At the age of twelve he was chosen out of 4000 canidates to play 
the role of Jesse in Free Willy and the rest, as you would know, is history.

Actually, when they picked him, he had no idea that he was supposed to work with
a three ton Orca.  The producers sent Jason down to Mexico three weeks
before the shooting started so he and Keiko (Willy) could get used to one another.
Seeing Keiko for the first time, he was a bit scared. "I wondered if he would bite
off my hand if I try to pet him."  But there was no need to worry: after one week 
Keiko happily reacted to Jason's  handsignals. His acting talents earned him two MTV-Movie-Award nominations, one in the "Best Breakthrough Performance"
category (and if MTV was owned by Warner believe us, he would have won).

 He would then go on shooting the Neverending Story 3.  (If you see him in this movie...
dont worry: his hair will be normal after about 10 minutes.)  Later, he had chance to play Jesse again (and he leapt at this opportunity) in Free Willy 2 and 3.  His swimming frenzy helped him a lot for this movie - it has even more underwater shots than the first part. He also did most of his stunts himself.... bear that in mind if you see Jesse falling off the helicopter.

He says that he downside of showbiz: is the public attention.  When a film comes out, that's when it gets crazy.  After a while the attention fades - and that's what he likes. "I sometimes hhave a hard time dealing with people coming up to me. I'll be doing something average with my friends, not paying attention, an suddenly someone I dont know will appear out of nowhere. I have a hard time with the disturbance in everyday life."  He does however like it when people say that they enjoyed the movie or liked his performance... frankly: saying that shouldn't be hard. 

Still, "...the weirdest, strangest and most interesting thing is doing interviews. I'm sort of used to it now, but there's still that feeling before I go in to an interview where I get butterflies. But once I start, it's okay. It's always hard when people want to know everything about you. I guess I can understand that, but the truth is, I've always been a pretty private person. And hopefully I'll be able to stay that way."

His favorite movie is Apocalypse Now, his favourite bands include The Doors, Pink Floyd, Pearl Jam, "anything from heavy metal to Beethoven" (a bit too specific) and Jimi Hendrix - after all Jason is a guitar player himself. He and four of his friends formed a band, now they spend nights playing "kind of alternative music" but Jason is not singing because "I sound like a dying cow - mooooo!".   Jason also owns a dog named "Lucy" (and a cute dog she is!).  

Here's something from Jason worth emulating:  Jason doesn't want anything expensive, because "...when you get something really nice you have to worry about it. There are more important things in life than having a nice car (for example)."