By Kenn Gold

Brian Drolet is taking America by storm starring on the big and small screen, the stage and the digital world.  He continues to make his impact writing, producing and acting in the new MTV series “Disaster Date,” which premiered in September.  Brian got his start when he was discovered by Wilhelmina Modeling agency and walked the runways of New York. He began his acting career with simultaneous roles in MTV’s “Damage Control,” and the lead in the off Broadway play The Ecstasy In the Light. After just one year in New York, Brian moved to Los Angeles and soon booked “Campus Ladies” opposite Jonah Hill and the independent feature The Iron Man. 

Soon after moving to the west coast, Brian was cast in the first season of the MTV sensation “The Hills.”  Rather than continuing with the series and pigeonholing himself as a “reality personality,” Brian chose to leave the show and pursue his acting career.  This decision worked to his advantage as he went on to star in films such as Action News Five, American High School and the upcoming Jay Mewes flick Shoot the Hero. The Internet video’s “Duh Hills,” a parody of “The Hills,” has made him an internet sensation, being featured as one of the most watched video’s on YouTube and appearing regularly on PerezHilton.com.

Brian promises to keep you laughing on “Disaster Date,” playing a plethora of characters, creating “disaster dates” on unsuspecting hopefuls.  He wrote, produced and is starring in 2 Dudes and A Dream along with Andy Milonakis, Jason Mewes, Jon Abrahams and Simon Rex, which will be distributed by Warner Brothers in 2010.  Brian has been living out a dream, performing stand up comedy at the world famous Laugh Factory in LA., writing and producing his own films and hosting funny antics in various segments for Younghollywood.com, interviewing “Mad TV” cast members, Pauly Shore, super model Miranda Kerr, plus many more.

Brian recently spoke to MediaBlvd about his role on “Disaster Date”, how he got into the business, and his upcoming film which he wrote and produced, as well as playing the lead role.

MediaBlvd> Tell us about Disaster Date.  I’ve seen the show a few times and it’s hilarious.  It reminds me of some of the dates I had in my life!

Brian> The funny thing about the show is that I feel like I haven’t been on a date in my real life in such a long time, I’ve been so focused on the acting thing.  So it’s interesting to be on all of these fake dates.  I was more nervous about being on a date with someone who thinks they are on a real date than about what I had to do acting wise, playing the prank on them.  Actually, it’s kind of like Punk’d on a dating scenario.  The marks, the people being pranked, have a best friend or someone who is the accomplice.  And they are the person that contacts MTV and tells us that they want to do this to their friend.  Then that person tells their friend, “Oh, I’ve got this great guy or great girl that you’ve got to meet.  They’re perfect for you.”  They hype the person up.  Then this poor person gets excited, and we have a car sent for them.  They think they are going to meet some rich or fancy person when there is a car sent for them.  They are brought to the location, whether it be a coffee shop, or winery, or wherever it happens to be.  Then there are hidden cameras in the walls and everywhere where all the producers are hiding.  Then they are on a date, and the actors, there are 8 or 9 of us and we vary from improve actors to stand up comedians.  We have a sheet on the person with things that they strongly dislike and we just try to make the date as much of a disaster for them as possible.  It should be their worst date.

MediaBlvd> How did the idea come about, and how did you become a part of this?

Brian> The way that I ended up becoming a part of it was through my friend, Cameron Goodman.  She’s a really talented actress, and I’ve done a couple of film roles with her, and she was on Wild’N Out on MTV.  Initially, she had shot the pilot episode and it had gotten picked up by MTV, then they needed to recast a couple of the people so were holding auditions.  She referred me, and I think one of the executives at MTV had seen some of my YouTube videos.  You can check out my channel on YouTube, it’s Biggdro- I make a lot of YouTube videos.  She referred me, and MTV was familiar with me from season 1 of The Hills, and I was on another TV show called Damage Control, which was my first job ever in the entertainment industry.  So they called me in to audition, and the audition was just like a mock date.  They gave us some options of some things we could do, but I kind of just went in there with my plan to make the date just absolutely miserable when I auditioned.  The next thing I knew, I got the show.  It was really exciting.

MediaBlvd> Do you have a script to work from, or just general ideas about what to do?

Brian> Yeah, we have a script to work from, what we call the “beat sheet”.  Essentially, it’s just beats that you want to hit, like make sure you touch her hair a certain amount of times, because she hates when people touch her hair.  The writers are really creative, they would basically create a fictional person based off of this person’s dislikes that would be their worst date, then as actors, we would have to read the script and see what they want to happen.  But it’s all beats, or things we are supposed to say and a dialogue we are supposed to stick to, but then we improve.  Of course we can’t predict what they will ask us.  That was the real challenge that I found was making up all of these things about ourselves- what we do, where we are from.   There is no limit to what the person on the date can ask us about that stuff.  So I found myself doing a lot of Googleing on information.  One week I’d be an environmental enthusiast, and I’m like, “OK, I need to know as many facts about that as I can.”  So there is an outline, but we strayed from it quite a bit.

