BY DINO TAKASHI

Max Harwood is living the most of his fabulous life. He brilliantly played the titular role of Jamie in Amazon Prime Video’s Everybody's Talking About Jamie- a coming-of-age musical comedy-drama film directed by Jonathan Butterell from a screenplay by Tom MacRae based on the stage musical of the same name.

After acing seven rounds of auditions that showcased his skills in acting, dancing and singing, Harwood booked his first major film project. His background and training in musical theatre and his familiarity with the stage since he was young helped him a lot in embodying Jamie.

Everybody's Talking About Jamie offers a fresh take on “coming of age.” This film adaptation of the West End Musical provided a new perspective on queer experience and what it’s like to be a gay, teenager in a small town in England. Jamie, the character that Harwood plays, aspires to be a teenage drag queen. Harwood is someone that everyone should definitely start talking about. As an obvious rising star, his portrayal of the role is warm, vibrant and sincere.

In this exclusive interview, we chatted with Max and talked about “Jamie,” his experiences growing up as a “hungry” actor, about having a supportive family and a good support system and all the things he is currently working on right now. 

How are you feeling? 

I'm feeling grateful, and not tired just yet. People keep telling me that I'm gonna get exhausted. I’m fine. Throw at me. I think this year has been so wild and I love this project and I love doing shoots and stuff. Every time I get to do one, I'm just excited. “Put the makeup on, Put the clothes on! Let’s go!”

I read in a magazine about your first time going to a gay club. How was that like?  

I’m not terrified anymore. The club has opened in the UK now and I've managed to go and see the girls Jacky and Lemon from Drag Race. They did a show in the UK in Heaven and I got to go and hang out with them and got to have a test. I find those places less terrifying now. 

Let's dive into your acting journey. How did you get into acting? 

I've always performed as a child and been the one who’s been loud in my family. None of my parents or my siblings do acting or anything like that. I suppose it really started when I was showing love for performing. My mom took me to the local youth theater group. And I was terrified but my mom came along with me and sat there with me in my first class. Since then, she left me to do it. I’ve done it sort on my own. I did some local youth theater, picked up A levels in college in theater and music and photography and I've always just continued on sort of crazy projects. It was really when I got to college and came to see the Broadway show “On The Town” which was the revival. “Wow this is amazing! the dream goes.” I suppose, fight a bit more to be like this “this is what I wanna do” and I started to hone it in the training. I went to drama school for a year at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I did a one-year foundation course in musical theater and acting. It was really that “oh this is a skill and craft based job as well as being creative” and I can learn how to do this and be better and I met amazing people that trained me and gave me the tools and I have that’s how it happened really quite organically.

Have you been in a movie before? 

This is my first one. I’ve seen the West End show maybe in 2018. A year over and I guess that's very different about trying to be like a teen drag queen. A year and a bit before that, I didn't know that there was a movie coming out. I loved the music. It’s just fantastic. It was a fresh take on a queer story that didn't feel like a tragic coming out story. He was already out. He was already gay. It’s a different perspective. At the time, that was two to three years ago, I didn't really know too much about drag or anything. My only experience was watching Drag show and some things like that. I probably haven't known or seen any drag queens. It became like an eye opener for me that there are more of queer stories that aren’t sort of coming out. It is a different perspective. 

How did you get selected for the role? 

It was like a really large open audition that they were doing for the role. Before I’d even known, they’ve been looking for someone for like a year. Prior to this they've seen like a thousand people before they’ve seen me and I came in quite late to the game and I think the applications to apply closed for the role and I just emailed the casting director. I didn't have an agent and I was like “please would you consider to see me” and luckily they did. It was a lengthy audition process, a lot of different skills: singing, dancing. I have to jump through all of those hoops; supposed to make sure that I could do what they required me to do and from experience now working on some other projects and other films, the audition process isn't that long. You don't have to display too much. It was a seven round process so that's why I guess it was that long.

Congratulations. How was working with the film crew?

I’ve never professionally worked on stage. This is my professional debut completely. Apart from being on training in theater, the whole jumping to a film crew is very different. It's so technical and there's hundreds more people on the film set than there are on theater compared to working on this film particularly. They feel like they are two different jobs. For me the crew on this film and the other cast that I worked with are so good at guiding me to that process at discovering how it works.

When did you film the movie and how have you been doing since the pandemic started?  

We filmed this in summer of 2019 so that took us until the pandemic and the pandemic hit and I had another film that went off to do after that which I can't really say too much about. It has not been announced just yet. And then, I’ve been doing some other projects, writing some music and which I've been working on with some really cool people. Again, I can't really say too much about all that's cooking. I just continue to be creative and on projects mainly film.

What do you like about your character, Jamie?

I love that Jamie is so brave. When I was 16, when I was his age I wasn't out in school and he was living definitely more authentically as himself than I was at that age and I feel like I love that about him. Some similarities that I was I was definitely the one in the class you know staring out the window dreaming of things other than careers or math or geography. 

Do you have any message to kids or young gay men who are still struggling about accepting themselves or coming out? 

I would just say to make sure you find to try and find your people and listen to them and talk to them and allow them to be your anchors and to be your supporters because I think it's the most important thing- it’s to find those people that help you to be yourself and it's very hard to do it on your own. Find a few people and start to speak about things that you're uncomfortable with. When you find your people, you set further and further into a more authentic place and you'll find that people really find that love for you and your uniqueness. 

Who are your acting inspirations? 

I have loads. On top of my head, Leonardo DiCaprio, Stanley Tucci. I love actresses and actors that have done both musicals, film and TV. 

Top three movies? 

Snowpiercer, Ghost. Also, The Impossible with Ewan Mcgregor and Tom Holland. 

What do you think about actors playing certain roles regardless of their sexual orientation? 

I think that it is important that we could voice it to people whose stories they are made for and who they are by. But as a queer man and as a gay man myself, I don't just wanna be pigeonholed for my sexuality going forward. We should be able to get to a place where we can hire actors based on their talent, not their sexuality, period. Whether that movie calls for or not, we're not currently at that stage so give more queer roles to queer actors.

For people who haven't seen the movie yet, what's something that we have to look forward to? 

They can look forward to crazy fashion moments. Amazing music and the feeling of joy joy joy joy, joy joy joy. 

If you were a book, what would you be and why? 

A friend of mine Calum McSwiggan has a book called Eat Gay Love. It’s his travel memoir  and it's like about all of the gay spaces and queer spaces across Europe and he tells that all of his like love stories in this amazing amazing memoir. It's really good. I haven't had any of those experiences yet so maybe a book like that would be really cool. I think maybe that would be life, it's not my life but it's crazy colorful and amazing! 

Everybody’s Talking about Jamie is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video