You’ll probably catch Oscar-addict and former HBO intern Dylan Marron ’10 onstage this semester, or else at the next Lunchbox performance, with his infamous take on Miss New York doing her best Juliet performance. Maybe someday he’ll be at the Academy Awards himself, or at the very least telling an advertising agency why an Israeli McDonald’s commercial involving hostages is a bad idea.
Elyssa: One way you’re definitely known on campus is through theater. What kind of theater projects are you involved in this semester?
Dylan: I’m doing a production for Second Stage called “Miss(ed) It” – I’m actually doing three right now. The first is “Miss(ed) It,” which goes up this Thursday and Friday. The next is a series of plays that Ben Smolen wrote called “Smolapalooza.” That’s going up Parents’ Weekend… then, in December, I’ll be in a play and the full title is “Oh Dad, poor Dad, Momma hung you in the closet and I’m feeling so sad.”
E: What’s that one about?
D: We actually haven’t read the script yet; we haven’t had a first rehearsal. All I know right now is that I’m a stuttering son who travels around with his mother from hotel room to hotel room, then he falls in love with this girl who’s a babysitter who he sees through a telescope across the street.
E: You were in “After Ashley” last semester.
D: That was my first semester with Second Stage. It was about this family, the mother dies, and it’s the different ways that the father and son deal with the tragedy. The father brings the story to the media, and the son is very overwhelmed with this idea of how to mourn, and how to mourn correctly. [The play] was first produced in 2002, but it was written in the wake of Jerry Springer and all of those glamorous cases.
E: You’re also in Lunchbox. Do you guys write your own material?
D: We do. We just got three new kids and they’re awesome.
E: And you have a famous Flava Flav sketch?
D: VH1 has this reality show called “I Love NY,” which is this reality TV gold mine that they’ve hit because they’ve found this woman that’s been nicknamed Miss New York, and I was just like, you know what – first of all, I’m all for making fun of shit, but I wanted to hear Miss New York translate her interpretation of Shakespeare. That’s how it started, and I guess it got a really good response.
E: What parts of Shakespeare does Miss New York translate?
D: My favorite one, and I think the audience’s favorite, too, is Romeo and Juliet, the balcony scene. We have a show the weekend before Parent’s Weekend, then another reading week show, and we’re probably going to travel this semester too, to other schools and perform with their sketch comedy groups there.
E: This summer, did you intern at NBC?
D: I interned at HBO. I learned a lot by just not being allowed to do anything. They were very wary of letting the casting intern do anything.
E: What did you have to do?
D: After the auditions I would upload the video files to my computer, so then I could put them on this website so that the producer or the director from the HBO department could look at it and make a decision. Sometimes—I don’t know if this was supposed to happen, or allowed—but sometimes I would watch the auditions. My favorite day was when the child actors came. It was for a movie with Kevin Bacon, and his character has two kids. The day the child actors came in was just like… [clutches chest]. Ah! Seeing those mothers was painful and beautiful all at once. Painful because they’re like the main inspiration for these kids to act, it’s not these kids saying, ‘I would like to do theater.’ It’s their mothers being like, ‘you know, you’re cute enough. Let’s do this thing.’ So there was that, and then I got another internship as another casting agent with this agency that does commercials. That was incredible…
E: What was the craziest commercial that you saw?
D: Towards the end I got more and more responsibility with these things. The last one was this commercial for a McDonald’s in Israel that’s only ever going to air in Israel, and the concept was hostages.
E: Jesus!
D: I was like, wow, these advertisers really don’t know their market. Or do they? I don’t know. Maybe that’s a good choice; I hope it isn’t because that’s a really bad way to advertise. The premise was that hostages were being held by a robber, and the only way he would let them go was if they got him McDonald’s. God, I wish I could just show this video – then as they were eating the burger they had to smile and be like, ‘You can let them go.’ It was so disgusting, but it was kind of awesome to see, too.
E: So you want to go into acting when you graduate…do you watch the Oscars every year?
D: I watch every year, because I love watching the Oscars. Jennifer Hudson – I don’t think I’ve rooted for an Oscar contender more. I’m pretty sure I cried a little, maybe peed.
E: You live at 230 Wash – how’s that working out?
D: Getting fucked over by ResLife – that happened, but it’s actually turned out to be a really great experience. I live in a house, I have a front yard… It’s a slightly longer walk but I’m not complaining.
E: Your family’s from Venezuela.
D: My dad’s from Venezuela, Caracas. I lived there until I was five…
E: Generalizations are a bad thing, but I guess if you had to generalize Venezuelans, you know the cliché, British people are always drinking tea, what’s the Venezuelan cliché?
D: I really hope I’m not misquoting facts, but I think Venezuela has one of the world’s highest rates of plastic surgery.
E: That’s definitely true.
D: Ok, then you can quote me on that… I don’t know, maybe I’m a bad Venezuelan for not knowing the stereotypes.
E: Maybe you should just get some plastic surgery.
D: Maybe I will, maybe a nose job.
E: Is there a question I should have asked that I haven’t asked yet? What question would you like to answer?
D: Which celebrity comeback am I most looking forward to in a post-Britney world?
E: Which celebrity comeback are you—
D: Whitney Houston! She’s my girl!
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