Actor Feels Good About New Role In ‘Beverly Hills 90210’
Like his hero, Montgomery Clift, Vincent Young digs being the outsider.
“Coming in as the new kid is kind of cool,” says Young, who joins Fox’s “Beverly Hills 90210” this season. “I feel comfortable playing the stranger, the outsider. It gives you the air of mystery.
“I can get pretty quiet and intense at times, like this guy.”
“This guy” is Noah Hunter, an “impulsive free spirit” who casts his spell over Valerie (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen) in Hawaii. The “Bev Hills” posse hits the island on the two-hour season premiere to hang with Donna (Tori Spelling) while she works on a fashion shoot.
Befriending the group, Hunter relocates to their zip code.
The deal went down quickly for Young. Before cracking Aaron Spelling’s lineup, Young’s biggest splash was on “Pacific Blue,” USA Network’s schlocky beach-cops-on-bikes series. He played “a daredevil.”
True to form, Young isn’t fazed about breaking into a show whose cast has been glued at the hip for seven seasons.
“It’s actually very nice to walk onto a set of people who work together and know each other so well,” Young says from Honolulu. “They’ve got it down. It’s one less thing to have to worry about.
“This cast is one of the nicest I’ve ever met in my life.”
Not that Young has met that many casts. It’s been only seven years since he broke into the acting game, moving to New York after waiting tables and digging ditches for Amtrak, among other jobs. Over time, he landed small parts in a couple of independent films and a beer commercial.
As a 10-year-old, Young remembers “standing in front of the mirror doing characters and voices, thinking I was crazy.” His specialty was imitating old Hollywood stars, particularly Montgomery Clift.
“Watching his movies, I’d say to myself, ‘Whatever that guy’s doing, he’s cool.”’ Young admits he knows little about Noah Hunter, other than “he’s friendly, with a dark side.” For a living, he takes care of rich people’s boats.
When he gets a great offer back in California, Noah ends up bunking in a vessel owned by one of his new pals’ parents. (How convenient.)
Given Hunter’s occupation and Spelling’s obsession with hard bodies, look for Young to display plenty of pecs. No sweat. A champion wrestler in high school, the 165-pound Young is still a buff boy.