Interview: ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ Director Spike Jonze With Stars Max Records, Catherine Keener

Submitted by HollywoodChicago.com on October 16, 2009 - 1:22pm

CHICAGO – From the looks of things, you’d think “Where the Wild Things Are” director Spike Jonze is more than just Max Records’ director. You’d think Jonze was his 12-year-old star’s father, too.

Max Records, who briefly appeared in 2008’s “The Brothers Bloom” with Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo, sat cuddled up beside Jonze in our interview. Chock full of pride, Jonze kissed Records on his cheek as the boy spoke surprisingly intelligently about his breakout role.

Director Spike Jonze and Max Records on the set of Where the Wild Things Are

Director Spike Zonze (front) and Max Records on the set of “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Sonny Geras

Rating: 4.0/5.0

In the HollywoodChicago.com interview with Jonze (“Adaptation,” “Being John Malkovich”), Records and star Catherine Keener, we discussed the film’s deft ability as one of the best films for how imagination can be used for more than escape. While fantasy films often have kids bouncing off walls and escaping reality, “Where the Wild Things Are” goes much deeper.

This film, which also features voice work from James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Michael Berry Jr., Chris Cooper and Lauren Ambrose, finds a way to allow real healing and coping to be byproducts of imagination.

We also discussed the various interpretations and metaphorical explanations of the creatures. While I viewed two creatures in particular to be father (Carol, voiced by James Gandolfini) and mother (KW, voiced by Lauren Ambrose) figures for Max Records’ Max character, Records had a different viewpoint from a child’s perspective.

“I always viewed all of the wild things as sort of like individual emotions that are isolated into these big, furry creatures. It can be taken so many different ways,” Max Records said.

Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Matt Nettheim

Records added: “One of the weird things about doing that is you’re not sure which is which. Probably if you were going to map it out, Carol is sort of love, you know? He’s shaky and unstable and about to lash out and eat your head off. But he’s so sweet. They’re all sort of parts of Max.”

“We never did a one on one like ‘this is this’ or ‘that is that’. It’s more feelings and emotions than a specific ‘this is that person’. It’s a little more like a dream in that the emotion is what you connect with,” director Spike Jonze said.

“I agree with you,” Catherine Keener said. “I think I had my own feelings about Carol and KW, but we all sort of projected our own experiences.”

As the three discussed their different interpretations, it became clear that Jonze’s intention was to leave these questions up to the moviegoer to answer.

Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Matt Nettheim

“I don’t find life to be that simple. I’m more interested in trying to capture what life is like. Life isn’t simple. Life has a lot of grays. Things can be contradictory. Relationships have a lot of different sides to them,” Jonze said. “You’re just trying to put in everything you can. If you’re exploring a theme, you’re going to try to approach it from all sides of that theme as opposed to just ‘it’s like this’.”

The film “Where the Wild Things Are” is Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s children’s book of the same name. While family films often “talk down” to their audiences, this film doesn’t. The film, which opened everywhere on Oct. 16, 2009, was initially slated to open in 2008 and was pushed back due to challenges with the studio.

“It starts with Maurice [Sendak] and his work. His work doesn’t talk down to kids. That’s why I loved it as a kid. When I see something that felt like [blank] … I recognize that feeling,” Jonze said. “Those were the things I was attracted to. It wasn’t a book that was like: ‘If you behave this way, then…’ Those were the ‘easy-lesson books’. They didn’t stick in my head at all.”

He added: “The ones that had some strange feeling that I recognized … those are the ones that stuck in my head. Like the first Willy Wonka movie with Gene Wilder. He’s compelling. I want him to like me, but I’m also scared of him. I want to be Charlie. I want him to give me the factory, but I’m also really scared of him and charmed by him. He’s mysterious.”

Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Matt Nettheim

As the film was pushed back to 2009, Jonze and his crew were given more time to make changes until their budget ran out. But that doesn’t mean he made the film less dark.

“It was my goal just to make it better and use the time. We pushed it back one year. It was really frustrating and difficult because I had been working on it so long already, but I just tried to stay productive. I used the time and money to make the movie better. In the end, I feel like we did use that time to discover things,” Jonze said.

He added: “We never made the movie less dark. We never changed our intention. I feel like the movie is the same movie we started making. It’s the same movie we screened that the studio was anxious about.”

Jonze continued: “In the end, the studio came to accept the movie. They realized I wasn’t going to work on something for five years and then – because they were anxious – change it and go against what I set out to do. I would never do that. Why would I? Why would I spend that much time on something I cared so deeply about and then – out of their anxiety – question that?”

James Gandolfini as Carol in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Ben King

Max Records recalls this story being read to him when he was an even a younger kid. In a paternal frame of mind, Jonze launched into interviewing Records inside our interview with the cast. Jonze said: “Do you remember it being read to you when you were young?”

Records said: “My parents read it to me. It was probably read to me first when I was a year-and-a-half old or something. Possibly younger. It’s just different. As Spike says, it’s not a moralistic, easy-to-follow thing where you do something and there are consequences and that’s that.”

Jonze continued to Records: “Do you remember being three or four?”

Records said: “Not at all. I’m guessing at what I felt.”

Jonze said: “What is the earliest age you remember?”

Records said: “Mostly, I just remember brief memories and a couple of images from when I was like three or something. Then I start remembering stuff in detail when I was probably six.”

Jonze said: “When you were six, do you remember reading the book still?”

Records said: “I probably still did. Yeah.”

Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Warner Bros.

Now Records, who clearly has been entrenched in this Max character since he was a kid and then in the film when he played him, only said he “related to Max just as much as any kid does” without being completely consumed by him.

“We all get pissed off and stand on the counter and yell at our mother,” Records said. “‘Feed me, woman!’ It’s just different instances of stuff like that. One of the things that makes the film so great is that Max (the character) embodies a child between the ages of six and 10 or even beyond that.”

Because the film took so long to come to fruition, Jonze and Keener commented on how the film ran like a well-oiled machine.

“The group that Spike works with – all of the friends and I’m part of it, too – would kind of burn out and take their day and hit the wall. There was always somebody there,” Keener said.

“We don’t work that departmentally,” Jonze said. “If I was faded one day, then Lance (Acord, the cinematographer) would jump in and take over. Or Keener. It was everybody.”

“It was such a long time that everybody got very real. If you were just sort of done, people would understand it and pick up for you,” Keener said.

James Gandolfini as Carol (back) and Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Warner Bros.

“They wouldn’t just stop,” Records said.

“No. They wouldn’t stop. You couldn’t stop. We could not afford to stop,” Keener said.

Max Records also commented on how “Where the Wild Things Are” director Spike Jonze filmed as compared to “The Brothers Bloom” director Rian Johnson.

“Rian Johnson knew exactly what he wanted whereas Spike knew exactly what he wanted … and 50 other things he wanted, too,” Records said.

“But that’s what it was like with the range of emotions in these characters. It was a range of everything on this movie within each person. There was so much scope,” Keener said. “Spike went out to make this movie and Max went out to do his journey. And they come back and there’s acceptance at the end.”

Records concluded: “My job was to go to Australia and help make a movie and then come back to make sure these two don’t make up lies about me.”

“Where the Wild Things Are,” which is directed by Spike Jonze and writte by Jonze and Dave Eggers based on the book by Maurice Sendak, stars Max Records, Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo with voice work by James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Michael Berry Jr., Chris Cooper and Lauren Ambrose.

The film, which is rated “PG” for mild thematic elements, some adventure action and brief language, has a running time of 101 minutes. “Where the Wild Things Are” opened everywhere on oct. 16, 2009.