After auditioning for director Jeff Kanew, Salinger still wasn’t sure if he had the part even though Kanew told him it was his. "I didn’t know whether to believe him or not," says Salinger. "What did I know about Hollywood?" He immediately called his agent and asked, ‘Is this for real?’" His agent replied, ‘Probably not. I’ll find out, but don’t get too excited yet." Fortunately for Salinger it was indeed real and turned out to be an exceptional experience.

"‘Revenge of the Nerds’ was the first movie I did," says Salinger. "It was such an uncompromised pleasure. It was silly. It was ridiculous. It was fun. It was wild. It was raucous. It was a great time."

Salinger has no pretensions that the movie was ever meant to be high art. "There are all kinds of genres and this was a broad comedy. But what it had was a lot of heart and a certain sweetness to it that most broad teen comedies didn’t have before and since," says Salinger.

Still "Nerds" was a bit of a pop culture shock for Salinger, who fancied himself a serious actor. The one time he had reservations about his role was the day on the set when he and his Alpha Beta buddies were filming the mooning scene. "I don’t think that was in the script," observes Salinger. "And when it came time for us to pull our pants down for the camera, I thought, ‘Okay, this is why I went to drama school.’"

Then reality set in. "I was able to slap myself and say, ‘Get real, you need to play this part,’" remembers Salinger. "I just told myself, ‘This guy would definitely do this, and he would enjoy it, so have fun.’"

Salinger saw from the outset that his character had the potential to get lost amidst the more dynamic personalities of the Alpha Betas, most notably Stan Gable (Ted McGinley) and Ogre (Donald Gibb). "Ultimately, I decided I wasn’t going to do something ridiculous to get more camera time or more attention. I was just going to try and find the truth of this character and play him. He was what he was – a rowdy, hard drinking, ego-centric, obnoxious jock."

Salinger remembers that the proverbial "good time was had by all" when making the movie. "It was like a big college dorm. We were staying at the Hilton in Tucson, Arizona and most of us were just out college so it was a non-stop party, shifting from one person’s room to another."

He recalls that Robert Carradine and Anthony Edwards kept mostly to themselves during rehearsals and for the first couple of weeks of the shoot, developing their characters. "They wanted to stay in character and keep the nerd thing going, and didn’t want to be seen as cool guys," says Salinger. "I remember Bobby brought an electric airplane set and the two of them would go off on nerd field trips. But after awhile they started partying with the rest of us."

Regrets? Salinger has one. "The only thing I totally regret was that Ted McGinley wasn’t going to do the second movie and they called me and I was doing a play in New York and couldn’t do it. Little did I know that they were going to make three more [movies]. I would have loved to have done them."

He recently saw the film again after not having seen it for years and feels it’s held up well. "It’s the favorite movie, or at least the archetypical, seminal movie for a lot of people," maintains Salinger. "I think it’s a product of how much fun we all had making it and the sweetness of the story."

After "Nerds", Salinger continued to work in theater as well as movies and television, including playing Captain America in the forgettable movie of the same name, before turning his attention to producing. "I went for about 10 years without acting," says Salinger. Shortly after making "Nerds" he started taking acting and himself a lot more seriously. "That was a mistake," he opines. "Acting should be about having fun. I started making movies and had my own TV show, and stopped having fun. And when I stopped having fun, I thought there were a lot better ways of making money. I could have just gone to Wall Street if it wasn’t about having fun."

Instead he started his own production company, which to date has produced 12 independent films as well as plays. One play, "The Syringa Tree," about apartheid in South Africa, won a 2000-2001 New York Obie Award for best play of the year and recently won best play of the year in Toronto. "We’re opening in Boston in December, and taking it back to Cape Town next year," notes Salinger. "In the first quarter of 2005 Warner Brothers will release a video we produced called "Plan B" starring Diane Keaton."

How does he like producing compared to acting? "It’s a lot more hassle," laughs Salinger. "It’s something I’m more comfortable with as a business."

He concedes that acting is a tough business. "You don’t have much control and you’re always at everybody else’s mercy. It’s a hard career choice. I have a lot of admiration for those who stick to it. I just didn’t have the stomach for it."

That said, Salinger finds himself back in front of the camera from time to time. He had a small role in the Diane Lane movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" and last season played the campaign manager of a presidential candidate on "24." He returns this season as the president’s Chief of Staff. "It’s a small part and I’m not on a lot," says Salinger, who admits that this time he’s acting for the fun of it while maintaining his career as a producer.

Career-wise Salinger is proudest of the plays he’s been involved with as an actor and producer. "Artistically I’m more proud of them than anything else." He also mentions working with director Sidney Lumet in the movie "Power". But "Nerds" still holds a special place in his heart.

"There’s nothing wrong with pop culture and the message that everybody deserves a place," says Salinger. "There’s a humanist message in "Revenge of the Nerds" that I’m also proud of, and I’m proud of the degree to which it was profoundly silly."

Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Matt Salinger

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Good article! Written by Guest on 2011-10-19 21:04:01

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