As a youngster he fancied himself as a knight of the round table. At nine, the lad who dreamed of being Lancelot, wrote his first book...
Titled Return of the Alien, the plot was somewhat off-the-wall, (more so than most sci-fi) in that the bad guy turned out to be a teddy bear. Bears: they are not all Pooh and Paddington...
"Yes, it was a very strange ending," admits Luc Haasbroek, now a Grade 8 pupil at Eden College.
He is currently writing his fourth book, exploring the world's religions. What if the gods turned on us? Good question, it can only be a matter of time.
No books published as yet, also only a matter of time... this 14-year-old is no ordinary teen.
Chatting to this quiet, contemplative young man, you can almost see the cogs ticking over in that grey matter.
This elongated holiday, when most teens are probably in kick back/sofa-bound mode, wielding remote or Xbox control, Luc is focused, ploughing away at rehearsals for award winning Neil Coppen's extraordinarily inventive piece, Tree Boy. The play, which also uses a mix of shadow puppets and stop-motion animation, goes forth to the National Grahamstown Festival tomorrow.
Directed by Libby Allen, Luc has the "very taxing and exciting" lead role of quirky 10-year-old Benjamin Sprout, whose relationship with his postman father, Arthur (Michael Gritten) comes under scrutiny after the untimely death of Benjamin's mother.
Set in early 1960s SA, the remarkable story follows Ben and Arthur as they are forced to relocate from their rural farm property in the mountains, to Rykdom, a burgeoning mining town in the Transvaal. Ron Smerczak plays Pappus Drupe, an enigmatic old man who helps Benjamin explore this "industrial wasteland".
It is all a far cry from the rural area the youngster has previously relied on to fuel his wild imaginings and while his father, paralysed by grief, consoles himself with drinking, Ben seeks solace in an overgrown forest on the fringes of the town.
With Drupe as his guide, Ben "discovers a world of possibility: stories and thoughts which sow revolutionary seeds of change in the young boy".
The piece was first presented last year as a Playhouse New Stages production, starring Daniel Botha in the title role.
When Botha left SA to join his family overseas, Coppen wondered whether he would find the right young actor to take on such an intense role, but as Allen puts it: "So many of Luc's qualities, when he is outside rehearsal, are what we imagined in the character. His intellect and intuition have in many ways shifted the show and turned it more towards being an examination of a young man, not simply a child. It has been a joy working with Luc. A great challenge, too, as he is quite unlike any actor I've ever directed."
Coppen and Allen are so pleased with their find, they "can't wait" for Grahamstown to meet him.
Luc is a little "surprised" to have nabbed the role which he describes as something of a "journey".
"I almost didn't audition, I thought my chances were so slim. Then my mom convinced me to have a try, but I still didn't think I had much of a shot."An avid writer and poet he may be, even though he appeared at the National Arts Festival in his school's production of Ngoragogo last year, Luc has never had much opinion of his acting abilities.
He ponders a lead role he might have played at school and mom, Sharon, who has shepherded her son to the interview (when he's a millionaire writer she will get her reward for all that ferrying around!) has to remind him of the fantasy piece, in Grade 3, where he was a fantasy-world travelling "boy in pyjamas".
As an actor his influences have come from as far apart as the off-the-wall TV series Whose Line Is it Anyway and the Harry Potter films. Durban comedic actor Aaron McIlroy and John Cleese are both favourite actors ("I love the Monty Python-style humour").
And the World Cup? Is he watching?
Rugby and tennis are more his thing, but he has been supporting Bafana Bafana, "but I was very disappointed".
Join the club...
Meanwhile, off to Grahamstown? Make Coppen's Tree Boy one of your ports of call - "made possible" by the National Arts Festival, NAC and DUT's Courtyard Theatre.