Sean Nelson, the Sundance Kid

Sean Nelson had just turned 13 when he took on the role of Fresh, the street-smart, drug-running teen in the current movie of the same name. But besides living in New York City and liking “X-Men” comics, Nelson and the character he plays have little in common.

Nelson lives with his parents, six siblings and a menagerie of birds, rabbits and fish in an apartment in the Bronx. Now 14, he has just started ninth grade at Manhattan’s Professional Performing Arts School.

“You know there’s kids like Fresh out there,” he says. “You hear it in the news.” Making the movie, he says, he did wonder about what it would have been like to have been born into a different world, into the world of Fresh.

“To have lost as many friends as he lost . . . ,” Nelson says, trying to imagine it. “But I didn’t think about it much. Once the movie started filming, I just had fun.”

Nelson’s father, Aubrey, a self-employed electromechanical engineer, and mother, Sonia, started him singing in church at the suggestion of his kindergarten teacher. At 7, he was enrolled in Lola Louis’ Creative and Performing Arts Studio in the Bronx for voice training and piano instruction. It was Louis who suggested to Nelson’s parents that he get acting lessons as well, and who got him work in local plays until she felt he was ready for a regular agent.

His powerful, almost wordless performance in “Fresh” earned him a special jury award at the Sundance Film Festival in January. But his description of the way he worked with the movie’s director, Boaz Yakin, sounds more like that of a 14-year-old than a seasoned pro: “I tried a bunch of different faces, and he chose the ones he wanted,” says Nelson.

Despite all the critical attention he’s won since Sundance, Nelson says he doesn’t consider acting a long-term career choice.

“I won’t always have a job in acting,” he says. “I need something (where I know) I’ll always have money in my pocket.”*