Acting brings Vegas native to big screen, small screen, Betty White
He'll always have Vegas.
And, starting this week, Las Vegas native Sean Wing also has a new TV show -- and new movie -- to showcase his talents, which have taken him from the Las Vegas Academy to Broadway.
ABC's new legal drama "The Whole Truth" (10 p.m. Wednesdays on KTNV-TV, Channel 13) casts Wing, 28, as Chad Griffin, a young New York prosecutor with a lot to learn.
And today, moviegoers will see Wing in the comedy "You Again."
Technically, his leading lady is Kristen Bell as Marni, a former high school misfit determined to sabotage her beloved brother's imminent wedding to the girl who made high school so miserable for her. (Wing plays the brother's longtime pal -- and Marni's longtime crush.)
But Wing's quick to admit that his favorite "You Again" co-star was Betty White, who plays the main character's Grandma Bunny.
"There's nothing more funny than watching Betty White and Cloris Leachman go at it" between takes, Wing says of White and her on-screen nemesis, who has a brief cameo. (Until the sequel, we presume.)
"I tell everyone she's my idol," he adds, in part because her more than half-century of showbiz success is due to "steady work" rather than off-screen notoriety.
"You Again" finished shooting about a year ago, so it's "a happy accident" that Wing's latest movie and new TV show arrive the same week.
Instead, his "Whole Truth" duties began over the summer, immediately following a three-month Broadway run in the acclaimed musical "American Idiot."
Initially, Wing received an offer to understudy the lead role in the show inspired by the music of Green Day.
"I passed, because it was during (TV) pilot season, and I wanted to book a pilot," he says.
He did book a pilot: "The Whole Truth." After filming had ended, however, Wing received another offer from "American Idiot" -- as a temporary replacement for a cast member who had injured his knee.
"Broadway is a really incredible experience," Wing says. "To be at the apex of musical theater, in an incredible new project, is something I'll always cherish."
Especially because "I literally grew up in the theater," he adds, remembering how his mother -- a dance instructor and choreographer -- would bring him along when she worked on various musicals.
As a result, the theater became "a home away from home for me," Wing says.
That home away from home was primarily in Utah, where he spent much of his boyhood.
But Wing estimates he spent about 30 percent of his youth in Las Vegas -- including his junior year in high school, when he attended the Las Vegas Academy. (Other former Academy students now on TV include "Criminal Minds' " Matthew Gray Gubler and "True Blood's" Rutina Wesley.)
Besides, Las Vegas always will be Wing's hometown. (In an only-in-Vegas touch, Wing's mother was at Circus Circus when she went into labor with him, he says.)
After graduating from high school in Utah, Wing headed to L.A. His first showbiz break came as a member of the boy band Fource , enabling him to indulge his love of travel.
It also turned out to be Wing's "first real acting gig," he says, not entirely in jest, due to his "having to pretend to be into" Fource's boy-band pop rather than the indie rock he grew up with.
"I was happy that it ended" after two years, he says, in part because "I wanted to get back into acting."
He did, joining the cast of ABC Family's "Beautiful People." When that series folded after 18 episodes, however, Wing returned to his previous job -- in a bar.
"A humbling experience," he acknowledges, but "it's good -- it gives you character."
Besides, Wing kept getting roles, in a variety of independent films and TV guest spots.
These days, he can observe other actors in guest roles on "The Whole Truth," while he adjusts to the show's "pretty intense work schedule."
Being a regular in a legal drama means Wing's character spends a lot of time sitting in a courtroom -- trying to look interested even when he's not delivering dialogue.
"The good part about my character is that he's brand new," Wing says. As Griffin, a trust-fund kid who got his job through family connections, "there's a lot I still don't know. I failed the bar (exam) twice."
As a result, "the way my character is written," Wing spouts "a lot less technical jargon" than his senior colleagues, played by "ER's" Maura Tierney and "Oz's" Eamonn Walker. "What I really like about the character," Wing says, "is that I'm a little bit over my head."
Wing's speaking as Griffin, of course, not himself.
That's because Wing thrives wherever his career takes him, whether it's a soundstage or a Broadway stage.
"It's my personality -- and it drives my family crazy," he admits. "I don't really plan my trajectory. I just try to find interesting things to do with my life."
Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.
