TORONTO -- Shooting "Pete's Dragon" brought back many fond memories for Bryce Dallas Howard.

Playing the forest-ranger daughter of Robert Redford's character, who tells tall tales about a mythical dragon, brought to mind fantastical stories she heard from her own dad -- famed director Ron Howard.

"I'm one of four kids and he would drive us to school every morning and use us as a test audience and test out the story of his films on us," Howard said in a recent interview.

"I remember him telling me the story of 'Willow' on one of these car rides, I remember the story to 'Far and Away' being told to me on one of these rides, and he would test out a lot of 'The Grinch.'

"I think it was a powerful exercise for him, to tell his story out loud and get a sense of where the audience would react based on how his very, very honest, blunt children would react."

Howard said she was "obsessed" as a kid with Disney's original "Pete's Dragon" from 1977.

"We had a VHS copy of the film that we just basically ran into the ground," said Howard, whose other credits include "The Help" and "Jurassic World."

"And when I heard that I was going to actually be in 'Pete's Dragon,' I called my little sister and told her and she burst into tears. She was like, 'Oh my gosh, that beautiful movie.' So it is really meaningful to me."

"Pete's Dragon" is a live-action reimagining of the original animated film. Oakes Fegley stars as young Pete, who wanders off into the woods after a car crash that kills his parents. There, he meets a friendly dragon who ends up raising him until Howard's character and a deforestation crew stumble across him six years later.

Co-stars include Oona Laurence as a young girl who grows fond of Pete, and Wes Bentley and Karl Urban as lumber mill workers. David Lowery directed and co-wrote the story.

Howard said she was blown away by Oakes's performance, noting he had to act opposite something that wasn't really there. The young star even seemed like a budding director on set.

"He would ask, and not in a precocious way or anything, he would ask very genuinely, questions like, 'Oh, I'm sorry, what lens are you using right now?' And then he would adjust his performance according to the lenses that were being used."

The film is set in a fictional town in the Pacific Northwest but it was shot in New Zealand, which brought back more memories for Howard.

"I had been to New Zealand 30 years previously with my family, with my dad, because he was shooting 'Willow' and I have really incredible memories of that time in my life," she said.

"So to get to be there and bring my kids, and they went to school there -- and to have them on set and then now know that they're going to get to see this film and it will give that much more context for their memories -- it's something that I absolutely treasured as a kid and I hope they feel the same way."

Her son was even an extra in one scene.

"We were watching the trailer for the film and there was a shot of the scene he was in -- and he recognizes things right away, he's visually kind of gifted -- and he was like, 'There I am!"' said Howard.

"We were like, 'Wait, what?' It took like 10 times, we paused ... the trailer and there's a wisp of his hair," she continued with a howl.

"So he's real proud of that."

Howard is a redhead, like her dad, but her son has white-blond hair, she noted.

"It's so strange, and my daughter's a brunette. It's crazy to me. I keep saying 'We're like Charlie's Angels."'