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When he's not entertaining us as the fun-loving Green Bay Packers-obsessed Nate Runck in That '90s Show - say it with me now: bro! - Maxwell Acee Donovan is busy figuring out ways to protect ecosystems and inspire change. The 19-year-old actor is behind , an environmental nonprofit he started with his sister, Clare Margaret Donovan, to help establish conservation easements, support grassroots organisations and raise awareness about how we can all do our part to help the planet.
Maxwell (or Mad Max as we discovered he likes to be called!) tells CelebrityKind about it all, from saving king salmon to meeting his idol Dr. Jane Goodall, and harnessing the power of social media for good.
As Nature's Negotiators continues to expand its reach and impact, one thing is for sure: Mad Max is a determined and refreshing voice in Hollywood wanting "to do as much as possible" with his platform.
Check out our interview below:
First up, I always love to ask about names - is there a story behind yours and do you have any nicknames?
M.A.D: Oooh, this is such a good question! I have so many different stories about my name, it's ridiculous, but I think the main one that comes to mind for me is that my parents really wanted me to be named Mad Max, so they were like, 'how can we get his initials to be M.A.D?' So there came the name! Maxwell came from my dad's side of the family. He had an aunt Maxine and an uncle Maxwell. And then Acee is my mum's maiden name from her Lebanese side of the family and she's the only child so she wanted the name to continue. And Donovan is the family name, put it all together and I'm Mad Max!
Does anybody call you Mad Max?
M.A.D: Not really, but I'm trying to make it a thing (laughs).
Well let's start it right now Mad Max!
M.A.D: What I get called more is, well you said nickname, and I go by Pider Pie in my family. So I barely even get called Max. When I was a kid, I really wanted to go as a pirate for Halloween and my parents dressed me as a spider and I was like, 'I wanted to be a pider!' and they're like, 'what? Pider is spider.' But I really wanted to be a pirate.
Amongst all the success of That '90s Show, and Gaby Duran and the Unsittables, you've also started a nonprofit. Tell us about Nature's Negotiators.
M.A.D: It's been a collaboration between me and my family members and it's also just something I love getting to talk about so thank you for allowing me to. It was really born around the release of season one of That '90s Show. Going into it, I just wanted to make sure that I would have something that I would put my best foot forward with.
Basically, our main goals are to support other groups that are already doing amazing work at a grassroots level, helping the local environment and the local ecosystem, and spread awareness about it however we can which I think a lot of that comes through social media. And so, finding that line of how can we as our own organisation come in and use our voice to spread this awareness while also pointing out all the amazing things that are already being done. So eventually, our goal will be to implement conservation easements. That's where you take a track of land and put it into a conservation easement and it protects it indefinitely. It helps local wildlife and the local ecosystem by keeping it wild. We just want to do as much as possible.
How did you decide that conservation easements would be your focus?
M.A.D: I grew up in Colorado in a pretty remote area and we'd go outside at night and there'd be elk walking by or they'd be like, don't go out too late 'cause there's bears! And I think it was just sort of that awe in that there's always wildlife around you that lead us to thinking, we want to make sure we can protect these natural grounds. For example there's a huge mountain lion population in Colorado and like I mentioned, elk, and I think it's a nice way of protecting not only migration routes but also just ensuring that wild ecosystems can stay alive and thriving.
Speaking of names earlier, how did you come up with 'Nature's Negotiators'?
M.A.D: I can't take any credit for it. I think my only contribution to the name was saying it should be something naturey! And my mum and sister were like, 'okay, we'll make it catchy' and we sort of wanted to indicate that we're here to fight for nature. They were like, what about Nature's Negotiators? And it just stuck from there.
Your sister Clare is heavily involved with Nature's Negotiators too?
M.A.D: She's a genius and I'm totally not biased (laughs). Yeah, we came out to Hollywood to be a sibling team. We always were each other's scene partners, always running everything together and it seems only right that we run this together too.
I love that you always talk about each other in interviews. Sounds like you've got a really special sibling bond?
M.A.D: We're so lucky. We've almost never fought. I mean, if we fight over anything it's Mario Kart. She's a little better than me at it and that's upsetting! No, we're so lucky. We're built-in best friends which is amazing.
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Nature's Negotiators has been operating for almost two years now. What are some of the things that you are most proud of achieving so far?
