SEEING a list of Kelly Blatz’s interests, you get the impression he might prefer to be in the fresh air playing sport than sitting in a hotel room talking to journalists.

Football, baseball, basketball, snowboarding, surfing, wakeboarding, skateboarding, biking and running feature among his sporting life, according to his press biog.

“I know it’s raining but I do love to be outdoors,” says this Burbank, California, native, surveying the wet London scene.

Happily, his latest project for the Disney XD channel – where he starred in their original series Aaron Stone – mixes acting and action, so the sportsman in him gets a workout during filming.

“There’s a good amount of action on the show so that’s fine,” he says. “But I do love doing sports, if I’m able, three or four times a week. I try to go in the gym in the morning and run around and do some stuff.”

In the science fiction adventure film Skyrunners – Disney XD’s first original movie – he plays one of two teenage brothers who commandeer a small UFO that crashes near their town.

The younger one (played by Joey Pollari) is captured by extraterrestrials, meaning it up to brother Nick (Blatz) to rescue him.

Blatz began acting at Burbank High School, producing and starring in student films. The Disney series and now Skyrunners have established him as a teen action hero. It could have been so different – growing up he envisaged a sports career.

“I wanted to be a professional baseball player. Then I played a lot of football in high school and then pro-snowboard. I had a sports focus mostly, then I realised I was not as good as I thought I was going to be,” he says.

So he switched to acting. He was seen by the Disney people for one role, was told by the casting director he wasn’t right for it and then offered the Aaron Stone series.

He played a teen who divides his time between being a mild-mannered student and a planetary defender, equipped with the latest hi-tech gadgets to fight off evil.

“I finished doing that and they said they had this other thing they thought I’d be perfect for, Skyrunners. I thought, ‘wow, this is great’ because it’s along the lines of my favourite movies growing up, like ET and big adventure movies.

“I thought of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Matthew Broderick in the movie. I also thought of myself, I can be that certain guy who gets by on his charm. I had to bring all that together.”

Filming involved much acting against a green screen with effects – spacecraft, aliens, that sort of thing – added through special effects wizardry. The extraterrestrials appear courtesy of the Weta Workshop, the New Zealand company that won Oscars from its work on The Lord Of The Rings.

“Sometimes it was full days working with green screen, especially with the UFO and the underground world. You have to go back to your childhood and use your imagination. It becomes real fun.”

He’s become more used to working with special effects than on Aaron Stone where he felt a bit foolish at first when called on to pretend to shoot lasers.

BLATZ doesn’t worry about being typecast, determined only to take on projects that he feels passionate about. “If I can’t connect to it, I can’t do it to the best of my ability,” he says.

“I’ve managed to do lots of different things in a short time. What you wish is for people to continue to travel along with you and enjoy your work.”

He has another string to his bow – a rock band, Capra, which is signed to Disney’s Hollywood Records and which was asked to write and record a song for Skyrunners.

He gets the same buzz from singing as acting. “I grew up a kind of shy kid but when I’m on stage or they call ‘action’ it completely frees you up to do what you want. You can do anything because it’s not really yourself.

“That’s what draw me to do it – that feeling of freedom. I’m still shy, it depends whom I’m around. Put me in front of a camera and it becomes a different thing.”

■ Skyrunners: Disney XD, 11am and 4pm.