First look: 'Where the Wild Things Are' gets Maxed out

By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY

Who's Max? Why, Max is Max.

Enlarge Max (Max Records) and Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) roll their terrible eyes and gnash their terrible teeth

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Check out scenes from the movie

MORE: A 'Wild' vision drives director's creation

Max Records, 11, is the boy with anger issues who escapes to a land where giant beasts roam in Where the Wild Things Are, the film version of Maurice Sendak's 1963 storybook classic.

Such same-name casting is the type of coincidence that could only happen to a filmmaker who once placed a portal in an actor's head in Being John Malkovich

"It's just fortuitous, kismet, circumstance," says Spike Jonze, who cast Max after a director friend sent him a tape. "I can't imagine anyone else playing Max. Max is the soul of the movie. He's a very special sort of kid. Deep and thoughtful. Sweet and sincere."

Audiences will get a chance to check out both Maxes on Friday in a trailer accompanying Monsters vs. Aliens.

The Portland, Ore., sixth-grader spent four months on the film, which was shot outside Melbourne, Australia. His parents — Shawn, a photographer, and Jenny, a librarian — along with brother Sam, 7, joined him Down Under.

Max has been in videos for Death Cab for Cutie and Cake but has almost no performing experience other than a bit part in school "that was pretty pathetic." Save for Star Wars, he says, "I wasn't a huge movie person. "I'm not into what won the Oscars this year."

What he is into is books, and Wild Things is one of his favorites. "It's sort of different and not a simple story."

Max, who also can be seen in The Brothers Bloom (May 29), would like to continue to act. "But not gigantic parts. I'm in school and stuff. It's too disruptive." He did get some encouragement — from Sendak himself.

"I got to meet him last September," he says.

What did the author say to him? "Good job."