M.A.D: Getting it off the ground in and of itself was really exciting. Having to figure out a bunch of new sorts of things like how to launch these social media campaigns. Our first campaign which was called Long Live the King Salmon - again I can't take credit for the clever name, all my mum and sister - but we were able to fundraise our first $5,000 and that went to a set netter up in Alaska who implemented new fishing technology to fish at a shallower level so it could protect the king salmon who are usually deeper down. It reduces the by-catch which is the accidental catching of those fish, allowing them to swim back up the river and spawn.
In the first year of the project, that donation to that new technology actually turned into a half-a-million dollar grant by the Alaskan government for a 3-year research project that is looking into that. It's a total pinch-me type thing because we were so excited about it on that smaller bite-sized level and then now it's blossomed into this huge thing that hopefully not only keep the fish safe and the eco-system thriving, but also, it'll help these people who make a living off fishing to continue to do so in a sustainable fashion. It's been wild.
This is very specific stuff that you are educating the masses about.
M.A.D: The nice thing is my mum comes from an anthropological background. She's very good at explaining things to me in a way that I can understand it because I think if I was trying to look at it myself I don't know if I'd be able to do it. It's nice that she's able to come in and fundamentally understand these things and then develop a lingo for it that I can understand and then implement into our social media and then it's worldwide.
You've worked with so many amazing people already. Can you tell us about your time with Dr. Jane Goodall?
M.A.D: Oh my gosh. She's the coolest human being. Totally lifelong hero of mine, my mum's, my whole family. Getting to meet her, that was another one of those pinch-me things. I still haven't fully processed that I actually met her. I even got to meet Mr. H. I was so excited because I got to meet her one-on-one when she spoke at an event in LA. That was incredible but also, getting to just listen to her speak. She is so inspirational. She is one of those people that could talk for an hour-and-a-half and never lose my attention and afterwards, I'm like, I will follow you anywhere! She's unbelievable and her organisation really was one of the inspirations for ours.
Are there any other names in the environmental space you'd like to collaborate with too?
M.A.D: Yeah, I'm always so impressed with the celebrities who use their voice for good. The people who really jump to mind are Jane Fonda, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. They're always using their platform to promote as much good change as possible. So really, to meet any one of them. They're inspirational on both levels too, as an actor and an activist. It would also be incredible to meet so many of my contemporaries who are really involved in this. People like Greta Thunberg and anyone using their voice that is so amplified through our generation. It's been inspirational just witnessing that so to get to work with them would be really cool too.
Where did the desire to create change come from?
M.A.D: I have to give a lot of the credit to my mum and my family in general. I think just growing up, I was surrounded by people who really kind of ingrained that in me from an early age. I remember I would always fish with my grandfather in Colorado and it's just 100 percent catch-and-release, so you get to be out there and bonding in nature but never actually hurt the ecosystem. You just get to kind of marvel at it. And I think at a young age, that was very important to me. And my mum always ingrained that idea of giving back so when we came out to LA it was really a discussion. Like, if this starts to work out and you start booking projects, we want something that you can talk about that uses that voice for good. It's been really fun to explore that and flesh it out in the form of Nature's Negotiators.
Where do you hope Nature's Negotiators will be in 5 or 10 years time?
M.A.D: I hope we're still finding good ways to inspire hope. I mean, that's the main thing for me. A lot of times I think the narrative can be overwhelming and so breaking it down into more bite-sized chunks and really showing people like, hey, even though this thing is maybe small or you're this one person doing this one thing, it still makes an impact. I think really getting that message out there because this is not an insurmountable thing. It's possible to overcome it.
You can catch Maxwell Acee Donovan on That '90s Show, streaming now on Netflix.
(Feature Image Credit: Maxwell Acee Donovan by Sasha Bell Photography)
Pssst....Want to inspire change too?
Check out these cool lessons from MasterClass:
Dr. Jane Goodall Teaches Conservation
Malala Yousafzai Teaches Creating Change
Neil deGrasse Tyson Teaches Scientific Thinking
Pharrell Williams & More on The Power of Empathy
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Hey, I’m so thrilled you’re here! I’m Nehal and each month, I spend hundreds of hours keeping CelebrityKind going because I firmly believe in creating a kind space in pop culture. If you’ve enjoyed reading our stories, interviews and posts, I’d love it if you could show your support – you choose how much! We rely entirely on our readers to keep us going so we can share more news, without the gossip. xoN
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