WATERBORO — When Colbi Gannett was 4 years old, she was watching her mother, Chara, practice lines for a production.

“I said ‘can I try some,’ and she said ‘sure,'” Colbi explained after school on Tuesday afternoon.  

Now, at age 8, and with some acting credentials of her own under her belt, Colbi will be playing the lead role in an independent film being shot in Massachusetts this summer. She’ll portray Cecily in a short film called “The Extraordinary World of Cecily Blinkstop.”

Her younger brother Emmett, 6, will be playing her brother Barney in the film.

The two live in Waterboro with their parents, Frank and Chara Victoria Gannett. Both youngsters attend Waterboro Elementary School.

They take piano lessons and do other things 8- and 6-year-olds do — and they act.

Colbi is best known for her roles in HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge,” alongside Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand, and in the short film “Camping Trip” by director Audrey Larson. 

Folks traveling in the Boston, Massachusetts, area may have seen Emmett’s smiling face in a chef’s hat on a billboard ad for Mastercard. And when he was just 1, Emmett made his acting debut as as baby Kevin James in Adam Sandler’s “Grown Ups 2.”

In an interview at their home on Tuesday, the youngsters chatted about their budding careers — well, Colbi did. Emmett  was busy laughing and doing acrobatics and popping in and out of a big brown leather ottoman with a lift-up lid. 

Colbi said she sent in an audition tape for the Cecily film, and then got what is known as a ‘callback” in the film industry — a date to go meet the screenwriter and producer, Jennifer Potts.

They wanted, she said, so see who is shy and who is not — and Colbi is not.

“I have a lot of energy,” said Colbi, so she was perfect for the part, while Emmett — despite his exuberance Tuesday —  is usually a much shyer fellow, his sister said. He was chosen to play the part of Barney, Cecily’s quiet brother in the film.

Colbi said she likes acting.

“I like to be different characters — most have been funny characters,” she said. “And the more I memorize lines, the better I get at it.”

Her Cecily character will be a more serious portrayal. According to Potts, the screenwriter, the film is set in 1974 in rural New England, and centers on Cecily, a 7-year-old girl who, after the death of her baby sister, lives in a world with no music, no color, no laughter, and no love, until a magical imaginary friend shows up and joins her on the quest to save her family from the grief that is destroying them.

The short film is based on the first 15 pages of the feature film script, and will be produced as a proof of concept for the feature film, Potts said.

As for the two Waterboro actors, well, sometimes the parts she plays requires Colbi to cry — as this one likely will. When she was younger, she said, crying on demand was hard. She said she doesn’t have to think of anything sad, “now I just tear up,” she said.

Who is the most famous person she’s met?

Well, that would be Anna Kendrick, she said, whom she saw at a book signing, and the two had their photo taken together.

Colbi said the best part of acting for her is getting to play different characters. 

What’s the worst part?

“There is no worst part, acting is amazing,” she said.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or [email protected].