MediaBlvd> What do you think about the internet, and the opportunities it offers?  I know your stuff is pretty popular there.

Brian>  The internet is amazing.  It was kind of interesting being an actor in Hollywood.  There was no YouTube when I moved out here.  My background in school was electronic intermedia.  I was basically an art major and I got to create funny videos.  I’d film them, act in them, and edit them.  Then when YouTube came out, I was just like, “Oh my God, all of these videos and things I love to make, I can just upload them onto the internet.”  It’s cool, one of my best friends is an actor, and I’m sure you’ve heard of him or know him- Andy Milonakis-.  He was uploading things on the internet, and that’s how he got discovered on the internet by Jimmy Kimmel.  So I feel like I’ve been lucky, I’ve got to see from the inside the entertainment business what the internet has done, creating people like Bo Burnham.  There’s a million more, and so I love it.  I put a video up, and in a weeks time you can have thirty thousand to a million views and comments.  It’s cool as an artist that likes to create videos that you can instantly get it out there.  I think the internet is amazing, and I think it’s going to take over.  Eventually, your computer and television are going to become the same thing.  I actually know some people that are working on the technology where you can go to your favorite shows, just like you’d go on Hulu or YouTube, and just go to segments you want.  Television is going to become more and more like that. 

MediaBlvd> It’s really amazing that you can just put your own stuff out there and not have to worry about finding a publisher or producer and everything.

Brian> Yeah, it’s an artist’s dream come true.  You can cut out all of the middle men.

MediaBlvd> Let’s start about how you got your start in acting.  How did you know that’s what you wanted to do?

Brian> For me, it was like one of these things where my whole life, I knew I wanted to do it.  I never took notes in school, and always knew, “I’m going to go and be an actor.”  I grew up in Queens New York, and as I got older, I fell in love in college, and started to think, maybe I’ll just be a graphics designer, those are just dreams.   It was just an itch that I always wanted to scratch, and no matter how hard I tried to do something else, it was just calling to me in one way or another.  So it was something that was always there, then a big life changer for me was when I was in college, working at Abercrombie and Fitch.  I had an opportunity to drive down to Orlando to audition for something called Abercrombie TV, which was just an online thing.  And I didn’t get it at the time, but I remembered it was just a really exciting experience to drive down and audition for something. 

A little God wink I had along the way, I stopped at a gas station and was looking for a magazine and a best friend of mine that I had had growing up, that I had lost touch with was in a Tommy Hilfiger ad as a model. I remember thinking, “Holy Cow!”  It was weird seeing someone from my old neighborhood in a Tommy Hilfiger ad.  It kind of got those ambitions circulating again.  My family had retired from New York to South Florida, and at my mother and sister’s urging, I figured let me go try walking into a modeling agency, maybe that could be my gateway.  I had no clue at the time.  I went to Wilhelmina models, and I’m a pretty tall guy.  I’m 6’5” and that’s pretty tall for a male model, it’s too tall really.  I told them I really wanted to do acting, and they took me on, and sent me on some castings, which once again got me really excited.  A couple of months later, I decided I needed to go to New York or LA if I really want to do this, and I told my parents I had to do this.  It was my life’s calling, and I’d been thinking about it forever.  I packed up my bags, quit my job and moved up to New York and got an apartment in Queens. 

Everywhere I went, I got rejected.  I literally walked around Manhattan knocking on doors of talent agencies. What changed everything for me, and this was before DVDs when people were still using VHS, Ijust made the most amateur VHS tape ever of me doing impersonations and characters.  I gave it to this woman who was a secretary at a talent agency, and she was like, “Oh yeah, thanks!”  She ended up watching it and being really impressed with what I did.  I had given it to other people who laughed at me and said, “This is so amateurish.”  They said, “Don’t give this to anybody.”  I didn’t know anything at the time, and I didn’t want to be denied, so I just kept giving it to people, I had nothing to loose.  But this woman liked it, and sent the tape to somebody at MTV.  Next thing I know, MTV calls me in for a general meeting with their casting department. 

At that time in my life, this was my big chance.  MTV told me we will give you 15 minutes in front of the camera, come up with whatever you want, improv, whatever.  I documented my trip and had taken pictures and videos, and was like, “What the heck am I going to do?”  There was no script, nothing!  I remember I got there, and I did something I had always done in high school that I called multiple personality disorder act.   I walked in and told them, “I’m ready to do something for you guys, but I’ve got to warn you, I have multiple personality disorder.”  They didn’t really know what I was getting at, but I’d fall asleep and wake up as a different person.  I did that over and over again, and just became a different person every time.  The next thing I know, a couple of days later, they called me in to audition for an improve show, which is ironically kind of similar to Disaster Date.  But that was the show called Damage Control, and that was my first job that got me started meeting people in the business.  So that’s kind of how it happened at the most very begging.  Obviously there’s a lot more, but it would take forever.  So making that VHS tape was kind of the turning point, which got someone to take me somewhat seriously.

