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Choctaw grad lands Hollywood role in 'Step Up 3D'Jul 06, 2010 (Northwest Florida Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- A Fort Walton Beach native has nabbed his first lead role in a major motion picture. Rick Malambri, who graduated from Choctawhatchee High School in 2001, is the male lead in "Step Up 3D." Malambri plays a 20-something street dancer in this third installment of the break-dancing movies that started in August 2006 with Channing Tatum as the male lead. "I don't see myself as this person that everyone's going to watch on screen. The whole glitz and glamour thing of it is hard to grasp," Malambri said with a laugh. "(I) come from Fort Walton Beach, and you just don't expect something like this." The road to Hollywood began in high school for Malambri after he participated in the high school's mock beauty pageant and performed an R&B song with the break-dancing skills he was learning with friends. "At that point, I knew I really wanted to try and do something like this if I could possibly do it," he said. Wanting it and actually getting it were two very different things, though. Throughout the rest of school, Malambri and his friends practiced their break-dancing by learning moves posted by other people on the Internet. He would, his mother, Jeannie Deckert, remembers, practice his dance moves anywhere -- the yard, the living room, a friend's house. "He was always dancing; even as an infant he was dancing," she said. "And I know that people say that all the time when these people make it in the movies or music business and I think it's true. It comes from youth, it comes from childhood." A future unexpected After high school, Malambri went to then-Okaloosa-Walton Community College with the intention of becoming a computer graphics designer, but quickly got bored with it. When he made up his mind to take his life in another direction, his mom suggested he try modeling. "I was like, 'Really, Mom? Modeling?' " Malambri said. So instead of taking her advice, he put together a graphic-design portfolio and moved to Miami to try to find a computer design job. While he was there, he was approached by a modeling agency, and in need of money, he decided to give it a shot. A month after his first test shoot, he modeled for the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. Eventually, he decided to test his luck in New York City, and he went with only $1,800 cash in his pocket. While he was there, he took a few acting classes, but wasn't really sure what he wanted to do next. Then he was approached on the subway by a talent agent. "I didn't really think too much about it until I got home and Googled her," Malambri said. "Then I thought maybe this could work." He set up an interview with her, and she told him he needed to get to Los Angeles as soon as possible. Malambri hesitated, saying he needed a couple of months to make a little money before he moved. Instead of waiting, she called his parents and asked them to help get him to Hollywood. On Sept. 1, 2006, along with his stepfather, Ron Deckert, Malambri made the 33-hour trip from Fort Walton Beach to Hollywood. Life in Hollywood Once he arrived in Los Angeles, Malambri put himself through acting classes for about eight months before his agent suggested he audition for a soap opera. Malambri made it clear he wasn't interested. "I was like, if I am really going to do this, I don't want to do soaps," Malambri recalled with a laugh. His first screen test, inevitably, was for a soap opera. He got the role but turned it down. Then he got a role in a couple of episodes in the third season of "How I Met Your Mother" and one episode of "Criminal Minds." But those weren't his magic tickets to stardom, and he wasn't making enough cash to get by. "It was tough for him," his father, Tim Malambri, said. "It didn't happen by accident." When he auditioned for the role in "Step Up 3D," Malambri made up his mind that if he didn't get it, he was done. After a grueling audition process and a week of waiting, he got a call from director Jon Chu offering him the role that not only allowed him to act, but also to dance like he had as a teen. "At that point, I was in awe," Malambri said. "I couldn't believe that my questions got answered about if this is what I need to be doing. I was like, 'Thank you, Lord.' " Hometown boy makes it Now with the film only a month away from its premiere, his family couldn't be more proud. "The break-dancing thing, I always thought he was going to hurt himself with it," Ron Deckert said. "But now, the things I see him doing these days, it's something else. To see him turn what I thought was a frivolous activity into a career is pretty amazing." The first time Tim Malambri walked into the Rave movie theater in Destin and saw the "Step Up 3D" movie banner with his son on it, he was delighted. "I knew he was going to do something good," he said. Watching his older brother finally live out his dream has inspired Christopher Deckert to hang onto his dreams. "I always looked up to him and believed in him," Christopher Deckert said. "The biggest thing I've learned with him is to stick to my dreams and always keep going no matter what happens." "Step Up 3D" opens in theaters Aug. 6, and Malambri is set to start filming another movie later this summer. To see more of the Northwest Florida Daily News or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nwfdailynews.com. Copyright (c) 2010, Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544). |