Photo by Jordan Hays.
Maxwell Ross movie
Maxwell Ross performs a cold read on a script with little to no rehearsal.
Meg Deusner handed Maxwell Ross a script as he walked through the door to the acting studio.
“That’s your scene,” Deusner said. “You have three minutes to go over it.”
The script was one Maxwell had never seen before and for a role, he said, he would never take. Still, Deusner said it was good to practice a cold read. Sometimes you walk into an audition, and they ask you to perform something you didn’t expect.
“Who am I?” Maxwell said.
“You’re Jorge.”
“But I want to call him George.”
“You can do that,” Deusner said and laughed.
In those three minutes, Maxwell pored over the script to gather as much information as he could about Jorge — his personality, how Jorge feels about what’s happening in the scene, how he thinks.
Maxwell did the same with his character when he received the script for the new film Alive & Free. Maxwell, 15, has been acting since he was a small child, performing in commercials ranging from politicians to theme parks.
An important part of his acting, Maxwell said, is knowing how the character thinks, what they feel and what they would do in a situation. Understanding the character allows Maxwell to become that character, or act.
Maxwell has been trained to do this by his acting coach, Deusner. She uses the word “being” instead of acting when describing their work.
“Our goal was to get Maxwell’s acting to a very truthful place,” Deusner said. “When you watch an actor on film and you’re taken away, you believe they’re having this experience, and you as the audience are taken away by that. It’s being instead of showing … When you’re on film, it has to be so real and truthful or else we don’t buy it.”
In Alive & Free, Maxwell’s character, Matt, speculates that his mother might be a spy after discovering a box filled with false IDs and passports. She had previously disappeared, and this discovery rekindles his hope that his mother may be out there. Throughout the movie, Matt grows closer with his family, a family that previously lived more like “roommates sharing a house” than a family sharing a home.
“He’s very secluded in the beginning, and he doesn’t like talking to people unless he has to,” Maxwell said. “But during the climax of the movie, he realizes he has someone to talk to if he needs it, which is his family. He lost his mom, but what if he lost his brother or dad? He realizes that and starts to appreciate them more.”
By using context clues and piecing together parts of the script, Maxwell said he does his best to think like his character and become him. Maxwell’s style is similar to the method style of his acting idols, Heath Ledger and Johnny Depp.
“I think Johnny Depp, even off the screen, is a really interesting character,” Maxwell said. “He’s really good at immersing himself into the roles he does. You can tell he’s not acting; he’s actually becoming that person.”
Going forward, Maxwell hopes to make a career out of acting. He is currently looking at colleges and is considering Belmont University or Samford University’s theater departments.
“I have nothing wrong in my life, but acting provides an escape from things like school and stress,” he said. “Some people my age resort to drugs, but acting is my drug because it takes me out of my place in the real world … It allows for an escape into this other world. The role may not be any better. It may be worse than your real life, but it allows you to not worry about what’s going on in the world and allows you to focus on the story and your character.”
Alive & Free was directed by Neil Hoppe and took approximately one month to film last October, according to Maxwell. The film is being produced by Lifeway, a Christian resource provider.
For more information on the movie, visit aliveandfreefilm.com. For more information about Maxwell, visit facebook.com/MaxwellRossActor.