VW Darth Vader boy to have heart surgery

Los Angeles - Max Page, the seven-year-old actor best known as the boy behind the Darth Vader mask in the popular Volkswagen commercial is having open heart surgery.

Max also plays Reed on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless, which airs on e.tv in South Africa.

CBS spokesperson Elise Bromberg says he will have surgery on Thursday to replace his pulmonary valve and repair a hole in his heart at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

Max was born with a congenital heart defect and has undergone multiple surgeries.

Bromberg says Max told his mother that he didn't have a choice, and that he "might as well go through it with a good attitude". He is expected to be hospitalised for about five days.

In an interview with Today, Max's father, Buck Page, said: "Doctors have told us Max has not known how good he can feel ... so this is going to enable him to become even more active, which is hard to believe."

His parents also shared the fact that he will be taking a pair of Darth Vader headphones with him to surgery and when they asked him why, he replied, "Because when I'm Darth, I feel strong."

Watch Max in the Volkswagen ad here: