‘Where the Wild Things Are’-First Look

The children's book, which is being turned into a very creepy movie, is a classic. But can Hollywood do it justice when it's released in theaters this fall? The half animated, half live action Spike Jonze flick stars many A-listers-Forest Whitaker, Catherine Keener and James Gandolfini, just to name a few-but one unknown child actor really stands out. Max Records, 11 years old, will be playing, strangely, "Max": the child who's anger issues cause him to escape to a land where beasts roam. The same name casting is odd, eh?
"It's just fortuitous, kismet, circumstance," says writer/director Spike Jonze, Wild Things being his first major blockbuster, who cast Records after a friend sent him a tape. "Max is the soul of the movie; I can't imagine anyone else playing him. He's a very special sort of kid. Deep and thoughtful. Sweet and sincere." You can see the same-name actor in a preview for Where the Wild Things Are this Friday before the animated Dreamworks comedy, Monsters vs. Aliens. The sixth-grade, Portland, Oregon star spent 4 months on the film, which was shot outside Melbourne, Australia. He's been in videos for Death Cab for Cutie and Cake, but has almost no acting experience besides that. "I wasn't a huge movie person," he says. "I'm not into what won the Oscars this year."

What he is "into", however, are books. Wild Things, he says, just happens to be one of his all time favorites. "It's sort of different and not a simple story". We'll see if that's true when it's released this October.

If you want to see more of Max Records, you can catch him in The Brothers Bloom, which opens May 29, along with Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo. Max says he would like to continue to act. "But not gigantic parts. I'm in school and stuff. It's too disruptive." He did get some pretty exciting encouragement-from Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are.

"I got to meet him last September." Max said. "Good job." Is what Sendak told him.

Where the Wild Things Are opens October 16^th in theaters worldwide, and I'll be blogging about it following it's release.