BY LARRY RAMER
Staff Writer

Josh Flitter MARLBORO — An up-and-coming actor from Marlboro may have caught his big break.

Josh Flitter, 10, is co-starring in a Disney movie, “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” that is due out in the middle of 2005. The movie stars Shia LaBeouf and tells the true story of an 20-year-old amateur American golfer who qualified for the U.S. Open in 1913.

LaBeouf plays the starring role of golfer Frances Ouimet and Josh plays his caddy. The movie is directed by Bill Paxton.

Josh has lines in 50 to 60 pages of the script, his mother, Carla Flitter, said.

Josh’s appearance in “The Greatest Game Ever Played” may be a turning point for the youngster who has acted in several commercials, played small parts in a few movies and had a role in a television pilot that was not picked up as a regular series.

“According to what I hear this movie will put Josh on the map, but you never know in this business,” Flitter said. “Bill Paxton said Disney thinks that Josh is an exciting new discovery.”

Josh said he enjoyed working with LaBeouf and Paxton.

“Working with Shia is fun. He’s 18, but he’s like a big kid. He’s really fun. He has video games in his room and I like hanging out with him. And Bill is an excellent director,” the actor said.

Josh has smaller roles in two movies that are due out soon, his mother said.

In “Hide and Seek,” starring Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning, Josh plays a boy living in a mental institution with the 10-year-old Fanning.

“We were drawing, running around, playing tag,” Josh said of his scene in the movie.

“Josh had a couple of lines like ‘you’re it,’ and ‘can’t catch me,’ ” Flitter said.

Asked what he thinks of Fanning, Josh said, “She’s really nice and fun to hang out with. She is intelligent for her age.”

Fanning was recently in Howell with Tom Cruise to film scenes for director Steven Spielberg’s remake of “War of the Worlds.”

Josh will also be seen with David Schwimmer in the movie “Duane Hopwood.”

“I’m friends with David Schwimmer’s daughter in the movie, so [Schwimmer] called me over to ask where his daughter was because he wanted to talk to her,” Josh explained. “Out of nowhere I just start talking about weird things that happened in class, like ‘today we saw a butterfly.’ ”

Josh said Schwimmer, who is best known for his work on the NBC-TV series “Friends,” is “really nice and really funny.”

Flitter said it looks like her son will have a busy and exciting year in 2005.

“The producers of ‘The Greatest Game Ever Played’ say he’s going to have a big year and appear on the big talk shows, like Letterman, Leno, and hopefully Ellen,” she said.