"I used to tell [director] Jeff Kanew I thought we were going to hell because it was so stupid," recalls Wohl. "This was a time in the '80s when there were a lot of dumb movies - softcore T&A adolescent frat boy movies." The script for Nerds certainly seemed to fit that profile in the eyes of Wohl, who admits he was a bit of a snob. "It had guys peeping on girls and really dumb frat pranks."

But that wasn’t the kind of movie that ended up on screen. Wohl has done a lot of film, TV and theatre work over the years and understands that you can’t always predict what script will work and what won’t. "You can make a good movie from a script that doesn’t look so great and you can make a bad movie from what looks like a really great script. Nerds has a lot of heart and a lot of that heart came through because of what the director and actors put into that movie," says Wohl.

Wohl, who has worked with a Who’s Who of directors in his career, including Steven Spielberg and Alan J. Pakula, has nothing but praise for Kanew. "He trusted the people he cast and allowed them to improvise their characters as we made the movie. We had a lot of leeway to be free with these characters because his insight and generous nature," explains Wohl.

"With all due respect to the screenwriters, they put together a good blueprint and the director and actors were allowed to interpret it," notes Wohl. "I don’t think that if you shot just what was on the page you would have had quite the movie with heart."

He remembers one scene in particular where improvisation helped contribute to the success of the scene. "Jeff would say, ‘When you speak to them in the gym, mention a little bit about this or that,’" explains Wohl. "I remember the scene in the gym where Dean Ulich says something about how someone might have an allergy. I don’t know if it was Jeff’s idea or my idea, I just remember it was cohesive enough for things to happen. Ulich says ‘Does anybody here have allergies?’ "And somebody raises their hand and I respond, ‘Me too,’" recalls Wohl. "It’s just one of those little things that gives you a better idea of who the character is."

Wohl has nothing but fond memories of the experience and the other actors he worked with. "It was a well adjusted group of people," says Wohl. "They were young and ambitious and making their way in the business and were ready to have a good time when they were working. Some of them had experience some of them didn’t have as much experience. People were very happy to be there and grateful to be on the set of a movie for however long they were there."

The camaraderie between the actors playing the nerds and the characters themselves were a big part of the movie’s success in Wohl’s view. "Those guys really liked each other and bonded together," says Wohl. "Everybody got along well with each other and that was infectious. When they came into a room you felt they were a unit. I think that’s why they were able to make sequential movies. You want to go back and visit these guys again to see what they’re up to."

Has Wohl seen the movie since it was first released? "I’ve seen it. I think it’s sweet. I think it’s funny. I think the characters are recognizable. I think everybody recognizes it in one way or another," says Wohl. "The people who felt as if they were nerds at some point in their lives relate to it. I think it hits that nerve in everybody about that moment in your life when you felt like an outsider; and then the outsider becoming an insider, like the caterpillar turning into the butterfly."

Does the fact that he was in the movie come up a lot? "It comes up often," says Wohl. "The movie is always on somewhere. Whenever I’m working in something with anyone who is under 25 years old and they find out I was the Dean in the movie it’s usually, ‘Oh that’s you? That’s right, I knew you looked familiar.’"

Wohl acknowledges that Nerds has secured a place in pop culture history in a way that some of the other movies of the period haven’t been able to do. "I don’t think Porky’s has even though it was from the same time period," opines Wohl. "It didn’t have the heart or the humor."

Currently Wohl is appearing on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof as Lazar Wolf. Other recent theater credits include Dinner at Eight at Lincoln Center, Arthur Miller’s The Man Who Had all the Luck at the Roundabout Theater and the off-Broadway production of Don Juan. Over the years Wohl has appeared in dozens of films, such as Changing Lanes, Saving Private Ryan, Terms of Endearment and Sophie’s Choice as well as TV shows, including Law & Order, NYPD Blue, Ed, The X Files, L.A. Law, Cheers, and Thirtysomething. He’s even done some voice over work on the Cartoon Network’s Hey Arnold and the TV series Dinosaurs.

These days Wohl prefers working in the theater because of the variety of parts available to him. On film and TV he tends to play authority figures and has played more than his share of teachers, doctors and psychiatrists. He doesn’t mind though. "It’s a way to make a living," says Wohl. "Of course it depends on the part, and any part that’s got substance is a good part. It doesn’t really matter what the character is. But I don’t think I’d want to play Dean Ulich over and over again for the rest of my life."

Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox

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