Prodigious Songcraft Blooms in Sarah Jarosz - The Austin Chronicle

screens40HE’S NOT A LAWYER,BUT HE PLAYS ONE ON TVAustin actor Mehcad Brooks on hiscircuitous path from star athlete toSouthern vampires and L.A. lawon an Irving soundstageBY JOE O ’CONNELLConsider it a lesson in followingyour dream. Austinnative Mehcad Brooks isclad in an expensive suit, sittingin a swanky, wood-paneledLos Angeles law officeas he tells his tale. Strikethat. This November dayBrooks is in the Studios atLas Colinas in Irving, Texas,on the make-believe set ofABC’s television series TheDeep End, a lawyer “dramedy”which opens a six-episoderun Jan. 21. But hisacting dream is 100% real.The son of formerCincinnati Bengals receiverBilly Brooks and AustinAmerican-Statesman editorialwriter Alberta Phillips, Brookswas a star basketball playerat Anderson High School inthe late Nineties. But itwasn’t his dream. He startedacting in plays at school andaround town at age 15. Thenhe went to an arts enrichmentprogram atthe University ofTexas and saw hisfirst opera. “I didn’tfall asleep,” Brookssays with a grin.“There was a gentlemanfromHouston wholooked like me andgrew up in similarcircumstances. …He was travelingthe world singingopera – in Italian. Ithought that was so cool. Ithought, ‘Wow, I didn’t knowthat was a career choice.’”While opera wasn’t inBrooks’ future, it clued himin to what was. “I realized at16 or 17 that if I didn’t playsports for the rest of my life,I’d be fine with it, but if Ididn’t act, I wouldn’t knowwhat to do,” he says. Whenhe tried to quit the basketballteam, coaches called hishome urging his return to thecourt, and others told him hewas throwing his life away. “Isaid: ‘Really? I got quite afew academic scholarshipsand a 4.0,’” Brooks remembers.He eventually had toresort to faking seizureswhile on the court to hammerhis point home. “I wasdoing a stage production ofOthello at the time, and he’san epileptic, so it was preparation,”Brooks says.Brooks moved to LosAngeles in 1999 to attendfilm school. In his junior yearhe returned to Austin overwinter break to work as anextra on the comedy TheNew Guy. He also heardabout Richard Linklater’splans to shoot a high schoolfootball film tentatively titledFriday Night Heroes withTerrence Malick producing.Linklater “was in the callbackstages, and I snuck in,”Brooks says. “I ended upMehcad Brooks with Rutina Wesley on True Bloodgetting a lead.” Brooksdropped out of college andmoved back to Texas, whereLinklater had arranged tofilm the Bay City High Schoolfootball team for the film’spseudo documentary focuswith Brooks and the othermain actors close by. “Wehad to go into all thegames,” Brooks says. “Heintegrated us into the actualteam.” But the project wasnever completed, likelybecause of Peter Berg’s rivalFriday Night Lights film thatwas moving forward with BillyBob Thornton. “He’s a greatguy,” Brooks says ofLinklater. “I credit him withkick-starting my career.”Back in Los Angeles,Brooks was hired for fourepisodes on the televisionseries Boston Public, butspent much of the next twoyears washing the windowsof Beverly Hillsstorefronts beforeroles in the basketballfilm Glory Roadand the televisionseries DesperateHousewives set hiscareer into highgear. “I was wearingthis uniform, carryingthese hugebuckets of waterand these mops,”he remembers.“People would justtreat you like crap. It wasn’ta year later that I was goinginto these same stores to befitted for the SAG awards.These exact same peoplewho were working theredidn’t recognize me fromwearing the uniform. I sawhow differently they treatedme. I was astounded byhow L.A. is.”The Deep End followsBrooks’ stint as Eggs in theHBO series True Blood and is‘Tattooed Under Fire’ 41 TV Eye 62 Film ListingsMehcad Brooks on theset of The Deep Endset in that very Los Angeles.It follows five recent lawschool grads recruited for aprestigious law firm. (See thisweek’s “TV Eye,” p.41, formore on The Deep End.) “Iliken him to a young BarackObama meets Jeremy Piven’sAri from Entourage,” Brookssays of his character MalcolmBennet. “He’s a charming,lovable, straightforwarddouche bag. Hedoesn’t sugarcoatanything. We all havethose people whotell us things wedon’t want to hear,but they’re alwaysright. He’s not insensitive,but he’s been through alot in his life. He’s smarterthan me, which is fun to play.”Don’t underestimateBrooks in either the areas ofsmarts or passion. “I havethe luxury of doing jobs thatchallenge me, that I would geta kick out of watching,” hesays. “I’m very ambitious. Myheroes are Clint Eastwood,George Clooney, Will Smith,Denzel Washington – peoplewho are at the top of theirgame because they’veworked that hard to get there.I really want to achieve asmuch as possible in thatrealm. And then move on tomy next career.” The Deep End premieres on ABCThursday, Jan. 21, at 7pm.TOP GEAR: SEASON 11BBC Warner, $29.99TOP GEAR: SEASON 12BBC Warner, $39.99In 1889, novelist Jerome K. Jerome penned Three Menin a Boat, a quintessentially English tale of a trio of pleasantbut bumbling gentlemen taking a trip up the RiverThames and ending up hopelessly, haplessly, charminglystuck in silly situations. In 2002, the BBC took that idea,replaced the boat with cars, the Thames with test tracks,and called the end result Top Gear. Nominally a car reviewand auto-news show, over the last decade it’s become amassive cult success on both sides of the Atlantic dueto its gloriously ill-qualified but enthusiastic presenters.There’s the bossy one (Jeremy Clarkson), the smallone (Richard “The Hamster” Hammond), and CaptainSlow (James May, a man that once got lost on a onewaystreet). Together, they have worked out that the BBCpays them a lot of money to borrow very expensive sportscars, make rude jokes about Volkswagens, and complainabout beer prices. For die-hard Top Gear fans, these seasonsare particularly intriguing because they wereoriginally broadcast just as the recession tookhold, and so the threesome contend with theirbeloved overpriced gas-guzzling executivedvdwatchtoys seeming more ridiculous than ever. Yetfor the first-time viewer, the joy is in findingthe antithesis of all those tedious infomercialsdressed up as gearhead broadcasting.Yes, Clarkson, et al. wax lyrical aboutbrake horsepower and carbon-fiber bodies andbucket seats, but there’s a joyous skin-of-theirteethincompetency any time they get near a steeringwheel. When the three look at the oddball challenges setby the producers, like mopeding up the coast of Vietnamor racing buses, and pronounce, “How hard can it be?,”the end result is a vehicle that goes slower than whenthey found it or that has developed some intriguing bumpsand scrapes on the bodywork or is best described as “onfire.” Finally, a car show for people who hate cars.– Richard WhittakerALSO OUT NOW …Goliath (IFC Entertainment, $19.98): This 2008feature from Austin’s the Zellner Bros. tells the bleaklyfunny story of a man who loses his cat first and his gripon sanity next.Moon (Sony Pictures, $27.99): Sam Rockwell, SamRockwell, and Sam Rockwell make a great ensemble cast.10 Things I Hate About You 10th Anniversary Edition(Walt Disney, $19.99): With Heath Ledger’s final performancein The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus finallyopening in theatres, here’s a chance to remember hisbreakthrough role.a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m JANUARY 15, 2010 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E 39