MediaBlvd> It seems like you’ve kind of run the gambit from acting, producing, writing, and stage, TV and movies.  A little bit of everything.  What do you find the most rewarding, or what is it that makes you feel the most satisfied at the end of the day?

Brian>  The most satisfying thing is a film that I wrote, produced and starred in, and that comes out on December 1^st.  2 Dudes and a Dream, I have to say that is the most rewarding experience because I love acting, I’ve done plays, I’ve done stand up comedy.  But I love coming up with an idea, sitting at my computer, writing it.  The last script that I wrote, it’s been about a year and a half process of making the outline.  Once you write a script and give it to other writers, they give you notes.  You give it to actors, you have table reads.  It’s such a long journey.  2 Dudes and a Dream took pretty much 4 years from conceiving the idea, to it actually coming out.  When something takes that long, it’s so much more rewarding as a done product because you put so much time and effort into it.  Plus, when you are on the creative and producing side, as well as the acting side, you have more control over the final product.  But when you act, you don’t know how they are going to cut it, whether they are going to cut your performance out, how they are going to put it together.  I think what I really love the most, and what I hope my career will be, is I want to write, produce and star in my own comedies, much like Adam Sandler, Jon Favreau, and Vince Vaughn- all of these people that do it themselves, to me that is the most rewarding experience. 

MediaBlvd> Can you tell us a little bit about the movie?  What is the plot and concept for 2 Dudes and a Dream?

Brian> Yeah, sure.  2 Dudes and a Dream came together when me and my buddy, Jordan Eubanks who was on Season one of The Hills as well, we were driving across country.  We  met on that show Damage Control, and were driving across country to LA.  And we were just 2 Dudes in a car with a dream.  I remember I said, “2 Dudes and a Dream, that sounds like a movie.”  Jordan said, “Yeah, we need to make this movie.”  I think I saw Matt Damon in an interview once and he said, “You’ve got to do it yourself.”  So we were like, “Yeah, we’ve got to make this movie.”  So then the movie kind of came from our real life experiences, the people we met in Hollywood and the friends we had.  I’d never written anything before, and so I started writing it.  We kind of came up with the idea. 

The movie is about two guys who move to Hollywood, and the 2 Dudes don’t know each other.  One dude is Thomas Price who lives in upstate New York and works in a movie theatre.  He dreams of being a movie star, and that is my character.  The other dude is a short heavy guy who lives on a farm in North Carolina, and his name is Sebastian Dingle, played by Nic Nac.  He dreams of being a supermodel and he is a short heavy guy.  Both dudes come from humble beginnings, where people tell them their dreams are crazy.  They move out to Hollywood and it’s like a fun romp through Hollywood.  The ironic twist in the movie is the short heavy guy takes off as a plus-size model, and my character struggles to be an actor the whole movie.  So this short heavy guy becomes a super famous plus-sized model overnight.  We just make fun of all the Hollywood clichés and just poke fun.  It’s really a light hearted, fun plot, almost like if Family Guy were to become a movie.  There’s flashbacks and things like that, and fun characters.  Andy (Milonakis) is in the movie, and we have Dirt Nasty, which is Simon Rex’s rap persona.  And Jason Mewes is a clerk.  He is my boss at Pink Dot.  I’d describe it as just a fun, light hearted movie about going after your dreams. 

MediaBlvd> Do you guys have a distribution deal yet?  Is it going to be widely released and everything?

Brian> Yeah, it’s coming out and going to be available on demand and on DVD.  That was really exciting too.  It’s being distributed on DVD by Empire film group.  They actually released Adam Sandler’s first movie, Man Overboard, and that is kind of cool.  Then Gravitas is doing the on-demand.  Warner Brothers is getting behind our movie as well in the digital distribution.  It’s going to be available pretty much everywhere that on-demand is available, casinos, hotels, different cable networks, and airplanes.  And the DVD is getting a wide release as well.  It’s really exciting that Warner Brothers is getting behind it as well.

MediaBlvd> Congratulations, it sounds like a dream come true!

Brian> The whole process has been very serendipitous.  The whole movie was made possible because a group of people in Hollywood who have a dream to make movies came together.  Everyone worked for free, pretty much.  The movie was made for nothing, and everything was favors and friendships.  The movie is a testament to what can be done if you really want to do something, and that is what I’d hope to convey.  If you have a dream out there, go for it, and don’t listen to people who tell you that you can’t do it.  Where there is a will, there is a way.

MediaBlvd> Is there anything else that you’d like to mention, or promote that we haven’t covered?

Brian> I guess I’d just encourage everybody to go check out 2 Dudes and a Dream.  Check out my YouTube channel, BiggDro.  Watch Disaster Date on MTV, and just look out for more of Brian Drolet in the future.  Hopefully I’ll have a lot more fun projects.