As the shadow of “The Day The Clown Cried” looms ever larger, Jerry Lewis is hoping some late-stage career moves can take the focus of his famously abandoned WWII movie. Just this spring, he had an unlikely small role in the Nicolas Cage/Elijah Wood joint “The Trust;” and you may have forgotten, but a few years back, he was at the Cannes Film Festival in what was his first big screen role in years with “Max Rose.” It’s taken some time, but the movie is finally getting a release.
Written and directed by Daniel Noah, and featuring Kerry Bishé, Illeana Douglas, Dean Stockwell, Kevin Pollak, and Fred Willard, the story revolves around an elderly jazz musician who put aside his career for his marriage, only to discover after his wife passes away that she might’ve been having an affair and never really loved him. It’s inspired by the director’s own grandfather, but landing Jerry Lewis is the real story here, and Noah could hardly believe it himself when it happened.
“He had no agent, there was no way of reaching him,” he told EW. “We tried a million ways to get through to him and we were shut down in every one. We finally discovered that he had an office in Las Vegas. So, we kind of cold-called and his secretary said, ‘He doesn’t make pictures any more. You can send the script, but he won’t read it.’ We sent it and and expected never to hear from him again. While we were waiting he was given his honorary Oscar (in 2009). I remember sitting in front of the TV watching him and I thought, This is the closest I’m ever going to get to Jerry Lewis. About a week later, we get a call from him. He had read the script and he committed on the phone. He said, ‘Let’s make a movie,’ and we were off and running.”
“Max Rose” opens in New York City on September 2nd.
