Happy 45, Mark-Paul Gosselaar!
“Saved by the Bell” star reflects on long career.
Happy b-b-b-b-b-b-b (go Bayside!) birthday, Mark-Paul Gosselaar! The actor perhaps immortalized as scheming high school student Zack Morris turned 45 Friday. Though maybe take a “time out” before reminding him of that.
When this reporter said that in light of the milestone, USA TODAY wanted to talk to Gosselaar about all his years in the biz, he deadpanned, “You’re making me feel great about my age.”
Gosselaar says that his time in front of the camera began when he was just 4 years old. A friend of his mother’s, who was a model, encouraged her to have photos taken of him and to get an agent. Gosselaar says local print work led to commercials, which led to appearances in the ’80s on series such as “The Twilight Zone,” “Punky Brewster” and “Charles in Charge.”
Gosselaar then booked the role of Zack Morris on the series “Good Morning, Miss Bliss” with Hayley Mills, which lasted just one season before it was reimagined as “Saved by the Bell.”
Still, it wasn’t until “Saved by the Bell: The College Years” (1993-1994) provided “prime time money” that Gosselaar really thought of acting as his job.
“I saw how much money I was getting paid to do something that I really loved and made the decision that... I could categorize (my occupation) as being an actor.”
Gosselaar didn’t even take “Saved by the Bell” seriously, predicting each season the show would be canceled. It premiered in 1989 and lasted for four seasons, plus a single season for the college spin-off.
“Every season it was like, ‘OK, we had our run and we’ll see each other at some point,’” he said. “And then we were always surprised to come back.”
Gosselaar says he doesn’t think the show “had that big of a coolness factor” while filming.
The “cool show,” Gosselaar says, was another about California teens: (the soon-to-be rebooted) “Beverly Hills, 90210.”
“That was high school,” he said. “They were really doing some edgy things for young adults.”
Edgy wouldn’t necessarily be the way to describe the caffeine pill addiction Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) had, which makes Gosselaar laugh when it’s brought up.
“If I were to be in that position now, I would seriously look at the producers and writers and go, ‘Really, caffeine pills? That’s what we’re hooked on?’” he said. “But at the time, we were just having fun with each other; we were having fun being actors.”
Perhaps a little too much fun behind the scenes. Gosselaar made headlines in January when he revealed that he and Berkley – dated.
To USA TODAY, Gosselaar described the behind-the-scenes romances as very intertwined.
In fact, there was so much fraternizing that Gosselaar says the actors were spoken to by the series’ executive producer.
“Peter Engel at one point had to sit us all down and say, ‘Hey we have a show to do, you guys need to calm down,’ because at some point one person wasn’t talking to the other one. One person was friends with the other person who wasn’t talking so they weren’t talking to you. It was high school in a very sort of small, microbubble.
“We were in very close quarters for nine months out of the year, and there’s a little bleed-over from your characters – I mean, you see it on films all the time, you see it on TV shows all the time with adults. Inevitably, kids are gonna do something.”
After Zack Morris, Gosselaar continued to work steadily.
From 2001 to 2005, he portrayed his favorite character, Detective John Clark Jr., on “NYPD Blue,” and also found success with the series “Franklin & Bash” (2011-2014).
While he wishes he could’ve played Mike Lawson longer on Fox’s “Pitch” (2016), he now stars on “The Passage” from the same network. The sci-fi drama, which USA TODAY gave ★★★ out of four, is based on Justin Cronin’s trilogy: “The Passage,” “The Twelve” and “The City of Mirrors.”
Gosselaar said he enjoys playing the role of government agent Brad Wolgast, who meets Amy Bellafonte (Saniyya Sidney) and refuses to give her up to the government for testing to ward off a global pandemic.
“It’s a challenging role for me. It’s physical,” Gosselaar said. “It’s got pretty much all the elements that I’m always looking for and a role that will sustain your interest for hopefully the run of a few years.”
Gosselaar described the first part of the two-hour finale, airing Monday, as “unbelievably ambitious.”
“What we are able to accomplish in the eight days that we had to film that episode arguably could’ve taken a month on a film,” he said.
He adds that the second half of the finale is “a bit of a departure from what we’ve shown you through the rest of the season.”