Tracking down Max Headroom isn`t easy. While shooting six one-hour episodes for ABC TV`s futuristic action/adventure series of the same name, Max has been racing all over California in search of the perfect location.
And right now he`s found it. Perched on the roof of a 30-story building in Los Angeles, he`s about to take off in the bright red Network 23 chopper. It`s a fairly straightforward scene for an upcoming episode titled ”Security Systems.”
”Clear the roof area!” yells an assistant director while the pilot, the chopper`s owner, a technical adviser and a fire safety officer all go over the shot one more time.
Of course, all such precautions are peripheral to our hero himself. For it appears that Max Headroom, the irreverent video character who in 18 months has gone from British cult status to international celebrity, doesn`t really exist, at least, not in any conventional sense. With no arms, no legs, no body, Max is the ultimate, literal talking head.
Small wonder, then, that the zany video jockey, he of the plastic face and sculpted hair, comes across as the perfect television personality for the late `80s. It`s certainly an apt vocation for a computer-generated image that seemingly springs into life only on your picture tube.
The hip, wisecracking Max first emerged from the ether some two years ago in Britain, where he has since become a national hero with his own TV chat show and the fastest-selling line of T-shirts since the heyday of Duran Duran (a sure-fire barometer of true popularity).
In America, he`s still best known for his cable TV appearances and his snappy line selling Coca-Cola: ”C-C-C-atch the wave,” he happily exhorts. But all that may change as the ABC-TV`s ”Max Headroom” series airs this spring.
The ”Max Headroom” story is set ”20 minutes into the future,” in a world that feels uncomfortably familiar. Television is the only global growth industry, and ratings are the only issues for the networks. In the ratings battles, Network 23 has become the top station because of the creative genius of its manipulative producers. Their success is largely due to the brilliant invention and secret use of ”Blipverts,” a kind of ultra-subliminal advertising based on compressed TV commercials that are aired and embedded in viewers` minds before they have a chance to switch channels.
Unfortunately, Blipverts occasionally kill those same viewers (some consumers literally explode from too much information). And when the network hierarchy tries to hide the fact from the public, its own top investigative reporter, Edison Carter, becomes suspicious.
The show`s pilot follows Carter as he seeks to expose this conspiracy.
”But while trying to escape from the villains, he has a very nasty collision with a `Maximum Headroom` barrier in a garage, and thus Max is born,” explains Peter Wagg, executive producer and one of the show`s originators. ”Although badly injured, the network needs Carter because of ratings, so they do the next best thing–re-create him with technology and microchips and a talking head that can be completely programmed by the producers.”
Conceived by writer George Stone and Wagg, a former record executive,
”Max Headroom” is a clever idea and barbed parody of television itself.
”Yes, selling it to a network like ABC is a bit cheeky, I suppose, because it`s almost like biting the head that feeds you,” admits Wagg. But the premise is also entertaining enough that it should ensure their hero`s trans- Atlantic superstardom.
In addition to his high-profile spots for Coke, Max has been hosting an eccentric chat show on Cinemax (naturally) that functions along the lines of his wildly successful British show: ”You got yer advice spot, yer celebrity interviews, yer songs and video clips, but best of all, you got me.” No, Max is neither shy nor modest.
Of course, there are still a few technical hitches to iron out. The stutter, for one. ”But stutter is such a harsh word for what is really no more than a slight v-verbal hes-hes-hes-hesitancy,” comments a slightly miffed-looking Max.
And there`s the matter of his rudeness. If he doesn`t nod off during an interview (he yawned in Sting`s face, or ”String,” as he calls him), he can turn quite nasty (he threatened to shoot Vidal Sassoon, while a rattled Roger Daltrey stormed off the set).
All such worrying behavior and malfunctions can easily be eliminated and re-programmed, the show`s creators hasten to reassure the public at large. And the advantages! Max can effortlessly function 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Just think: no sick leave, absurd salary demands or free tickets for family members.
But as you might have guessed by now, all is not quite what it seems with TV`s first computer-generated host. The electronic Max is, in reality, American-born actor Matt Frewer, and very much flesh and blood, albeit heavily disguised under a prosthetic rubber mask and makeup, and then enhanced with some clever video editing tricks.
”The idea at first was to keep it a big secret,” says Frewer as he climbs out of the chopper. ”It was necessary to create Max`s mystique, and it worked. A lot of people thought, and still do, apparently, that Max is the product of a computer.”
