NICE BOY OF THE WEEK: Ryan Eggold

I had the great pleasure of chatting with Ryan Eggold recently, and by the time I got off the phone with him I knew he was going to be our next Nice Boy. Ryan has been very busy these days, getting ready to make a big move, but he still gave me as much time as I needed, and for that alone he instantly qualified.

Ryan Eggold

Many of you will recognize Ryan as Ryan Matthews on The CW’s 90210. He has also appeared in FX Network‘s Dirt and HBO’s Entourage as well as The Young and the Restless back in the day. But his talents extend beyond acting as he has proven by making his directorial debut in a short film titled Literally, Right Before Aaron. Aaron is a comedy about the tragedy of what could have been. When Adam’s ex-girlfriend tells him she’s getting married to someone else and invites him to the wedding, we laugh, cringe and empathize all at the same time as he navigates through the painfully funny situation in which he finds himself.

Ryan told me that Aaron was an idea he had based on his own experiences, and the story is told entirely from Adam’s point of view. It’s a story about the direction our lives take because of the choices we make, good and bad. Although Aaron is a comedy, it also has some bittersweet elements in it and Ryan hopes that the audience will be able to connect with the characters and the situations they find themselves in.

I asked Ryan about some of the challenges he faced during the film’s creation. “On the last day of shooting I had an actress leave literally five to ten minutes before shooting her scene because she was tired and had something to do that day. It was a small scene so I added a background actress for the shoot. She had only minutes to learn her lines but she did well and it was a seemless change up.”

Another obstacle was time. “We had to shoot a scene in a bowling alley, and although they were very accommodating, we only had something like two hours to film a four hour scene.”

All in all it was an experience that Ryan cherishes and is very proud of. He hopes to follow in the footsteps of great talents like Woody Allen and Ed Burns. With this young man’s energy and outlook on life, I have no doubts of his success. Meanwhile, Ryan will enjoy his work in front of the cameras as well, and continue to build toward his goal.

Ryan was always interested in writing, in fact he wrote a play shortly after graduating college and it was well received. As for acting, Ryan says that he was always the class clown, willing to do just about anything for a laugh, even if it meant getting into trouble. He liked being the center of attention and loved the sound of laughter. We did laugh a lot during this interview, so I can imagine what he was like in school. Those poor teachers.

Ryan has a few projects percolating on various burners, but nothing he really talk about just yet. However, once he found out I was from the Chicago area, he was interested in learning the inner city dialect. We’ll have to wait and see where that leads.

Since we are coming up to the holidays, I asked Ryan to tell me what his fondest memory was. He talked about a really cool gift that he received when he was in grade school. In fact his best friend, also named ‘Ryan’, and lived up the street from him, received the identical gift: a motorized scooter. Needless to say they tore up the neighborhood “like little, mini-motorcycle guys”.

As I said before, I knew we had to make Ryan Eggold our next Nice Boy, and when he admitted to being a romantic at heart, I knew it was a good choice.