It's fair if the name Guy Wilson isn't readily familiar to television audiences. But millions have watched him work.
The 25-year-old Wilson appears on the smartly-made life-in-rewind AT&T commercial "Back to the Beginning" —first in a football uniform, then sliding into a car with his on-screen father. As if his San Francisco Giants winning the World Series wasn't enough, his guest appearances on Castle and NCIS rounded out a gratifying 2010.
Those guest shots are discussed in a separate portion of a thoroughly enjoyable interview, which here looks closely at his foundational acting gigs and his early influences.
A Christmas Carol Kindles a Dream
AH: How did you get into the acting world in the first place? What was the trigger mechanism that led you to become an actor?
GW: My mother is a musical composer and a musician, and when I was nine years old she was the musical director of a local performance of A Christmas Carol in Santa Rosa, California, which is where I grew up, about 50 miles north of San Francisco in a small town called Sebastopol.
My mom asked me if I wanted to be in it, and I said sure, and so they gave me the part of Tiny Tim, which was a perfect part for me given my stature at the time. I did that, and I loved it. I sort of kept doing theater as a child, and then when I was 15, I realized and decided that I wanted to be a movie star. I wanted to be on film and television.
I got an agent in San Francisco with an agency called Look Talent, and was with them for a couple of years while I was still in high school in northern California. Shortly thereafter, I got a manager in Los Angeles who worked with young talent. She was able to start getting me some auditions down here.
And I didn't really have a lot of success early on, but it gave me some experience in the Los Angeles industry, and not just in San Francisco, such that by the time I graduated high school in 2004, I knew that I'd be able to come down here and have some idea of what I needed to do to have success in the film and television industry here in L.A.
AH: Did you take any acting roles in high school while you were doing all this?
GW: Not through the high school, actually. I never really did any theater through the high school. I studied at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco when I was 17, but I just focused more on auditioning for projects that were casting in San Francisco, like Monk, for example. A lot of Volkswagen commercials at the time were being cast in San Francisco. So there was this small niche there.
Admiration for Harrison Ford and Ben Foster
AH: What or who did you grow up watching either in TV or movies? Was there a particular actor you looked up to then or still do now?
GW: You know, there's a couple of answers to that. As far as for film, I think Harrison Ford was definitely the ultimate hero, because when I was growing up, obviously Star Wars and Indiana Jones had been out for some time. But those were just such fun movies that I associate with my youth. Our parents would let us stay up and we'd get to watch The Fugitive or Witness, because my mom had kind of a crush on Harrison Ford. That was my first introduction to a true-blue movie star.
As I got a little older, I really got into The Godfather and became mesmerized by Al Pacino and his early work. Well, all of his work, but in particular his early work in The Godfather Part I and Part II.
That's sort of where I just saw the difference between what it means to truly be an artist and have an craft versus purely being an entertainer. There's no shame in just being an entertainer, but actually developing a unique sense of storytelling that's unique to you and your instrument as an actor. I feel like Al Pacino in particular, and also Anthony Hopkins, are two actors where there's nothing superfluous about their choices as actors.
And as far as television, it's kind of fun. One of my favorite shows when I was young—12, 13 years old—was this show on the Disney Channel that only lasted for a season, and it was called Flash Forward. It was a teen kid comedy, but one of the stars of the show was Ben Foster, who actually has a very vibrant film career going right now.
He plays these dark characters with such conviction, and especially because in Flash Forward, his character was a sunshiney good kid. So to see him transition and to find this niche later on as this really dark performer has been a lot of fun for me to watch, because he was one of the first television actors I began to follow and really looked up to as I began my own trek in this career of mine.
The AT&T Commercial
AH: Had you done any commercials before this big one you're on for AT&T?
GW: I had. I think this AT&T one has been the best one in terms of its market saturation. But the first national commercial I did was for a video game called Star Wars: Battlefront, and that aired back in the fall of 2004. That was a lot of fun. Mostly it aired on local cable, and like on Adult Swim, which was cool to see it late it night when they're showing cartoons and stuff.
And then in the fall of 2008, I did a national promotional for Allstate. And that actually got some pretty good play. That got some national attention and featured Dennis Haysbert; it was one of his Allstate commercials. I was still in college as a part-time student at the time, so it was fun going to class and have all the girls recognize you from television. But it wasn't anything like the saturation that this AT&T commercial has gotten.
AH: I was going to mention if, although you don't say anything in that commercial, you would say the best part of it is the exposure you get from it because regular TV viewers will see it so often.
GW: Absolutely. And what I love about this AT&T commercial is I feel like 85 percent of the commercials on television are just utterly obnoxious. Obviously I'm biased because I'm in it, but I think it's a pretty watchable commercial. It's not in-your-face. It doesn't preach or pander. It's just understated, which I think makes it easier for people to not want to change the channel when it comes on.
All the actors that they cast ... we all look pretty good the way they set it up. It's a very flattering portrayal of this fictitious story they're tying into the product at AT&T. When my manager saw it on TV, he called me up the next day and said, "You know, Guy, I saw the commercial last night. I just wanted to say, great job. It's such a watchable commercial." Sometimes it's better to be lucky than to be good, and AT&T with their marketing plan had a clear vision.
Alex Hoffman - Alex Hoffman is a graduate of the University of Kansas' journalism school whose credits include Midwest Commercial Journal, Lawrence ...
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