His name is Kirby, like the vacuum cleaner. His cherubic face has graced the big screen, billboards, CD covers — and soon audiences will be able to see him on TV every week.
Folks in Utah and elsewhere have come to know Kirby Heyborne from such LDS-centric movies as "The Singles Ward," "The R.M." "The Work and the Story," "The Best Two Years," "Sons of Provo" and the award-winning "Saints and Soldiers."
But don't look for an LDS missionary tag in his upcoming small-screen role, which Heyborne says may raise a few eyebrows among those who have followed his movies.
"I'm on a new sitcom on Fox (Ch. 13 locally), and I have really long hair," Heyborne said by phone from Los Angeles. "It's hilarious. It's called 'Free Ride,' a single-camera comedy. There's no live studio audience."
Heyborne isn't a regular, but he does play a recurring character on the show, which is slated to begin March 1, feature a lot of young people, mostly new faces. Heyborne plays the best friend to the main lead.
"My character is insanely obsessed with his family," he said. "He has a wife he married out of high school and a kid out of high school. I'm not playing a Mormon character."
He's also working on a couple of movie projects that are not about LDS culture.
So does that mean this good boy has gone bad?
Hardly.
In real life, Heyborne is a clean-cut LDS man married to wife Trisha. They are the parents of two children and have been living in the L.A. area for the past two years.
He says he is proud of his acting roots and has numerous dear friends in Utah.
Heyborne, who returns to Utah frequently, is here this week to conduct acting workshops and premiere a new film, "Take a Chance," at the LDS Film Festival in Orem.
Once in a while Heyborne also sneaks onto the stages of the Provo or Salt Lake City Comedy Sportz clubs for some improv acting, according to the clubs' owner, Curt Doussett. "Kirby performed at Comedy Sportz until he moved to L.A.," Doussett said. "Kirby in real life is that likable.
"Very few people have taken to improv as Kirby did. Improv is about being real and truthful, which is why audiences like him so much."
Heyborne is an actor, and actors don't always play LDS missionaries, Heyborne said. And LDS audiences are his toughest critics.
When he did "Saints and Soldiers," Heyborne's character, a British soldier, smoked, which was important to the character and certain scenes. Smoking is not Heyborne's personal life choice, of course, which he quickly pointed out during the interview. "They were herbal cigarettes purchased from a costume shop. People told me I should avoid the very appearance of evil."
Some LDS moviegoers also got miffed about his British accent. "I got criticized for my accent more by Mormons than people in England," Heyborne said. "The people in England thought I was Welsh."
Heyborne also is proud to say that LDS leaders have praised his work in "Saints and Soldiers" and were interested in the character and the reality of the show. "A film is a film," Heyborne said, LDS characters or not.
On the other hand, he said, "there are hundreds of thousands of actors in L.A. who would have killed to be an extra in 'Best Two Years.' "
As for "Free Ride" and other future projects, Heyborne openly admits, "I will be doing stuff Kirby Heyborne doesn't do."
E-mail: pugmire@desnews.com