he was seen sparingly over the next few years after being a very prolific and bankable child and teen star through the 1990’s.
In that time he attended film school at USC and walk away with a degree in cinema and television production and aspires to be a director. In 2010 with a role in “The Social Network” and for 2013 he had roles in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and “”Dear Sidewalk” and three years later in “Undrafted” and is set to appear in 2018 in “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Joseph was originally set to play the role of Jack in 1991’s “Hook” but was deemed too small and the role went to Charlie Korsmo, Spielberg then adjusted the ages of the kids in Jurassic Park so Mazzello could play Tim. When work began on the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) he was cast as David but the role later went to Haley Joel Osment.
He had some awesome movies when he was a kid acting and we have lots of them on DVD like The Cure, The River Wild and of course Jurassic Park.