Ron Howard’s only acting role in 40 years that he didn’t phone in: “I want to be actually good”
The most obvious downside of Ron Howard realising at an early age that he wanted to be a director and not an actor was that he couldn’t do a damn thing about it until someone was willing to take a chance on a rookie filmmaker to see if he had what it takes to succeed.
The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days endeared him to multiple generations of television audiences, and they were lucrative gigs for a youngster, never mind the dozens of films and other shows he appeared in during that time. However, he was becoming increasingly miserable with his on-camera antics.
It was midway through Happy Days‘ run when Howard realised it was now or never for his directorial dream, and like many others before him, he was welcomed with open arms by Roger Corman. Once he’d gotten 1977’s Grand Theft Auto under his belt, it was only a matter of time before he gave up thespianism altogether.
Sure enough, the last time the two-time Academy Award winner played a character other than himself or in an uncredited cameo in a movie was in 1979’s American Graffiti. On the small screen, he’s portrayed one non-Ron Howard character since 1986 during a three-episode guest stint on The Odd Couple.
He’s admitted that his daughter might be the only person capable of luring him back onto the screen to return to his roots and give a genuine performance instead of cropping up as himself every now and again, but he did recently land a Primetime Emmy nomination for a scene-stealing turn on The Studio.
Despite starting his acting career almost 70 years ago and being famous for almost the entire time, it’s only the third time Howard has been shortlisted for an acting award, and the first since he won a Golden Globe for ‘Best Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy’ in Happy Days all the way back in 1977.
Having always been self-aware enough to know who he is as both a performer and filmmaker, Howard knew he couldn’t phone The Studio in. “I know I do a lot of these cameos where I play myself, whether it’s Arrested Development or Only Murders in the Building,” he admitted to Deadline. “I said, ‘Those are cameos and I don’t always like myself in them when I see them.'”
When Seth Rogen came calling, though, he knew he needed to up his game. “I said, ‘I don’t want to be cameo good, I want to be actually good,'” he explained. “And so I said, ‘Who’s directing?’ And they said, ‘We are’. And I said, ‘OK, crack the whip’. Well, it turns out I really loved the material, worked very hard on it, and they didn’t have to crack the whip.'”
If he’s to win, Howard has to overcome a crowded field, almost all of whom were also in The Studio.
Bear‘s Jon Bernthal is the only outlier, with the Apollo 13 director up against Bryan Cranston, Dave Franco, Anthony Mackie, and first-time Emmy acting nominee Martin Scorsese, who’s already miles out in front as the sentimental favourite to win.
