CR 074: Brian Stepanek on Acting, Podcasting, and Why Today's Creatives Need to Do It All

The actor-director discusses his 25 years in film and television and the shifting media landscape.

Brian Stepanek, photo by Riker Brothers

When Brian Stepanek was a young actor heading to his first interview with an agent, his father, a salesman in Ohio, offered him sage advice. “He said, ‘What do they do there?’” Stepanek recalls. “I said, ‘They send you on commercials and TV and they do voiceover.’ He goes, ‘What’s voiceover?’ I said, ‘Like radio commercials, TV commercials.’ He goes, ‘You have to tell them you want to do that. The only way you’re going to survive is if you do all of it.’ And so I sat in that interview and at the end of it, I went, ‘I want to do voiceover.’”

The advice paid off. For more than 25 years, Stepanek has consistently worked in film and television, with roles in the Academy Award-winning Green Book, the Michael Bay blockbuster Transformers, the CBS sitcom Young Sheldon, and Nickelodeon’s Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn, to name a few. He has contributed his talents to the animated series The Loud House and its live action spin-off The Really Loud House. And th…