[ad_1]
The first time coming-of-age musical Everybody’s talking about Jamie bursts into song, it is staged like a waking dream in shades of neon. In the middle of the class, 16-year-old Jamie New fantasizes about life in the spotlight, glamorous and walking the runway as it belt “And you don’t even know it”, a classic Song “I want” with a boastful twist. Jamie thinks he’s destined for a greatness beyond each other from his sleepy hometown, with the art of dragging as his path to glory, singing, “You’re in my lane, you’re in my way. light / Get out my way, I take flight. It all makes for a bombastic introduction, until his teacher brings him back to earth. In the dark fluorescent light of the classroom, Jamie’s dream of becoming a drag superstar provokes sneers among his classmates He is humiliated, but not defeated.
Through his overconfidence and gentleness, optimism and self-doubt, Jamie is a relatively confrontational teenage protagonist: the kind who is so ready to take the next big leap in his life that he often stumbles on himself for the sake of it. get there. As Jamie, newcomer Max Harwood creates an electrifying first impression, navigating the intricacies of young ambition with winning naturalism. He is just as convincing when he nervously shows off a pair of high heels to his best friend as he is when he struts on stage in the middle of a drag. Warm and low-key, Harwood gives a groundbreaking performance that should set the stage for a long career – in other words, everyone is going to be talking about Max.
With only a few years of musical theater training under his belt, 24-year-old Max Harwood didn’t expect his first role to deserve so much attention. “My trajectory was more towards the theater [work],” he said The AV Club. “But then this job happened, I auditioned for it, and now all of a sudden life is crazy. Like, what am I doing in LA? ”
Jamie’s star-eyed charm is evident in Harwood, especially when he reflects on his longtime love for musicals. He was bred on classics like on the city, My beautiful lady, Olivier, Annie, and, his personal favorite, Fat: “Me and my sister, we watched Fat All the time. We would always dress, I would put on a wig and a skirt and I would say to my sister, ‘Sorry, you can’t be Rizzo today, it will be me.’ (He jokes with his Rizzo made for a ‘trash’ drag debut.) His fascination with musical theater eventually made him skip classes to see a show in London’s West End titled Everybody’s talking about Jamie, itself based on a television documentary titled Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, following the life of aspiring drag queen Jamie Campbell. Harwood was delighted, seeing himself in Jamie and the way he dreamed beyond the limits of life.
Everybody’s talking about Jamie marks the directorial debut from director Jonathan Butterell (who also directed the original stage production), and he says he set out to find an actor with a similar freshness and sense of excitement for the role title. “I must have forgotten what I knew, what I saw in the role,” admits Harwood. A handful of actors have played Jamie over the years, including John McRae, who makes an appearance in a touching flashback issue, “This Was Me,” but the star made the intentional choice to build the character from scratch. , starting with his original inspiration, Jamie Campbell. Harwood recalls his “deep” and “personal” conversations with Campbell before the shoot, which helped give him confidence in his own ability to take on a role he admired from afar. “I wasn’t when I was 16, but I’m now an openly gay man and I have my own character experiences,” Harwood shares. “I wanted to wear [Campbell’s] gasoline through, then pour a little bit of myself into it.
With Butterell behind the camera, as well as JamieDan Gillespie Sells songwriter and lyricist Tom MacRae on set for support, Harwood felt emboldened to trust his own instincts. “They allowed me to shoot things and really explore the material in a new way. They weren’t rigid, they weren’t asking me to do things that someone else had done before. This freedom and confidence also spilled over into the musical numbers. Harwood says his theatrical training prepared him, “in terms of endurance,” to sing, dance and perform at the same time, but that “it’s a whole other thing to do 12-hour days, to try to shoot at the top of my level no matter how many takes, angle after angle. He considers himself lucky to have such a net of support in the cast and crew of the film who cared for him every step of the way. .
But while Harwood’s musical background may have prepared the actor for all of the dazzling songs and dances of Everybody’s talking about Jamie, nothing could have prepared him for his drag debut – not even years of Drag race fandom. Harwood’s initial excitement about being picked up for the first time quickly gave way to anxiety. As the character Jamie realizes, flirting is more than a costume; it’s an art form rooted in queer history, in activism. This story also weighed heavily on Harwood: “The drag is a kind of armor and an extension of yourself. It wasn’t a moment he wanted to take lightly. Butterell remembers the actor’s nerves while filming Jamie’s transformation into “baby queen” Mimi Me, and was delighted to capture the authenticity of the moment. “Dating is a process”, shares the director, “and even with an incredible makeup artist, in those first moments, it can seem strange! But then the lashes go on, the lips go on, and finally the wig goes on, and this creature comes along in the most glorious way. I could see a bit of ferocity coming as [Harwood] looked at himself in the mirror, and it was amazing to watch.
To see Harwood take the stage for the first time as Mimi Me is to witness the depth of the young actor’s performance: the bravado, uncertainty, hope and fear are all there on his face. perfectly beaten. At this point, Jamie may not know what his classmates or the rest of his hometown will think of his performance, but it is certain that this is just the beginning of his story. When Jamie sings about his dream of becoming big, you can’t help but believe in him, and you will believe the same of Harwood.
You can watch our full interview with Max Harwood above. Everybody’s talking about Jamie now playing in select theaters and streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
[ad_2]
Source link