The King of All Wild Things

I wasn’t supposed to meet Sonny Gerasimowicz, art director of Where the Wild Things Are, for a cup of coffee yesterday. But I happened to find a lucky penny, face up, on the street. And so I'm convinced that's the reason for the last minute invite to share caffeine and conversation with the sprite, mustached man at Café des Leche, his favorite Highland Park haunt. 

Gerasimowicz, 36, bought a Spanish-style house down the road from the bright, cozy coffee shop last year and was on the roof cleaning leaves from his gutter when I texted to remind him of our meeting, which he later confessed slipped his mind.

“I’m really forgetful,” he had warned earlier.

You would be too if you just spent the past five years conceptualizing and creating the starring creatures in one of the most talked about movies of the year--hell, the decade--which arrived in theatres today at midnight. 

Gerasimowicz made his first and, until Wild Things, last behind-the-scenes showbiz debut on the set of Double Dragon, a 1994 flick based on the Nintendo video game that starred Alyssa Milano and Vanna White. 

“It was totally not good,” he said with a soft, friendly smile. “We did the graffiti for the background. I don’t think I’ve ever said that in any of the other interviews.”

Gerasimowicz was creating posters and marketing campaigns for movies when director Spike Jonze hired him to give author Maurice Sendak’s colorful cast of creatures or, as the title says, the Wild Things, their live-action soul in late 2004. And while he’s officially credited with the film’s art direction, Gerasimowicz quickly took on various roles that reached far beyond sketching the mammoth monsters of Sendak’s 1963 children’s book.

For starters, he’s currently creating the poster for the film’s Japanese release. He was asked to appear on-screen as Alexander the goat after another actor didn’t work out. And before that Gerasimowicz aided the ever-important decision of choosing the right company to build bodies for the book’s beloved beasts, a job that ultimately went to the Jim Henson Company partly on his urging. 

“If they can make such a memorable, amazing character out of a green sock…you know what I mean? That’s one of the most famous characters of all time. It’s a green sock with two white little eyes on it. So I was like, lets go with them. Because they’re all about the character.” 

He is of course talking about Kermit the Frog.