Articles/Interviews: Dallas Morning News

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Young Actor Can't Stop Smiling
CREDIT: Dallas Morning News March 2000

Appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair's annual "Hollywood" issue a distinction akin to being annointed a member of Tinseltown's royal court. 
Each spring around Oscar time, another crop of fresh-faced, up-and-comers suck in their cheekbones and brood for the camera, parlayig their status from suporting players to leading men and ladies. 
The import of this didn't occur to actor Paul Walker. When he found out that he was part of "the class of 2000", he was more concerned with keeping his vacation plans. "I'm not really in the loop, I don't really know what's going on in Hollywood. I don't really care to be honest with you," he says. "It was funny because I was planning a surf trip with my buddies and just before I left, my manager and publicist called me up and said, 'Yeah, you're going to be on the cover, so don't go anywhere.' I'm like, "The hell with that! I've planned this trip to Costa Rica!' They actually ended up flying me in from San Jose to Miami for 2 days."

Say what you will, this guy's got his priorities straight. And so in the final resulting photo are actors Penelope Cruz, Wes Bently, Mena Suvari, Marley Shelton, Chris Klein, Selma Blair, Jordana Brewster, & Sarah Wynter -- All giving a reasonable combination of "moody" and "sexy" to the camera.

Then there's Mr. Walker, co-star of She's All That, Varsity Blues, Pleasantville, and most recently The Skulls, with a big happy, very non-moody smile on his face.

"It was one of those things where I kept pinching myself -- What am I doing here? Where did I just come from? I was surrounded by all these people I'd seen in different movies, and Annie kept saying 'Paul, be serious', but I was laughing the entire time. The first time I saw the magazine I was like, 'Oh, my gosh, I look like such a joker!' I'm the only one with a huge joker Kool-Aid Smile!" 

Actually, that Kool-Aid smile is what sets Paul Walker apart from the other baby thespians and if the 26 year old kept pinching himself at his good fortune he's be black and blue all over.

Paul is one of the rarest birds in Hollywood- a pretension free movie star. Recently on a tour supporting The Skulls, he's as blase about the lavish buffet set out in his suite as he is about his inadvertent climb up the Hollywood ladder.

He may already be a teen dream with the No. 3 movie in the country, but Mr. Walker sort of fell into the business with a string of happy accidents and sudden success. A child actor since the age of 2, he logged credits on '80's sitcoms to earn the future college fund.

"When I was 12 I had 7 national commercials running at one time, which is a lot," he recalls. "My parents had never planned for me to become this actor. My dad is a contractor and he doesn't make a lot of money, and they like the idea of one da sneding e out to college. I did a little bit in 'high school, but I was playing sports and stuff and I wanted to be a marine biologist."

He was cast in The Young & The Restless shortly after high school. He didn't enjoy being indoors all day but he did like the free Taco Bell on call. "I was just stoked I was making like 90 hundred thousand dollars a year. I was spending it faster than I was making it during that time, and I was 19 walking around with gold cards. I was never planning on a rainy day. Then, boom - it ended -- I had bought all kinds of toys and I had to sell alot of it off!"

Bouncing around to a series of community colleges proved less than fruitful, and Mr. Walker spent time surfing and living in a series of state parks up and down the California coast, earning the nickname "The Vagrant" from his pals. If this seems like a hard-luck twist, you should know that he thinks those years were "such a good time." He still doesn't have a permanent place to live.

Nonetheless, a casting directer who remembered him from childhood tracked him down for an audition for Touched by An Angel. Angered at the waste of Mr. Walker's talent, "He ripped into me ---'I don't know what you're doing; you're such an idiot. If you lived in LA, you be working all the time making money hand over fist.' I was like, 'Oooh whatever'."

He still got the part, which led to a screen test for Polish Wedding, which led to the part as the jock Reese Witherspoon seduces in Pleasantville, which led to everything else in his charmed career..

"At the time, I was struggling with it. I'm not an actor -- "It's just somthing I do to make money," says Mr. Walker. "But the more I did it, the more it got to the point where I love it. It's fun. I love going from city to city being someone new for 2 or 4 months and having 6 months out of the year to travel wherever."

Gosh, who wouldn't? Lest you seethe with jelousy over Mr. Walker's seemingly wonderful life, rest assured that this guy is so likeable that you can't help but be happy for him. He's down-to-earth. He doesn't take himself too seriousl. He'll probably never gain 20 pounds or get teeth extracted for a part, but that's OK. Not everyone has to be a tortured method actor.

The Skulls gives Mr. Walker a little bit more to work with than previous roles. Graduating from high school parts, he plays Caleb Mandrake, a to-the-manor-born rich kid who joins a secret society at an Ivy League College. Mr. Walker and co-star Joshua Jackson find out being part of the exclusive organization can be hazardous to your health in this sort of demi version of The Firm for the collegiate set.

"I thought the story was pretty cool in comparison to the charactors I've played in the past. Everyone else has been pretty mulch one-dimensional. Skip in Pleasantville is a cartoon, Lance in Varsity Blues was pretty much how I was in high school, and in She's All That I just played the jerk. This one was different on the outside -- It looks like this guy has everything --he had cars and girls and money. Then you find out later he's all twisted an sick inside because his dad's an expletive."

Mr. Walker has recently shot Squelch, with LeeLee Sobieski and Steve Zahn, and the tetatively title Street Racer, in which he plays an undercover cop infiltrating a group of truck-jacking drag racers. Still, Mr. Walker admits his work is "on-the-job training for me. I just want to get better more than anything, and I feel like I'm constantly improving. I don't know where I want to take my career; I just want to do stuff I can be proud of."

He adds, "For all I know I'll do this for another 5 years and be out. I don't know - maybe I'll do it for another 20 if someone wants me around that much longer."

Don't worry, Paul. They probably will.