Four months ago, Kevin Rahm was a waiter. Today, he's the star of the NBC sitcom "Everything's Relative."
If that seems like a bit of a leap, consider that 3 1/2 years ago, Rahm was a student at Brigham Young University. And 6 1/2 years ago, he was on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.You can count the number of actors playing the lead role in network sitcom stars who are returned LDS missionaries on . . . well, on one finger.
"It's surreal. It really is," Rahm said in an interview with the Deseret News.
There aren't a great many working LDS actors in Hollywood. Which does sometimes make Rahm stand out from the crowd in casting sessions when the subject of his religion "inevitably" comes up.
"They'll see on my resume that I went to BYU," Rahm said, "or they'll hear that I lived in Utah and it's, immediately, 'So you're a Mormon.' That comes up all the time."
And he sometimes wishes it wouldn't.
"I'm Kevin. And that happens to be a part of me and a part of my history and something I'm proud of," Rahm said. "But, honestly, I have a hard time with it because I am not Mormonism. . . . It's just a very fine line. I don't want to be the Steve Young of acting. I have my belief structure and it's very important to me, but people start associating that with you and you become that. I want to be judged for my work."
And, to this point, he's been judged quite favorably. "Everything's Relative" (which airs Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. on Ch. 5) has gotten mixed reviews, but Rahm's notices have been overwhelmingly positive.
His isn't a household name yet, but Rahm did make a mark while at BYU. In addition to starring in a number of campus productions -- including one for which he won the prestigious Irene Ryan Acting Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in Washington, D.C. -- he appeared in a couple of made-in-Utah TV movies, some independent films and "Touched by an Angel" while he was here.
But three years ago he decided to give Hollywood a try.
"I decided either I want to graduate from BYU and get a degree so that I can go on and get a master's degree in acting, or it's time to go to L.A. and do the thing," Rahm said.
That move was "very frightening at first. There's no telling what can happen. You're kind of going out here on a wing and a prayer," he said. "I did a lot of waiting tables and a lot of trips back and forth to Utah to get small parts here and there.
"Then I finally decided to settle down here and make this work. I was very lucky and very blessed that it worked out the way it did."
After serving a mission in Switzerland, France and the French-speaking islands off the east coast of Africa, acting was not exactly what Rahm had in mind when he first went to Provo in 1992. "I started out in pre-law," he said. "I was going to go to law school. And I saw a production of 'Tally's Folly' that spring term. I took a theater class that term and auditioned for 'Harvey' at the end of the summer, and I was in a play every semester after that."
Rahm had done plays in high school and won "a couple of little Texas regional awards" for acting. (He grew up in small towns in Louisiana and Texas.)
"Acting is something I did in high school for fun . . . but I never really took it seriously until I got back off my mission," he said.
And there were times when he wasn't quite sure he was up to the challenge. Even when he won the Irene Ryan Award. Afterward, one of the judges, a network executive, suggested that Rahm go back and finish school at BYU.
"I was devastated," he said. "I expected after I won that for someone to say, 'Hey, come to New York! Come to L.A., we'll give you this part."
He certainly never expected to be acting in a TV comedy.
"I had never been on a sitcom set -- ever," Rahm said. "I never thought I would do a sitcom. I love comedy and did a lot of comedy in college. I was in an improv comedy group with my friends."
(A group called, cleverly enough, Improvo.)
"So I loved comedy, but I never saw myself as a sitcom guy. I envisioned myself doing an hour drama or doing movies. But this was such a different take on a sitcom that it worked well for me."
Rahm stars as Leo Gorlick, a comedy writer who is forever torn between trying to break away from his neurotic family members and trying to fix their problems. It was a long, drawn-out process to win the role -- more than six months of repeated auditions.
"They had ideas of who they wanted. I, obviously, wasn't on that original list because they had no idea who I was," he said with a laugh.
Rahm didn't expect anything to come of his first audition and happened to be visiting a friend in New York when his agents called.
"They called saying, 'You have a call-back for this sitcom.' And I had completely forgotten about it. I didn't know what they were talking about," Rahm said. And there were another half-dozen auditions to go.
"A month would go by and I wouldn't hear and I'd think, 'Oh, it must be over.' And then they would call me back in."
He was cast as Leo late last year. (Although, not having gotten paid, he continued to wait tables until the end of December.) And he was surprised and thrilled to discover that Jeffrey Tambor and Jill Clayburgh would be playing his parents. "It was exciting enough just to get an NBC show. I mean, that in and of itself is a huge deal. Especially, for me. I'd never had another show, and I'm playing the character the show is centered around.
"I think (Tambor) is one of the best actors we have right now. And then Jill Clayburgh, who is an icon -- it got more and more surreal. It was almost too good to be true.
"I kept thinking I was going to wake up and it would've all been a sick dream."
They completed work on the four episodes NBC ordered earlier this month, and the show has aired three of four episodes produced. Whether it will be picked up for the fall remains to be seen.
"I guess it's just up to the gods and the Nielsen viewers now," Rahm said. "And the executives at NBC, to see what they're going to do.
"If nothing else, it's been a great experience. I would love for the show to go on. I mean, I adore the people I work with. I think it's really funny, and it's new and it can be very appealing to all different types of people. But even if it doesn't go, I'm sure it will open many more doors, and other things will come of it."