What is Robert Carradine doing these days? I haven’t seen him in any movies in a while.
—Makena Trigiani, Orange, New Jersey
Robert Carradine, 59, is cashing in on the success of his hit movie “Revenge of the Nerds” by hosting the TBS competition series “King of the Nerds,” now in its second season, along with Curtis Armstrong, his co-star in the 1984 film.
“King of the Nerds” starts with 11 competitors, who face challenges that test their intellect, ingenuity, skills and pop-culture prowess. The master of all things nerd wins a $100,000 prize.
Why a nerd reality series so many years after the movie? The Hollywood, California-born actor, who is also an executive producer on the show, says, “When all the advertising out there in the world seemed to feature at least one nerd, and it seemed like we could feel a groundswell of nerd-dom rising and rising and rising until finally, it was one of those deals where [Curtis and I] said, ‘OK, I think it’s time.'”
That by no means has put an end to Carradine’s acting career. His most recent credits include the TV movie “Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt” and the feature films “Django Unchained” and “Slumber Party Slaughter,” and, of course, the several years he spent on “Lizzie McGuire.”
If he had had his druthers, Carradine would have been a Formula 1 race car driver, and while he did spend 20 years or so racing sports cars, he realized that acting was a better way to pay the bills, so he followed his family — father John Carradine and brothers Keith and David — into the family business.
“My father used to say that acting was an art about which a great deal can be learned, but nothing can be taught,” says the youngest brother of the Carradine clan. “I think it’s true. I try to be diligent and attend an acting class to study my craft, but I never get from that what I get from the challenge of trying to be real. That’s my only criteria for the art of acting. That’s what I strive for every time I work.”
Carradine is married and has three children — a son and a daughter with wife Edie Mani — and daughter Ever Carradine, who is also in the family business, from a previous relationship with Susan Snyder.
