“Growing up is never easy,” Kevin Arnold once said. “You hold on to things that were; you wonder what’s to come. … It was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be — other days, new days, days to come.”
The voice was Daniel Stern’s, who provided narration throughout The Wonder Years’ six seasons, but the character was embodied by Fred Savage. And if Kevin was fixated on recounting the past, Savage focuses less on “what had been” and more on those “days to come.”
He lives and works in the moment, which is clear in the way he’s compartmentalized his passion for both acting and directing: After his star-making turn on The Wonder Years, he opted for academia and then turned his attention to directing television, which has occupied the last 15 years of his life. And now he’s finally back to his first love: Savage is starring on Fox's freshman series The Grinder, his first major acting gig since the short-lived 2006 series Crumbs. The role that brought him back to television after a nearly 10-year hiatus is attorney Stewart Sanderson, whose actor brother Dean (Rob Lowe) returns home and upends Stewart’s life by parlaying his TV lawyering into joining Stewart’s firm.
With his career shifting back in front of the camera, Savage has had to make peace with putting directing aside for the time being. “I really don't spend a lot of time nursing wounds, or saying, ‘Oh, I should have done that,’ or, ‘I could be doing that,’” he said at trendy L.A. eatery Republique, which he rode up to — in true Kevin Arnold fashion — on a bike.
But his commitment to the present doesn’t mean he won’t discuss his three decades in the entertainment industry. “Any career for 30 years is pretty extraordinary, let alone in the entertainment business. And I feel like I’m just getting started,” he said. “I know how lucky I am that I can work in a field and make my living in a field that I love. That’s a rare thing.”
Despite getting his start at a very young age, Savage is well-adjusted. That can almost seem like a front, but Savage speaks with a sincerity that proves it’s not.
“I appreciate everything. I built my career from very humble beginnings. Every job I’ve had, every next rung on the ladder, I appreciate, because I know where it started,” Savage said, his omnipresent smile widening to a grin.
“I started doing Pac-Man vitamin commercials.”
Scott Council for BuzzFeed News; styling by April Steiner / Exclusive Artists Management; grooming by Myriam Arougheti.
Savage had no particular interest in acting when he first started doing it. Despite his lack of ambition, which would come later, the then-6-year-old found himself at his local community center in Highland Park, Illinois, where open auditions for TV commercials were being held.
“Instead of going to the park, my mom and her friends took me and all my friends, and we just did that for the afternoon,” he recalled. “We weren’t trying to break into show business or be famous, or anything like that.”
Although Savage didn’t book the gig that day, the director, Bob Richter, remembered him and called him back in a few more times until something finally clicked. That something was a Pac-Man vitamins commercial, which thrilled Savage. “Pac-Man was like the coolest thing in the world then to me,” he said.
Savage only makes a brief appearance in the commercial — “Goodbye, Fred; hello, Pac-Man,” he says, as his onscreen mom ditches his Flintstones vitamins in favor of Pac-Man ones — but he makes an impression. He was a natural on camera and a cute kid. He enjoyed the experience enough to keep going out for auditions, and Richter, who had his own production company in Chicago, continued to hire him. He was “the first guy to really see something in me,” Savage said.
“It just kind of snowballed, but it started out as something fun to do,” he added. “And I feel like that attitude has stayed with me. Everything I’ve jumped into and tried and every experience I’ve had and career opportunity, including going to The Grinder, it was just because it sounded exciting and fun and new and different.”
In the late ’80s, Savage’s commercial work transitioned into film and TV appearances. One of his first movie roles was as the Grandson in The Princess Bride in 1987; while the film, which has since achieved cult status, bombed at the time, it led to more opportunities, including 1988’s Vice Versa. The father-son take on Freaky Friday got Savage noticed by Neal Marlens and Carol Black, who were in the beginning stages of creating The Wonder Years.
Committing to a TV series was a more ambitious undertaking for