Christian Bale lumbers into a conference room on a rainy Saturday morning. He plops down in a chair, yawns, and wipes sleep from his eyes. Dressed in black jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers, he apologizes for being late. "I'm just getting over the flu and I'm still jet-lagged," he explains, "so I'm moving a little slowly."

But the six-foot-two British actor, best known for his film debut as a young schoolboy in Steven Spielberg's epic, Empire of the Sun and more recently for Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, need not apologize. For the past few weeks, he's been flying round and round from L.A. to London to Prague and back again. "I've been doing reshoots for Newsies here, and doing preproduction work on a new film, Swing Kids, in Prague, and visiting my mom, sister and girlfriend in England. And I don't even like to fly!" he says with a slight shudder. "Before I came here, I flew on a plane that sounded like it had a window open the whole time."

When Bale first heard about Newsies, a live-action musical recounting the tale of the New York newsboys' strike of 1899, he claims he had no interest in auditioning for the project. "I'd never sung or danced, and I didn't think I could do a musical," he says. "I read for the film in England, and then Disney flew me to Los Angeles for a screen test. But before I signed a contract, I met the director [Kenny Ortega] and told him I wasn't comfortable with the dancing and singing and I didn't want to be a bloody Artful Dodger in a remake of Oliver!, jumping down the street with a big smile on my face. But he told me it wouldn't be like that, and then he lied to me about all of these different actors who had done musicals, like Al Pacino."

After he was cast as Jack Kelly, the head Newsie, Bale joined the rest of the film's actors and dancers in two months of "Newsies school." He studied singing, dancing, speaking with a Brooklyn accent (circa 1899), gymnastics, and karate. "We had a kung fu master," he recalls with a laugh. "Thirty of us would be standing in a room doing something like t'ai chi to this humming music. It's very relaxing, but when you see yourself in the mirror, it's really funny!"

"Filming Newsies was a blast," he says. "By the time the cameras started rolling, we were so prepared we were ready for anything. The blend of technically great dancers and actors with great characterizations made it all work perfectly. "And what about his Oliver! fear? "Sure, we're singing and dancing in the streets," he says, "but we don't always have a smile on our faces."

Immediately upon finishing Newsies, Bale flew to Prague to begin filming Swing Kids. It's set in 1930's Hamburg, Germany," the eighteen-year-old explains. "There was quite a big culture then among teenagers who liked to dress in zoot suits and go to swing clubs. The story is about three friends from different backgrounds who love swing music. I play the bad seed."

In between movies, Bale tries to squeeze in time with his family and girl - friend. "I've been going with the same girl for three years," he says shyly. "But she's going to a university in England and I'm re-locating to L.A., where my father lives. If I had nothing to do with the film industry, I'd stay in England, but my hometown isn't exactly the film capital of the world."

If he never made another movie, however, Bale says he wouldn't mind a non - celebrity life. "I love making movies," he concludes, "but I also love my privacy. If it all ended tomorrow, I'd just live by the sea and be perfectly happy."

~Kevin Koffler - Seventeen

Max Casella had me totally fooled. I mean, for three years I felt really sorry for Doogie Howser, M.D.'s best bud, Vinnie, the bumbling, gawky, insecure kid whose greatest fear in life is girls. Casella is so convincing that I'll bet he gets tons of advice-filled letters from his supportive fans.

Well, that kind of sympathy will be history when you get a look at Casella's film debut in Newsies. While the twenty-four-year-old actor may not be as tall, dark and handsome (but he's really cute) as some of his costars, Casella definitely steals the spotlight on more than one occasion, playing Racetrack, a nervy, devious gambler.

"I loved making this movie," admits the Massachusetts native. "But the best thing was getting into the role, collecting the props, dressing the part. And," he adds in a heavy New York accent, "it was really easy for me to grasp the New Yawk accent." Casella even went so far as to smoke cigars. "I knew not to inhale them," he says, "but I had a bad time of it. They're pretty nasty."

When Casella's not in front of the camera, he likes to spend time watching boxing matches, listening to the blues, or brushing up on one of his favorite pastimes: serenading his girlfriend with his guitar. Is this guy cool or what?

~Malissa Thompson - Seventeen

Want to make Shon Greenblatt too happy? Give the guy a gun and let him orchestrate some down-and-dirty deeds. "I've always wanted to play the bad guy," explains the twenty-one-year-old actor. "I get such a kick out of being ruthless."

That's exactly how Greenblatt comes across in Newsies portraying an up-and- coming crime lord named Oscar Delancey who's perverted, vicious and, well, your basic rotten slob. "I wanted to do a real sleazy type of guy," says the New York native with a wicked smirk, "but this was a Disney movie, so..."

If this kind of gangster stuff flips Greenblatt's burger, what could possibly make him freak? "My greatest fears are having to do a love scene -- for obvious reasons -- and doing another movie like Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare," says Greenblatt. (You may remember him as the film's main punching bag.) "Freddy taught me lots of lessons about special effects and getting wet. It was very painful, horrible, and tiresome to do." After finishing Freddy, Greenblatt took a safer role as a young hunk in There Goes My Baby, a coming-of-age story set in 1965 with Dermont Mulroney and Rick Schroder.

With two big movies due out this spring, it looks as if Greenblatt's career is set. "In my eyes I'm still struggling," he says. "I still feel like I'm just two steps ahead of the kid who got off the bus this morning."

~Malissa Thompson - Seventeen

You know, it's amazing what a role in a musical can do for your social life. Before making Newsies, David Moscow was your basic drag when it came to dancing with girls. "It used to be I was the guy at the school dance who was up against the back wall thinking, No way," says the high school senior in East Harlem, New York.

But now when Moscow, who made his film debut as the young Tom Hanks in Big, hits dance floor, he's got girls lined up for days. It's a classic case of cause and effect, really. See, in between learning how to take "crazy hard" punches in the stomach for his Newsies role, Moscow also had to get some serious Gene Kelly moves down. After three months of grueling rehearsals (everything from martials arts to tap dancing), Moscow says, "I've never been in better shape -- but I've also never hurt so much."

So what happens when a girl asks David to bust a move these days? "It's cool. I used to go to clubs because they were dark and no one could see how bad I was," says the seventeen-year-old. "Now when I see somebody doing a hot move, I'm not scared to try it and I can pick it up. But," adds the actor, "I'm not amazing or anything."

That's what you think.

~Malissa Thompson - Seventeen

These articles are copyrighted by Seventeen. I did not ask permission to post these but I gave full credit to the rightful authors. You wouldn't sue an innocent seventeen-year-old would you? Unless you really want Zac and Zippy, my zebra slippers.....