10 Facts About… Jake Wood (Eastenders’ Max)

lnsidesoap YOUR BRIEFING ON THE MAN BEHIND EASTENDERS’ MAX…

1Jake Dylan Wood was born in London

on 12 July 1972 to his English father John and French mother Joelle. Jake seemed destined for television success, making his small-screen debut at the age of 12, in a 1984 episode of crime drama The Gentle Touch. He trained at the

Anna Scher Drama School in Islington, before notching up an impressive list of TV appearances in shows as diverse as Dramarama, London’s Burning, Only Fools And Horses, Inspector Morse, One Foot In The Grave and Press Gang. And he was still just a teenager!

2Jake made his Walford debut as slippery Max Branning in June 2006, when the car salesman turned up in Albert Square to confront his estranged dad Jim. In the 12 years since then, Max has got divorced, married twice more, embarked on numerous affairs (notably with his son’s wife

Stacey), been run over by his daughter, been buried alive by his wife, been wrongly convicted of murder, seen three of his children fall off the roof of the Queen Vic, attempted suicide, and declared war on the whole of Walford. But he’s always managed to bounce back!

3Thankfully, real life has been a lot more peaceful for Jake. He married wife Alison in 2001, and the couple have two kids – Amber, age 13, and 10-year-old Buster.

To celebrate 23 years since their first meeting, Jake and Alison renewed their wedding vows last year in front of 220 of their friends. Jake said of their strong marriage: “We obviously love each other a lot, but also we’ve always wanted the same things. Alison means the world to me, and I’m looking forward to the next 23 years.”

4As Max, Jake plays the uncle of Bianca, portrayed by Patsy Palmer – but the pair briefly starred alongside each other as

brother and sister, in a 1992 advert for British Telecom. Back in the day, Jake also appeared in memorable adverts for Super Noodles and Yellow Pages – sporting a full head of curly hair!

5Back in 1999, Jake was a crew member on board Red

Dwarf! He played psychopathic prison inmate Kill Crazy in four episodes of the cult BBC2 sitcom – and was sent on a suicide mission with Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten to take out a Tyrannosaurus Rex. We’ll always love him for this line: “Right in front of me was this weird sort-of mutant thing, with two heads and all these tentacles. It took one look at me and ran off!”

6Arsenal fan Jake is a keen footballer himself, and is regularly involved in celebrity matches. In fact, Jake takes his personal fitness incredibly seriously – and also enjoys boxing, going to the gym, and marathon running. Back in 2007, he took part in the BUPA Great North Run, alongside fellow Eastender Charlie Brooks (Janine Butcher), and managed to complete the 13.1-mile course in under two hours.

7One of Jake’s most unusual roles has been playing a cockney gecko! For more than a decade, Jake provided the voice of the animated mascot for US insurance company GEICO, encouraging customers to save up to 15 per cent on the car insurance. However, in 2015, Jake was replaced as the voice of the loveable lizard. “GEICO sacked me because I refused a huge pay cut. Nice, huh?” explained the peeved star on Twitter. Fans demanded that Jake be reinstated, but sadly, it was to no avail.

8Between 1988 and 1996, Jake managed to clock up an impressive five appearances in The Bill – playing five

different characters! The police must have got fed up with arresting him. Mind you, it wasn’t just the Met who saw a lot of Jake – during the same period, he also had three different roles in Casualty!

9One series Jake would love to be in is ITV2 sitcom Plebs – which he reckons is the funniest show on TV right now. Fellow Eastender Danny Dyer (Mick) got to play a gladiator a few years back, but we’d love to see Jake don a toga!

10Max might be nicknamed ‘the Ginger Ferret’ by Martin Fowler, but Jake himself has quite a following of fans who love his

looks. In fact, Jake has managed to bag himself the ‘Weird Crush’ award three years in a row from readers of Heat magazine. On winning his hat-trick, Jake quipped: “If I keep winning this, you might feel sorry enough to upgrade me from ‘Weird Crush’ to just ‘crush’!”. He has competition, though – Ben Champniss (aka Eastenders’

Shrimpy) was snapping at his heels in second place last year!