The most surprising parts about the book, "Just A Geek" by Wil Wheaton aren't actually in the book, but that the publisher is O'Reilly, best known for for their computer technical guides with the animals on the cover, and it isn't a tell-all tale of woe of a has-been child teevee actor, or part of the multi-media marketing machine which is Star Trek. The perhaps least surprising part is that Wheaton discovered he could write a book as a result of writing his blog, WWdN (http://www.wilwheaton.net) for three years, and the blog formed the rough draft of the story of how he has grown to be an adult, husband, father and actor. Oh, and a comic book reading, video game playing, html-coding, linux-installing, convention attending geek.
To most people, as an actor in Hollywood, Wil Wheaton is probably best known for his role in "Stand By Me", and his character, Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wheaton starts the book with the character he calls "Prove to Everyone that Quitting Star Trek Wasn't a Mistake", and his struggle to overcome having been somewhat famous. Unlike his blog, which is an ongoing thing, the book is a clearly structured narrative, with a beginning, middle and end, and is a very rewarding, entertaining and insightful read. Having a foreword by Neil Gaiman doesn't hurt either.
A significant portion of the book is about the struggle to make a living as an actor in Hollywood, and two examples highlight this. The first is Wil's realization that he launched WWdN (after running a website on Geocities for a while) on what would have been River Phoenix's 30th birthday (one of the actors from "Stand By Me", and the one who became a Movie Star) and the second is meeting Sean Astin at an audition, Astin having just returned from filming LoTR, and looking for his next job. Like Wil, Astin has been working as an actor for much of his life, and not quite getting his big break (this is featured in the sample chapter below).
While Wil doesn't turn his back on Star Trek (he had a role in the last Trek movie, "Nemesis", which wound up being cut), and he still attends conventions. But as shown in the documentary by Denise Crosby (who also left ST:TNG to try and develop her career) Trekkies, the fan aspect of Star Trek has largely become a merchandising arm of the corporate property.
He doesn't mention it, but I wonder if he has seen the indie movie, "Free Enterprise" which stars Eric McCormack as an aspiring screen writer with a fixation on comics and Star Trek, who encounters "Bill Shatner", played by William Shatner, no longer in "mint condition", who wants to do a one-man rap version of Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar".
In an alternate reality, Wil Wheaton was nominated for an Oscar for his role in "Valmont", and in this one, he is a really good writer and a cool guy.
You can read a sample chapter from "Just A Geek" here.
Article comments