Tom Pelphrey
Actor

Television's Hottest Bad Boy

By Mike Basford

Daytime television's hottest and hunkiest bad boy Tom Pelphrey is making a name for himself. Fresh from winning an Emmy as the Outstanding Young Actor in a Drama Series, he has been cast as Brad, the malevolent frat-boy villain in Spring Broke, a comedy set in Cancun, Mexico, that is being produced by a trio of Rutgers graduates and is due in the movie theaters in 2008.

Soap fans know Pelphrey as the devious Jonathan Randall on CBS's long-running daytime drama Guiding Light, a role he secured in September 2004. In real life, Pelphrey is a hard-working, disciplined, affable young man with lots of friends and a proud mother who tapes every episode of his program. On the flip side, his character, known as J.B., is a seductive, troubled, and deceitful jerk whose rap sheet includes: choking his mother, assaulting a police officer, breaking up marriages, and setting himself up to fall down the stairs to make it appear as if his stepfather pushed him.

"Every day is a little different," says Pelphrey. "I am always trying to expand my horizons as an actor and I think being on a show like Guiding Light allows me to do that. I was very well-prepared to handle this because I felt that coming out of Mason Gross, I had the confidence and skills to do any kind of acting."

Pelphrey grew up in Howell, where he attended a performing arts magnet school. He decided to attend Rutgers because he wanted to study with acting professor Kevin Kittle. Professor Kittle was assistant director of arguably the most influential experimental theater group in the United States — the New York City-based Open Theater. Kittle also worked with Sam Shepard and Arthur Miller for the Signature Theater Company, and has directed numerous productions in such New York theaters as the Joseph Papp Public Theater, John Houseman, Harold Cluman, and Sullivan Street Playhouse.

"I used to want to be a professional wrestler when I was little," Pelphrey says on the show's web page at cbs.com/daytime. "Acting's been what I wanted to do since middle school, I guess, and I started in high school. I had a fantastic teacher at my high school, he's also a Mason Gross graduate. So I got a very good first taste of what it could be like. I was fortunate to have him."

A typical day for Pelphrey begins very early. He commutes to the midtown Manhattan studio everyday from Hoboken, where he shares an apartment with his best friend from Rutgers. By 7 a.m., Pelphrey is on the Guiding Light set, located on two floors of a simple office building near the United Nations building. First, he completes a "dry rehearsal" in which the actors practice their scenes in regular street clothes. Immediately following that, he reports for makeup, wardrobe, and hair styling.

"The acting technique I learned at Rutgers was so solid," he says during the make-up phase of his morning to a reporter on the telephone. He notes that part of his Rutgers curriculum was to study at Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London where he performed in Taming of the Shrew and Richard III.

"After I returned from performing in London, I knew I could handle anything," he says. "Being in that environment, around other actors who loved the craft as much as I did, I was able to immerse myself in it."

Pelphrey says he regularly stays in touch with his many Rutgers friends. "Ray McAnally MGSA'05 organizes a monthly dinner in the New York area for Mason Gross alumni," he says. "It is a great thing that we are able to stay in touch and share our professional success. We are a big family."

The most challenging aspect of daytime drama for Pelphrey is that the actors "don't get to rehearse much." After wardrobe, he spends about four hours taping his scenes, depending on how many takes the producers want filmed.

In the evening, he is involved with theater whenever he can, whether that means directing a play in New Brunswick or working in New York City .

In addition, he is looking forward to his role as Brad in Spring Broke. The film will be directed by Bob Clark III, who also directed Porky's in 1982 and Porky's II: The Next Day in 1983. Three Rutgers graduates who founded Serious West Productions in 2003 are producing and acting in the film, including Drew Seltzer MGSA'03, Evan Matthew Weinstein MGSA'03, and Reginald Huc MGSA'03.

This trio also produced, wrote, and acted in A Beautiful Mind of a Gladiator, which was filmed on location at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and at Princeton University.

"As you can see," Pelphrey says. "We really are a big family."