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I was an heir apparent to a tradition. My father was a famous actor. My mother won an Oscar and four Emmys. People used to ask me why I wanted to follow in their footsteps. They worried that it was too much of a burden. No way. I thought an incredible gift had been placed in front of me.
    I don’t think I ever felt like I couldn’t escape from my parents’ shadows. They always seemed more like a beacon of light to me than anything approaching darkness. Plus, with my dad’s emphasis on education, I’ve always felt that other careers, livelihoods, and paths are available to me. The only limitations I’ve ever known are time and space, and perhaps certain physical limits: I don’t think I ever felt I could compete at the higher levels of most sports. Most of my life has felt like finding a balance between taking advantage of the opportunities in front of me and trying to play out some sense of personal destiny or mission that must have been ingrained in my DNA. In that regard, I’ve suffered in trying to overcome the obstacles that have been placed in front of me, but I really do identify with the character of Rudy.
    Anyway, as far as my pedigree is concerned, the only time I felt frustrated was when I couldn’t figure out how to effectively leverage my lineage and experience. My parents didn’t make a habit of introducing me to famous people. In other words, they didn’t sit down with us before the big New Year’s party, and say, “Here’s who’s coming to dinner, kids. He’s an important director, producer, writer, star…” They didn’t do any of that. They just had a party. We’d go down and help direct the parking, and people we engaged in conversation were just the people who were the friendliest. Generally speaking, I had no idea who they were. I knew only that I thought my mother and father had pretty cool jobs, that they were creative, interesting people, and that I wanted to be like them.
    What I did not understand until much later was the combination of luck, talent, and dogged determination required to succeed in show business, especially if one aspires to be something more than a mere cog in the system. And I began to understand the meaning of the word “compromise.”
    Which brings us back to Encino Man.
    â€œThey’ve got a revision on the script,” I was told. “They want to fax it to you.”
    â€œFine. Go ahead.”
    â€œAnd they’ve got a guy named Pauly Shore to play the lead. Do you know Pauly?”
    â€œNo, I don’t know Pauly.”
    â€œWell, they want to send you some of his work, too. I think they really want you for the lead in this movie, Sean.”
    There were admittedly some aspects to the project that were appealing. It was a major studio film, and one of my costars would be Brendan Fraser, who was already generating buzz for his work as a prep-school student battling anti-Semitism in School Ties (which was released in 1992, the same year as Encino Man ). The studio knew that in Brendan they had a young actor who was destined for stardom, and they had him playing against type as a caveman in a completely goofy movie. In Pauly Shore, as I would soon learn, they had a cartoonish surfer dude of a comic who was building a big audience with the MTV crowd. I was exactly who they wanted to play the third lead in the movie: a solid, serious, best-buddy kind of actor. They had liked my work in Toy Soldiers , and they thought I’d be perfect for Encino Man .
    But I didn’t want to do it, especially after I got to a hotel in London, opened the FedEx package, and looked at some tapes of Pauly Shore hamming it up on MTV, drawling, “Hey, Buddddddy!” and giggling and staggering around like a stoner. All I could think was, Oh, it’s going to be hard to spend time with that guy . Then I read the script—again—and of course it was still a piece of shit; they really