Ben Winchell
BEN WINCHELL
Date of Birth: July 3, 1994
Best known for playing Max in the superhero film Max Steel, Ben Winchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia and grew up just outside the city in Duluth. He began acting on stage when he was five. When he became more serious about pursuing the craft, he opted to be home-schooled.
He first stepped in front of the camera in the 2010 TV movie Pregnancy Pact with Thora Birch. The film is inspired by the true story of two Massachusetts teens who agreed to get pregnant at the same time. In 2011, he played the role of Aiden in the TV movie Teen Spirit and then made his feature film debut playing Robert in the family-friendly, holiday movie Mandie and the Forgotten Christmas.
Also in 2011, he landed a recurring role for two episodes of the Golden Globe-nominated series Necessary Roughness.
Ben shared the screen with some of Hollywood's biggest stars when he won a part in the 2013 biopic The Last of Robin Hood. The film chronicles the final days of iconic actor Errol Flynn and features Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon and Dakota Fanning. He also playing Dixon Ticonderoga on the Disney Channel sitcom A.N.T. Farm, a role he'd fill for three episodes between 2013 and 2014.
Over the next couple of years, his work was primarily on television. He appeared in two episodes of the drama series The Red Road with Martin Henderson, Jason Momoa and Julianne Nicholson in 2014, and 11 episodes of the drama series Finding Carter in 2015. In the latter show, he played Ben, an untrustworthy character.
In 2016, Ben appeared in his biggest film to date. He played the lead of Max McGrath in the sci-fi action film Max Steel, which is based on a Mattel action figure. Max is an average teen until he discovers his ability to harness the universe's most powerful form of energy and joins forces with an extraterrestrial to defend the planet. It was a role that Taylor Lautner was originally intended to fill.
At Comic-Con in 2014, the cast and crew of Max Steel chatted with Entertainment Weekly about their film. In the video segment, Ben discussed the intense training he underwent in preparation for his role. He said, "The first month, I just trained physically — weightlifting, cardio, a lot of CrossFit. After that, we did another month of just stunt training. I learned boxing, I learned karate, I learned Capoeira, and I learned four or five different styles of martial arts that we then incorporated into Max Steel." He also revealed that if he could have dressed up on the convention floor, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) from Breaking Bad or Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) from The Walking Dead would have been his picks.
In an October 2016 interview with StarNews Online, Ben admitted he was initially excited about slipping into costume to play Max, but that enthusiasm waned when he realized what the process entailed. He said, "When I first saw the suit, all I could think was, 'This is going to be awesome.' Then I found out what it takes to get into the suit and it was no longer cool." According to the interview, "a thick coat of surgical lubricant" and an hour every day were required to get Ben into Max's suit.
Also in 2016, Ben acted with Tom Felton and Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario in the indie drama Feed.
It has been announced that Ben will star in M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming romance film Labor of Love. Bruce Willis is also attached to the project.
Filmography:
Feed (2016)Max Steel (2016)
The Last of Robin Hood (2013)
Mandie and the Forgotten Christmas (2011)