Cusack 'Maximizes' His Career

Actor John Cusack has played a wide variety of roles in films, such as "Gross Point Blank," "Being John Malkovich," "High Fidelity" and "America's Sweethearts."

In his most controversial movie, "Max," Cusack plays a hip and prosperous Jewish art dealer named Max Rothman who enters into an unlikely relationship with a young struggling artist named Adolf Hitler in post-World War I Germany.

Cusack visited The Early Show to discuss the movie that examines Adolf Hitler during his bohemian days before leading a country into World War II.

Cusack's Max Rothman was once a promising artist before become a soldier who lost a limb in the first World War. On his return to Germany, he became an acclaimed art dealer with a wife (played by Molly Parker), children, and an alluring mistress (Leelee Sobieski).

Max befriends Adolf Hitler, who has a strong passion for his art and politics, but as history documents, he abandons his artistic aspirations and leads the country on a rampage of terror.

Although the character Max is fictional, Hitler's friendship and mentor-relationships with Jews are factually based.

"Max" is the directorial debut of Menno Meyjes, the screenwriter of the award-winning movie "The Color Purple." Cusack says Meyjes portrays Hitler as human being, and when he first read "Max" he was immediately struck by this hypnotic tale about the rise and fall of a man and the modern age.

He says his character was everything a young Hitler wasn't — handsome, successful, talented, popular and desired by women. Cusack says the movie hints that those factors helped sway Hitler towards destructive behavior.

Some facts about John Cusack:

• On June 28, 1966, he was born John Paul Cusack in Evanston, Illinois.
  
• Cusack attended New York University in New York, N.Y., but dropped out after less than a year.
  
• Cusack appeared in industrial films, doing voiceovers in commercials and acting in radio spots by the age of 12.
  
• In 1983, Cusack made his screen acting debut as a prep school student in the coming-of-age comedy "Class."
  
• In 1984, Cusack was one of the main "nerds" featured in "Sixteen Candles"; sister Joan also appeared in film
  
• Cusack founded New Crime Productions, a Chicago-based theater company, in 1986.
  
• In 1991, he had a small role in "Shadows and Fog", marking his first film with Woody Allen.
  
• The actor formed the film production arm of New Crime Productions with Paramount Pictures in 1992.
  
• In 1999, Cusack starred in "The Jack Bull", a Western written by his father, Dick Cusack, and produced by New Crime Productions.
  
• Cusack is currently in production on "The Runaway Jury" with Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman and will next be seen in James Mangold's thriller "Identity."