I hated to interrupt Rob’s living room poker game with “Crime and Punishment” castmates Stewart Miller and Max Lesser just to conduct an Argus interview—who could argue, after all, that gambling isn’t the more worthy afternoon endeavor?—but this is the year’s final In the Spotlight. Rob Belushi grew up first in Chicago’s North Side (where he got kicked out of eigth grade for smoking weed), then went to high school in Los Angeles (“exactly like all the stereotypes,” he says). After four years acting at Wesleyan and one interim year “settling down and taking some classes” in the real world, he will graduate as a Film Studies major this May. Oh yeah – and his father is Jim Belushi.

CATESBY HOLMES: Is everyone in L.A. as oriented toward acting and stardom as it would seem?

ROB BELUSHI: It’s kind of like the big business there. If in Detroit it is car manufacturing—I don’t know if this is a salient metaphor here—in L.A. most people are involved in some way…I was not that interested in [acting] for a while, just because my family’s involved in acting, and in Los Angeles people are just gross—everyone’s an actor, so I was like, “I’m going to be a director.” But I figured out that I didn’t really have my shit together enough to be an absolute director.

CH: So you started acting at Wesleyan?

RB: Pretty much. It’s a more comfortable environment. Kate Hudson graduated from my high school, you know, so it was kind of scary. There was so much talent that I just wasn’t interested—I didn’t want to be one of those people. Then my freshman year here, I was taking an Acting I class…and a friend of mine asked me to do his play with him, and it was so much fun. I met these people that I never would have met in my social circle, and we all got along well, and they were really engaging and supportive. That was the last two weeks of freshman year; I had been such a coward! First semester sophomore year I auditioned for three things, and I got into them all.

CH: That must have been a pretty heavy load. I never understand how the actors here manage to do endless play practices on top of work for classes.

RB: Some people can do it; I definitely could not. It was irresponsible decision-making because it was just too much work. I did “The Dumb Show,” which was an original comedy and a lot of fun. I shaved the top of my head. And then I did “Waiting for Lefty,” and I got to wear a fat suit and be a total scumbag union head. And that was great. And then I did “The Shadowbox,” which was about death and dying…it was pretty intense material. The cast got really close, it was a great experience, and then I promptly failed out at the end of the semester.

CH: What did you do on your year off?

RB: I went home and worked my ass off and got a nine-to-five. But there were a lot of great things about it such as meeting new people, and, I guess, finding myself. I had a great job [as a preschool teacher]—I was singing songs with babies and five year olds—and I got a lot of love and respect there! I took some writing classes and enrolled in an acting studio, and figured out that Wesleyan, no matter what it is socially, is a wonderful place for creative opportunities.

CH: So is acting then something you’re doing because Wesleyan is a safe space to try it out, or are you ready to handle L.A.?

RB: I don’t think I’m in a place to say yet. In terms of drive, yes. I am interested in acting. I would love to work in film. But I’ve been on three professional auditions and I fucked them all. I got totally nervous. So I’m going to do some more training and get to where I can present myself in a professional manner. For whatever that means. I feel like if I got some big budget movie, I’d be freaked out. But I made a thesis film this year [Editor’s note: Senior thesis films will be shown next week, the 6th, 7th, and 8th. Rob’s is called “Entry”], and it’s a business I can really see myself working in.

CH: What is “Entry” about?

RB: A father and son who can’t really speak to each other. But not all the thesis films are intense. There’s a great variety. Some of them are really wacky, some are really serious. There are no movies about having sex in your dorm room.

CH: Tell me about Crime and Punishment. Roskolnikov, by the way: first literary character I ever had a crush on.

RB: Ooph. It was awesome, just awesome. I had worked with Yuriy, the director, before in Moliere, and really appreciated his clear, succinct directing style. He really had to cut the book, which was hard because he cut the role I wanted to play, but he said, “If we put in everything, we will have to squeeze everything, and if we squeeze everything, it will be squeezed.” Everyone approached it earnestly like it was something important, and Yuriy really involved us in it, from adaptation to script. It allowed me to take myself more seriously than I ever had but also be more humble. I really put my all into it—more than anything else I’ve ever done at Wesleyan except my thesis—and it was a great experience. People I really respect came and said, “You know, you’ve come a long way since sophomore year when you were drunk all the time,” and I’ve been working hard to do that. So. Period.

CH: Also, Roskolnikov: a pretty psychologically schismed and difficult character. How did you get yourself into his head?

RB: I approached the director one day—before I even knew my lines, so it was totally stupid to ask, and said [in pretentious acting voice], “I’m sitting here trying to like figure out how I feel about killing, and I’m trying to find a method way, and I’ve never killed anything before, and…” and Yuriy just looks at me and says [in comical Russian accent], “That’s spiritual masturbation. Your job is to be alive on stage.” Very Russian, very to the point. He was constantly rapping the knuckles, saying [in increasingly comical Russian accent], “Don’t suffer, please. You think I wanna watch you suffer on stage? Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Be active!”

CH: Final Words?

RB: Go Cubs, go Lakers.