The Three Stooges, The Strain, American Sniper—
Max Charles is a busy guy. REAL’s editor grabbed a few minutes of his time to talk perseverance, personal challenge, and giving back.
Ocean Pleasant: What advice would you give to your younger self?
Max Charles: I would tell my five-year-old self to say bye to my kindergarten class when I left Nashville for California. I told them I would be back in three weeks when my brother Logan finished his auditions. I ended up booking something and we never came back.
OP: What makes you feel most alive?
MC: I like to try new adventures and explore new places with my family. I also really like to go free running and play basketball and Xbox.
OP: What truth do you live by?
MC: I think you should always be nice to everyone and always try to do nice things for people.
OP: Name an obstacle you’ve faced and overcome. What wisdom can you share from that experience?
MC: This is a tough business and you cannot book every role, but you have to keep on auditioning and never give up if it’s what you really want to do. When I don’t book something I just move on and try to figure out what I can do better next time. Or maybe they were just looking for someone with a different look. You can’t worry about it too much.
OP: If you could say one thing to everyone on the planet, what would it be?
MC: I would tell them to never give up and always believe in their dreams.
OP: What causes are you passionate about and how can our readers become involved?
MC: I try to volunteer when I can at events to help animals and kids. We watched my movie The Three Stooges at Children’s Hospital with the kids there and hung out with all of them and had a little party. It was really fun to hang out with the kids and their families and make them laugh and forget about stuff for a while.
OP: What do you have coming up and how can we support you?
MC: I’m really excited to be working on The Strain right now in Canada. My character gets to do some challenging things this season and I really like doing this role! Corey Stoll is my dad in it and he is amazing to work with, and Guillermo del Toro is the writer so it’s pretty scary. You can watch season two of The Strain this summer on FX.
I was also just in American Sniper as Bradley Cooper's son. It was great to be a part of this hero movie and be directed by Clint Eastwood.