GAME TIME: TACKLING THE PAST -- Pictured: Ryan McPartlin as Jake Walker -- Photo by: NBC
Ryan McPartlin stars as Jake Walker, a football tight end, who goes home to visit his family and friends after his father Frank (Beau Bridges) suffers a heart attack.
The actor spent a good portion of his college years playing football until his shoulders began giving him problems. It would have taken exploratory surgery just to figure out what was wrong, so McPartlin hung up his cleats and began acting. Still, he had to think twice about portraying a football player.
“Whenever you see that a role is based upon a tight end and you played tight end in college, you go, ‘Wait a second!’” he begins. “ ‘Nobody ever makes a movie about a tight end.’ I had to take a good look at it and then I said, ‘I spent most of my career trying not to be typecast as a football player,’ and here I am, 12 years after college going, ‘OK, I’ll play a football player.’”
The actor admits that it was too solid of a story to pass on. Plus, he got to work with Beau Bridges. McPartlin tells EntertainmentHeartbeat.com that starring opposite Bridges measured up way past his expectations…and he got an earful about Bridges’ famous family.
“He’s Hollywood royalty…the whole family is, but he couldn’t be more down to earth,” McPartlin points out. “I would sit and just soak up all the pearls of wisdom. He would tell me stories about he and his father Lloyd (Bridges, Sea Hunt, Hot Shots) and the father/son moments that they had. I just couldn’t get enough of that because I’m a dad, too. I have a 4 and a 2 year old and just sitting around and listening to Beau speak was like an education in itself.”
McPartlin is already back at work on what is supposed to be the final season of his action/comedy series Chuck…though he says he’s said goodbye to his castmates before and the fans rallied and keep the show on the air.
“It is our final season for all intents and purposes, but you never know,” he says. “There could be a movie, there could be a break from Chuck for a couple of years, we come back for something or another. Our fans won’t let us die. When it comes to an end the farewells may all be for not.”
He’s speaking from experience as well as emotion.
“At the end of every season I’ve cried like a baby saying goodbye to everybody and then it’s really awkward when we all come back and sit together and they’re all like, ‘Oh, hey Ry. That crying was for nothing, Buddy,’ ” he confesses. “So, yeah, I think that Chuck will have life again. I don’t know how or when or what medium, but we’ll have life at some point. Our fans wouldn’t allow us just to go off into the sunset.”
As for the new season of the action-comedy, McPartlin promises fans will be completely satisfied.
“I have laughed more than I have in the last couple years. The fun is at the same level that we had in the first season now that Morgan (Josh Gomez) is the intersect,” he says snickers. “I’m laughing about things I can’t even tell you about, but he goes off the rails. How he deals with the intersect is maybe one of the funniest things about the show.”
McPartlin’s role has increased for the upcoming season as well, according to what he says they have in store for Devon.
“Captain Awesome becomes the new face of the Buy More. It’s kind of like Captain Awesome’s last frontier,” he dishes. “I always said I wanted to find a way to work at the Buy More and this is the way they found for me to work in it…doing commercials for it. It’s pretty funny. There are so many good moments to this season and it’s just really fun that we’re going out on such a high note.”
McPartlin’s dramatic performance in Game Time: Tackling the Past airs September 3rd, 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
The new season of Chuck kicks off on its new night, Friday, October 21st, 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.