Max Casella on the Coens, Terence Winter, and growing up on stage and screen
TV Features Max Casella
The colloquial “actor’s actor” gets tossed around often, but few performers embody the phrase quite like Max Casella. For nearly four decades, Casella has put the work in, dating all the way back to his co-starring role in Doogie Howser, M.D., and his memorable turn as Racetrack Higgins in Disney’s Newsies. Since then, he was the original Timon in Broadway’s The Lion King, he’s left his mark on all of Terence Winter’s HBO series, and has appeared in critically adored films like Inside Llewyn Davis and Jackie. The man’s been everywhere, which is why we decided it was time to revisit our Random Roles feature with him to see what he’s been up to since we last spoke. Currently, Max Casella can be seen in two of the five one-act plays that make up Ethan Coen’s A Play Is A Poem at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.
9 Comments
Damn, he’s already 52 years old!
That’s not old! YOU TAKE THAT BACK!
I was just not expecting him to be that old, though it makes sense since he was 22 when Doogie Howser premiered. He looked a lot younger than that though. I would have guessed 15-16.
He is weirdly lovable in Late Night.
He was just plain wonderful as the one and only Paul Marco in Ed Wood.
A Play is a Poem was super fun. All of the one-acts are written dead-center, right in the exact bullseye of the Coens’ comfort zone (private eyes, loquacious rednecks, fast-talking studio execs) so there aren’t many surprises. But they’re all charming and full of great one-liners, and the glue between each play is a phenomenally funny comedian-musician named Nellie McKay. The plays were good but man she walked away with it.
Bennie! Just binged The Sopranos.
Me and Max had mutual friends back in the 90’s. Good guy, and glad he’s kept working and with good people after his douchebag of a William Morris agent dumped him way back when.
Looks interesting it’s a shame I’ll never watch it. Random roles are for reading.