ELIJAH MAXIMUS One Step at a Time! How did you get into acting? I started acting when I was three years old (in theater). My parents always took me to see local plays and I kept wanting to get on stage until one day the director let me audition! After a few plays under my belt, my first big role was “Dolore” in Madama Butterfly Opera when I was four. What has been your favorite moment as an actor? My favorite moment as an actor is getting to meet all the people involved in the project—by the end of production we start to feel like one big family! I know this has been said by many, but it really is true; we spend so many hours with each other filming and (before Covid) even breaking bread together! When a project ends, I really feel it. I miss the crew, the cast—everyone! What do you do to prepare for a scene? Well the first thing I do is try to understand what is going on in the scene, then I work on memorizing my lines. Once that is done, I like to ask the director (or have my Pops ask sometimes) what it is he or she is looking for so that I make sure I am interpreting the character’s thoughts and actions correctly. Every director is different, so you never know what they are looking for!
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What does a typical day on set look like for you? This could take a while! It looks a bit different after Covid, but it is still very similar as before. For one thing, when I’ve been on location, we usually don’t get the call sheet until late the night before (after I’ve already gone to bed) or sometimes we even get it the morning of! Even though there is a schedule of where to be and what time with what scenes, you often need to be flexible because things can change, like the weather or a scene taking longer than expected. Sometimes I arrive for my call time but end up waiting an hour or more. There have been many times where a scene is changed completely, or they do a re-write and add new lines that I learn on the spot! Sometimes we go to so many different locations that we might wake up, drive two hours to film all day, drive two hours back, pack and go to bed, then get up and go somewhere new the next day. There’s been times where we were in a different location every other day! So far, my experiences have been shooting outside in extreme heat, cold, rain and of course beautiful weather too! Usually you shoot the same scene several times and it could be a couple of hours, or the
