A new feature-length animated film from the Australian director of the brilliant and disability-themed "Harvey Krumpet" is expected to be released in early 2009. "Mary and Max" by Adam Elliot is "a simple tale of pen-friendship between two very different people; Mary Dinkle, a little chubby lonely eight year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horovitz, a 44 year old, severely obese, Jewish man with Asperger's Syndrome living in the chaos of New York," according to imdb.com.And it was announced Oct. 1 that Academy Award-winning American actor Philip Seymour Hoffman will be the voice of Max.
From The Herald Sun in Melbourne, Australia:
Philip Seymour Hoffman will be the voice of autistic New Yorker Max Horowitz in Melbourne director Adam Elliot's debut animation feature.
It is a coup for the $8 million film, Mary and Max, which features Toni Collette as the voice of lonely eight-year-old Mary Dinkle, of Mt Waverley, who has a 20-year pen-pal friendship with Max.
It took a year to persuade Hoffman to join the film.
Elliot, who won an Oscar in 2004 for his claymation short Harvie Krumpet, said he thought his film's budget might put off some actors.
"The main reason we didn't think we'd get all these big names is because our budget is so low," he said.
"It's what some of them get for one film."
"We wanted Philip Seymour Hoffman, especially after I saw Capote.
"There's something about him that's endearing and likable, yet he can do gruff ... and he can do New York."
"Max also has Asperger's, so he (Hoffman) has to do an autistic performance as well - quite complex and difficult."
Hoffman puts on "a fabulous Jewish accent" to play the atheistic Jew who has eight tracksuits of the same colour and is addicted to chocolate hot dogs, the New York Lottery and National Geographic magazine. Eric Bana is the voice of Mary's love interest, Damian Popodopoulos, who lives across the road from her, and Renee
Geyer plays her mother, Vera.
Barry Humphries narrates the 92-minute feature, based on Elliot's real-life New
York pen pal of 20 years, who also has Asperger's syndrome.
Molly Meldrum has a one-word role - "quite an important word" - as the homeless
person who hangs out in front of Max's apartment.
The film has taken five years to create and is due for release early next year.
Elliot is pleased to have snared every performer on his wish-list.
"Without these big names it's much more difficult to sell an Australian film," he said.
"I think if we were American we probably wouldn't have got Philip Seymour Hoffman, but because we're in Australia I think he thought it was quite novel the way we just kept hammering at him.
"He's not a big fan of animation. He has never done any of those big
Pixar films.
"When he said he really enjoyed the script and that was why he was
doing it - because it wasn't for the money -- that gave me a lot of confidence.
"I thought, 'he's an American. He understands the script, he's moved by it'."
