Media > Articles > Ben McKenzie Benjamin McKenzie's Big Break Statesman.com He left Austin as Ben Schenkkan. Six years later; he's grabbing Hollywood's attention as the star of Fox's 'The O.C.' By Diane Holloway AMERICAN-STATESMAN TELEVISION WRITER Monday, August 4, 2003 SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- What a difference a few years make. In the fall of 1996, Ben Schenkkan was racing for the end zone, an Austin High Maroon happily competing on a winning team. In the fall of 2003, he's racing toward stardom, possibly the newest American heartthrob on Fox's new series "The O.C.," which debuts Tuesday. The 24-year-old actor, known in Hollywood these days as Benjamin McKenzie, is being described in some circles as a young Russell Crowe. He looks a bit more like James Dean in his publicity shots. But the bad-boy, moodier-than-thou demeanor is nowhere to be found in person. Instead, there's a winning smile, an easy charm and impeccable manners. "It's a Fox thing, the bad-boy image. They're trying to type me out," McKenzie said during an interview at an elegant beach hotel near his apartment. "There are worse things in life, you know. I'm just really excited about the opportunity." McKenzie, son of Austin attorney Pete Schenkkan and poet-writer Frances Schenkkan, stars as Ryan Atwood in "The O.C." The new Fox series, a cross between sexy-soap "Melrose Place" and family-drama "Everwood," focuses on the relationship between abandoned teen Ryan and public defender Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher), who invites the boy to live with his family in exclusive Newport Beach in Orange County (the 'O.C.' in the show's name.). Cohen's blue-blood wife (Kelly Rowan), a beautiful girl next door (Mischa Barton) and the Cohens' outcast son (Adam Brody) round out the core group. Playing a kid from the wrong side of the tracks is going against type for McKenzie, who hails from a relatively affluent Old Austin family. "It's against type in the sense of my background, but it's with type in the sense that I am a loner who's new to this business and skeptical about a lot of it," McKenzie said. McKenzie, by the way, is still legally Schenkkan. He changed his name for screen-credit purposes because there's an actor named Ben Schenkman registered with the Screen Actors Guild. He didn't want the two names confused. "The O.C." producers, McG (the "Charlie's Angels" movies and "Fastlane") and Doug Liman ("The Bourne Identity," "Swingers"), needed four rounds of auditions to cast McKenzie, but now they're convinced he's going to be the hot-shot hunk of the season. And it doesn't hurt that he's also level-headed, smart and talented. A solid foundation for making it big The typical big-break story in Hollywood usually begins with years of starving and working minimum wage jobs. McKenzie's rise, however, has been relatively swift and painless, although it may not have felt that way at times. Born and raised in Austin, McKenzie graduated from Austin High in '97. He wasn't involved in plays; he was deep into football. He followed his father and grandfather to the University of Virginia, where he graduated in 2001 with a degree in economics and foreign relations. So, how does a young man leap from such intellectual studies into acting? "I'm somewhat puzzled about that myself," McKenzie said, grinning. "I did theater in college, so I had already started down that path, but I didn't want to major in theater at U. Va. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I thought I'd get a good education and do some acting at the same time." His parents, whom McKenzie describes as "ridiculously supportive," weren't surprised by the sharp turn toward acting. "We saw as many of his plays in college as we could, and it was clear he was very happy doing it and, in our opinion, showed great promise," Pete Schenkkan said. Actually, good education and acting are part of McKenzie's pedigree. His uncle, Robert Schenkkan, is an actor and author who won the '92 Pulitzer Prize for writing "The Kentucky Cycle." McKenzie's paternal grandparents both did some acting when they were young. His 22-year-old brother Nate is a Yale graduate working in avant-garde theater in New York. Younger brother Zack, 19, is attending Pomona College, a half-hour away from Los Angeles, and still pondering his future. Hoping to make a career in theater after college, McKenzie performed in the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts and then headed for New York -- arriving a month before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "It was a very strange place to be," McKenzie said. "Broadway and Off-Broadway were hit hard, and there just wasn't a lot going on in theater. But I got a tiny part in an Off-Broadway play and just loved the pure experience of acting on stage." McKenzie waited tables to help support himself and shared a bunk bed in a cramped apartment in the city. But it didn't take long for him to realize that New York, as much as he loved the acting community there, was not the place to be after Sept. 11. On the advice of his uncle, he decided to give Los Angeles a try. Not long after arriving on the West Coast, McKenzie landed "a tiny, tiny TV job" on CBS's "The District," playing a teenager who had been molested by a priest. When pilot season rolled around, he landed "The O.C." Now he's a one-man corporation, with a manager, publicist and lawyer on the payroll (he's shopping for a new agent now that his career is taking off). "I can't complain," McKenzie said. "I had one year of struggle. My parents were always there, but I didn't want to rely on them. Now it's moving pretty fast. I'm not rich, but obviously this is fantastic. All I know to do with money is put it in a shoe box anyway." McKenzie declines to say how much he's making, but the per-episode amount is probably between $15,000 and $25,000. He recently moved into a new apartment in Santa Monica and bought a sleek new Infiniti G35, which he concedes he spends more on than housing. A vote of confidence Fox executives have high hopes for "The O.C." and has bought 13 episodes for the first half of the season. Premiering the show in early August, before the crush of competition, is a sign of support. The going could get tough in the fall, however, when the series moves to Thursdays, opposite NBC's "Will & Grace" and CBS's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." But if, as expected, "The O.C." catches fire in the summer and continues with more episodes for a full season, McKenzie will be on a fast track to fame. Teen and entertainment magazines are already describing him in hot-and-hunky terms. In fact, the TV show "Entertainment Tonight" used those exact words. Is McKenzie ready for the fame game, for having teenage girls squeal when he walks by, ganging up on him in the grocery store? "I don't really know," McKenzie said, sipping coffee to ward off fatigue after working late and having only three hours sleep the night before. "I have a tremendous excitement about all of this. And maybe some trepidation. I definitely need to develop thicker skin. The speed of television means you're not always going to get what you want performance-wise. "Sometimes those fears (about fame) creep into the back of your head, but then you slap yourself and think, 'Oh, woe is me! People actually like me.' What a silly thing to worry about. This is a huge opportunity, and I'm excited." All about Benjamin McKenzie Screen name: Benjamin McKenzie Legal name: Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan Age: 24 Born: Sept. 12, 1978 in Austin Education: Austin High, graduated 1997; University of Virginia, bachelor's degree 2001 Marital status: Single Current job: Star of Fox's 'The O.C.' 2003 Virtual Rain. This is an unofficial fansite with no relation to FOX, Warner Brothers, or any of their associates. 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