Tall and lanky, the 29-year old Frewer is today playing reporter Edison Carter, ”the easy part,” he says quickly about that half of his dual role.
”No hours of messy makeup, no fancy graphics–it`s just me. But to become Max, I have to sit through three hours of painful and disgusting torture while they pour all this rubber stuff on my face to make my forehead more bulbous and my jaw line more square.”
”And then I have to wear Frisbee-size contact lenses and the plastic hairpiece, and there`s more, much more.” Frewer suddenly assumes Max`s voice: ”But of c-c-course I can`t reveal all my beauty secrets.”
Despite all the trials and tribulations of becoming Max, it`s quickly evident that the actor strongly relates to his character. ”He`s basically my personality, and I don`t have to psych myself up to become him because it`s really a state of mind. It`s a matter of feeling anarchic. `Hey! I`m a nutty, crazy kinda guy,` ” he adds in Max`s voice.
”I really got the part by accident,” he says normally. ”Although I was born in Washington, D.C., I later grew up in Canada, where I nearly studied biology instead of acting–except I didn`t like the idea of chopping up worms` hearts. So I moved to London, mainly because I didn`t want to become a waiter in Hollywood.”
Once in London, Frewer trained in repertory theater for four years and appeared in bit parts in such films as ”Supergirl” and ”Monty Python`s The Meaning of Life” before winning an open audition to find Max. ”Peter Wagg and George Stone gave me three lines to read, and I just ad-libbed on them for about 20 minutes. It turned out to be just what they were looking for,” says Frewer, instantly turning into Max again with, `The part was mine; history was made!` ”
Ironically, Frewer`s big break brought with it a heavy price tag:
complete anonymity as an actor. ”We couldn`t even use credits at the beginning, and after a while it became very frustrating,” he says. ”Here I was, in my most successful role ever, and no one knew who the hell I was.”
Eventually, Frewer rebelled, and the show`s producers relented. The actor now gets credit and ”a healthy piece of the action, as well as obviously having a great say in what Max does and says,” he comments. ”We have two writers doing his dialogue, and I just embellish it from there, so it really all depends on the guest. There`s only about six questions I have to ask, and after that I can just go off on any tangent I feel like.”
Frewer as himself admits that there are ”probably too many talk-show hosts already, what with Johnny Carson, Joan Rivers, David Letterman, etc.”
But Frewer as Max, in a very snide voice, is quick to stress that ”I don`t bother to compare myself to other talk-show hosts because I`m so much better. Carson? He`s just an ulcer on legs now, don`t you think?”
Despite Max`s obnoxious manner and insulting way with guests, the rich and famous have been lining up to be ”interviewed” by the feisty presence. Michael Caine has subjected himself to the electronic hail of abuse, as have Sting, Boy George and Duran Duran. Apparently, most of the guests have survived such hard-hitting questions as, ”What are your favorite shoes?”
Only a bewildered Roger Daltrey reportedly found being harassed by Max too much to stomach.
Frewer/Max obviously revels in the exchanges. ”Duran Duran were a bit of a drag–they spent longer putting their makeup on than I did,” he says. ”And Vidal Sassoon was rather touchy at first, but he opened up when I asked him about dyeing. He dribbled on and on about his theories of life and death, until we cut him down with, `hair dyeing, you fool!` ”
With Max`s name now firmly on the electronic map and the merchandising campaign revving up–there are books (”Max Headroom`s Guide to the Universe”), calendars, T-shirts and, of course, computer games–Frewer the actor has recently been displaying his talents in other directions.
He plays a CIA agent in the long-delayed Dustin Hoffman-Warren Beatty comedy ”Ishtar” and an American Air Force captain opposite Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan in the upcoming thriller ”Fourth Protocol.” He`s also been busy writing a children`s book called ”The Fez Brothers” with his British actress wife, Amanda Hillwood. ”It was inspired by ”The Blues Brothers” and the Moroccan locations for ”Ishtar,” says Frewer.
Max Headroom is still his main focus, however, although the actor predicts that the public ”will eventually tire of him, although in a nice way,” adding quickly in his alter ego`s inimitable style, ”After all, you can`t get too much of a good thing.”
”Obviously Max could become a victim of all the hype if we`re not careful, but he`s a strong character,” adds Frewer, ”and I think the key to his longevity is to not pigeonhole him as a soft-drink spokesman or whatever. As long as he can `run free` across the airwaves, he`ll be just fine.” Frewer slips back into character. ”In fact, I`m im-m-m-mortal. The only thing that can stop me now is a power failure.”
