When writer-producer Adam F. Goldberg set out to cast the 11-year-old lead in his autobiographical sitcom, “The Goldbergs,” he wanted a Fred Savage-type kid: Real, slightly awkward, the exact opposite of the stereotypical, oh-so-precocious child actor.
Instead, he encountered LA kid after LA kid, each with a patina of early experience and a slickness that comes from living so close to show business. Their jokes turned too perfectly, their exits were too framed and their movements too robotic, Goldberg said.
Call it the “Disney kid” problem.
The actors “felt like they had been very rehearsed, very practiced,” Goldberg said. “The acting was broad and cartoony. … We just wanted a normal kid who went to school, who hadn’t been trained.”
Then, with the start of production mere days away, Park Ridge-raised Sean Giambrone auditioned.
“He talked about video games,” Goldberg remembered of Sean’s tryout. “He really was just a normal kind of sweet, awkward kid, which reminded me of how I would have gone into an audition at that age, just totally clueless and not knowing what I was walking into. It was a slam dunk-right when he walked in.”
That was a Wednesday. Sean auditioned again Thursday, was cast Friday and started shooting the pilot Monday.
During a recent (and very rare) hiatus from filming, Sean, 15, whose high-pitched voice oozes innocence, remembered not having “too much time to think or feel” after landing the role of Adam.
“It was really a whirlwind,” Sean said on the phone from California. “It was just excitement and awe and kind of an unknown feeling because this was all happening so fast, but when we started filming, I just loved the whole experience.”
“The Goldbergs,” which airs Wednesdays on ABC, is based on creator Adam F. Goldberg’s home movies. Set in the ’80s, the show follows a mostly average suburban Pennsylvania family of mom, dad, grandpa, older brother, older sister and young protagonist, Adam. Narrated by the older Adam (a la “The Wonder Years”), the series centers on the trials of growing up as experienced by the littlest Goldberg.
While Sean certainly has laugh-out-loud moments, the show shines because of his sincere sweetness. He’s the every-kid, charming to a fault, obsessing over the pop culture of the moment (George Michael and “Star Wars” in his character’s case) and struggling through those important firsts: first crush, first kiss and first game of gym dodgeball.
Off camera, Sean, whose Chicago accent is thick enough to cut with a knife, is as pleasant and likable as his on-screen character, many of his castmates said.
“He’s the finest person I’ve ever met,” said Jeff Garlin, who plays Sean’s TV dad.
A kid today
A few months before Sean auditioned for “The Goldbergs,” he started eighth grade at Lincoln Middle School. One of his first assignments for Melissa Walters’ language arts class was to give a report on a book he read over the summer, she said.
“He showed up to school to deliver his book talk and was in costume and had props, and the kids were just mesmerized,” Walters said. “Here was something that could have been just a dull what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation report, but he really took that opportunity to bring the book to life. I remember, a few weeks later, spotting the book on the desks of some other students and they said, ‘Sean gave such a great book talk that I couldn’t wait to read it.'”
“Middle schoolers tend to be a little nonchalant and hard to impress, but he really managed to captivate his classmates,” she continued.
Sean became interested in acting about six years ago when he and his older brother, Luke, started making home movies. (A bit of kismet considering his “Goldbergs” character totes a camcorder to film his family.)
“I always had a blast (making those movies), dressing up in the costumes and stuff,” Sean said, recalling a film with a bounty hunter plotline, and another in which he played an Austin Powers-like part. “I loved the whole idea of getting into character. Then, when I was in elementary school, there was a variety show that I acted in. That’s when I started thinking that I wanted to pursue it.”
Soon after, Sean’s mom, Vonda, took him to meet agent Brooke Tonneman, co-owner of Chicago-based Big Mouth Talent. The moment Tonneman met Sean, she knew he was special, she said.
“When you watch him on screen, you are just drawn to him and whatever he is doing in that scene,” she said. “You find yourself watching his character. … He can definitely read what a director is looking for and we could see that in him even at (age) 9.”
Tonneman sent Sean on commercial auditions, and he booked gigs for McDonald’s, Friendly’s and SeaWorld — his SeaWorld spot reached a rarefied level of commercial popularity when it was parodied on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.”
Just before landing “The Goldbergs,” Sean got a voice-over part on Cartoon Network’s “Clarence.” Both roles display Sean’s infectious sense of humor.
Sean can “look at a scene and know where the comedy is and know why it’s funny,” Tonneman said. “For a young kid, sometimes that is hard, to see where the comedy is, to see the humor in something that is an adult situation. I think he’s really good at reading, understanding and being able to make a scene funny.”
A kid in the ’80s
A newborn when Y2K fears escalated, Sean turned to the show’s writers — and a heavy rotation of John Hughes films — to learn about ’80s culture.
“If you think about the 1980s, I already knew most of the top things like the big hair and the bright colors,” Sean said. “Once I read the scripts, they just spoke to me as to how the ’80s felt. The writers make it easy to act like I am in the ’80s. And if you watch the movies from the ’80s, they just have a great aura about them.”
Knowledge of the decade aside, members of “The Goldbergs” cast were painfully aware that the Adam Goldberg character had to connect with audiences for the series to work. They needed a Frankie Muniz, a Claire Danes, and when many of the ensemble members showed up for the first day of filming, they didn’t know who would be helming the all-important role.
“We were all a little nervous because there was no bonding time, there was no get-to-know-you time,” said Wendi McLendon-Covey, who masterfully plays Adam’s overbearing mother, Beverly. “It was all just a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-type of thing for him.”
“Thank God the kid has some natural ability,” she added with a laugh.
Many of Sean’s castmates said his innate authenticity adds heart and truth to every scene.
“He is good at one of the most difficult things to do in acting, which is simply listening,” said George Segal, who portrays Adam’s grandpa, Pops.
“He listens, he hears, he gets it and then he responds like a real person. … He gets real joy from acting and that’s contagious. When he gets it right, there’s this wonderful feeling that we all get,” Segal said.
“The Goldbergs” has its share of star power. McLendon-Covey, an improv stalwart, was one of the “Bridesmaids”; Garlin, a stand-up veteran, co-stars on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”; and Segal, a longtime stage and screen veteran, led the successful sitcom “Just Shoot Me!”
In the face of those heavy hitters, Sean stands his ground and rises to their level of professionalism and performance.
“He’s a very calming influence,” McLendon-Covey said. “When we have to do a big family scene, there is always a lot of manic nervous energy because everybody is always on, even between takes, and Sean just sits there and takes it all in.
“Sometimes I feel like I am in the presence of a little Buddha because he can stay calm and look at us and just laugh. I feel like, ‘Oh, man, this kid is wise beyond his years.'”
Sean isn’t sure yet whether he’ll keep acting, though he would love to “as long as the work keeps coming,” he said.
Whatever he decides to do, McLendon-Covey is sure he won’t turn into “a Hollywood casualty.”
“Sean just has that little something extra that will make him a success no matter what he does,” she said.
“He might choose to stay in this business, he might choose to do something else. But Sean will always succeed.”
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