Max’s Robbie Amell continues his momentum
Actor plays marine dog handler serving in Afghanistan
Toronto native Robbie Amell is on the road again filming, but that’s the way the travelling man likes it.
“I don’t want a rest,” says the 27-yearold, who returned to his hometown recently to promote the family adventure film Max. “If I am resting, I am unemployed.”
Indeed, he was taking a break from shooting the fantasy comedy Nine Lives in Montreal. After he wraps the film, he’ll head to Vancouver to start his scenes for Season 2 of the popular TV series The Flash, on which he has a recurring role as Ronnie.
Max, which he shot last year in North Carolina, has Amell playing Kyle Wincott, a marine dog handler serving in Afghanistan. When he’s killed in action, his dog Max, a Belgian malinois, is adopted by the Wincott family stateside.
Lauren Graham portrays Pamela, Kyle’s mother. Thomas Haden Church is Ray, the father, a stern war veteran trying to cope with his loss and deal with his rebellious younger son Justin (Josh Wiggins).
A fan of Graham and Church, Amell admitted he was disappointed he didn’t get to act opposite them. In fact, he felt like he was in a different movie since most of his Afghanistan exteriors were shot separately at a North Carolina rock quarry.
His marine role is presented in flashbacks, and it was tough enough preparing for it after arriving last spring from the Atlanta set of the teen comedy The Duff, which was released earlier this year.
“I had wrapped The Duff and drove to North Carolina, and when I got there they shaved my head and threw me into a mini-boot camp,” he recalls.
Former members of the U.S. armed forces whipped him into shape, and taught him how to hold his weapon and his heavy equipment, and how to carry himself on a battlefield.
“I wanted it to look as real as possible out of respect for the servicemen,” he says.
It turned out that working with the military canines was the easy part.
“The dogs were so impressively trained, there was never any acting needed with them,” Amell says.
Meanwhile, his Nine Lives role is completely different in tone and structure, but just as challenging.
“I play Kevin Spacey’s son,” Amell says. “As a father, Kevin works too much and he’s never around, and then he gets changed into a cat by Christopher Walken.”
As if he needs to confirm this, the actor adds: “It’s such a wild and weird movie.”
Typically, Amell can’t say much about the storylines in the superhero series The Flash. But his character Ronnie Raymond, a.k.a. Firestorm, has a bigger role to play.
He also expects his cousin Stephen Amell, who plays the titular hero on the TV series Arrow, to return for at least one episode on The Flash (in the first season Arrow and The Flash had a successful two-part crossover).
“I hope they do it again,” Amell says. “And I definitely want to be a part of it.”