Evil Ed's glee over his transformation may have made the role of the oddball teenager-turned-vampire an interesting one for Geoffreys to play, but there are definitely no similarities between the actor's personality and the character's. "When I think about it," Geoffreys says, "I'm nothing like him. I'm fairly shy, you know, sometimes a little too serious about things, and that's just the opposite of Evil Ed."
The character he plays in "Fright Night" is the latest in a rapid succession of choice roles that have launched Geoffreys' career with dizzying speed over the past two years. Born and raised in Cincinatti, Geoffreys says, "I decided when I was about 8 years old that acting was what i wanted to do, and luckily nothing has interfered." After attending a performing arts high school where singing, dancing and acting were all part of his daily curriculum, Geoffreys continued his dramatic studies at Webster College in St. Louis, and then spent a year in NYU's graduate acting program. "I didn't like the school at all," he says with a grin. "I don't know how I went for as many years as I did.
"The first year I spent at NYU," Geoffreys continues, "I was surrounded by all this theater, and I'd go to see a Broadway play and be writhing in my seat, thinking, 'Oh, God, I have to do that now.' Since New York is the center of theater, I knew when I was very young that's exactly where I wanted to be."
The young actor didn't have long to wait. "Luckily, I got a really good agent and I heard about a part, read the book and put it in my mind, 'I'm going to do this!'"
The part was Homer MacCauley in Joseph Papp's production of "The Human Comedy," and Geoffreys spent the whole summer auditioning for it. "I went back about five times and I'm sure they saw everybody in New York who looked like me. the part was a very heavy acting part with eight songs. Although the character is a 15-year-old, a real 15-year-old would probably not have been able, vocally or emotionally, to do it. I was just ripe for it and it worked out great."
It was while Geoffreys was palying Homer, first off-Broadway and then in the Broadway production, that he was seen by Michael Dinner, who was in New York casting for his first feature film, "Heaven Help Us." "they called me in to read for the part of Williams, and I got it," says Geoffreys. "So I was doing the movie and the play for five or six weeks at hte same time, and it was really hard, but it was just great. I got about three or four hours of sleep a night, but I was just so high that it didn't matter. I just wanted to keep going; I didn't want to stop."
Following "Heaven Help Us," Geoffreys flew to Los Angeles, where he auditioned for, and won, the starring role of Wendell Tvedt in "Fraternity Vacation." It was while the film was being shot in Palm Springs that Geoffreys auditioned for the role of Evil Ed Thompson In "Fright Night."
Aside from the challenge of playing someone totally different from himself, Geoffreys also had the challenge of containing the boundless energy he usually burns off by running or swimming when not performing. "The complete wolf make-up took 12 hours, and we had to do it twice. You just have to sit, and can't even read, because they're fiddling with your hands and you're being painted and sprayed. It's about patience, I suppose, because the make-up's an art in itself and once it's finished, it's amazing to look at."
For more info on Stephen Geoffreys go to imdb.com.
BIOGRAPHY