Mark Wahlberg stars in the action family adventure The Family Plan, which sees him playing Dan Morgan, a wholesome family man with an intriguing past. Dan is married with three kids — a teenage son and daughter, and baby Max. However, with Max at one point strapped to his body as he escapes from the killers that are chasing him, audiences are wondering about the logistics of filming these scenes, leading some to think Max was never really there, but was instead created with CGI.
Is the baby in The Family Plan real?
As far as we can ascertain, Baby Max is indeed a real baby and not created with special effects.
We noticed that in the cast listing, Max is listed as an actor, so that was our first clue that he was indeed a real person. If you were one of the few people who went to see the recent DC flop The Flash, you will probably remember the opening scene where The Flash saves some babies that have fallen from a hospital, and it was quite obvious that those babies were all created with CGI. It can be very jarring when we see a badly realized CGI effect in a film, and it seems that as far as babies are concerned, our brains do a good job of recognizing when we see a fake baby on screen, so thankfully director Brian Cellan Jones opted to use not one, but two real children in as many scenes as possible for this particular film.
In an interview with Coming Soon, the director would speak about the challenges of working with a baby on set:
“Well, we were very patient. [Laughs]. The baby was delightful and lovely, but it wasn’t always perfect — let’s be honest. I think we knew that when the baby was good, which was often, it was just gold dust. So it was worth it. And I’m really, really grateful to Mark, again, and Michelle [Monaghan] for having the patience to do that. Again, a lot of movie stars will say, “Hey, baby? Forget that. You deal with that.” And he really worked with the baby and was a real sweetheart, and he’s very much responsible for helping that baby be so good.”
That statement from the director confirms that baby Max is real.
Who plays the baby in The Family Plan?
Baby Max is played by twins Iliana and Vienna Norris, with the twins taking turns on screen in the shots. Iliana is also credited on IMDb as playing in the long-running US soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, no doubt along with her twin for that project too.
RELATED: Where was The Family Plan filmed?
