TIM RYAN / TRYAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
Dylan Bruno, left, and Chas Chidester play father and son in "The Break," which wrapped up filming on Oahu on Friday.
8th-grader It's a Hollywood legend that Lana Turner was discovered by a casting agent when she was spotted in a Sunset Boulevard drug store. Hawaii's version may be Chas Chidester discovered sitting on the beach at Banzai Pipeline.
gets big break
on ‘The Break’
By Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comThe eighth-grader was spotted in February by Chris Taloa who was scouting for John Stockwell's "The Break." The Fox Television/Imagine entertainment pilot needed a kid to portray the son of the police drama's lead character.
Chidester, a student at Waialua High and Intermediate School, had never acted, never intended to be an actor and hadn't even considered the possibility of actually being chosen for the part until he found himself sitting in Los Angeles with Stockwell and Fox executives five days later.
"I didn't really understand what was happening," said the Southern California-born-and-bred Chidester, who's lived in Hawaii three years. "I knew I was there and what I was supposed to be doing, but the whole idea about acting hadn't sunk in.
"I'm a surfer."
It didn't seen likely that the 5-foot-2, barely 100-pound boy would win the role over the pros auditioning in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Taloa had a casting agent near Pipeline take a short video of Chidester and his friends for Stockwell, who felt right away that his search was over.
"We'd been doing auditions everywhere and here he was in our own back yard, sitting on the beach," Stockwell said, laughing. "But we'd have to convince the network."
Chidester casually mentioned to his mom Jacqueline when he got home that "I did this video thing today for a TV show."
"I said 'Oh, OK,' and never thought about it again," she said.
But the next morning, when Chidester was back at Pipeline, Jacqueline got a call asking her to bring the boy to Stockton's house near Laniakea to read from a script. Then things happened "very fast," she said.
A day later, local casting agent Anna Fishburn called, inquiring about the boy's agent.
"Uh, what agent?" Jacqueline said.
A local talent agency agreed to manage Chidester and two days later Jacqueline and her son were on a red-eye flight to Los Angeles for auditions.
"I wasn't happy about leaving because a north swell was supposed to hit and I had a contest on Kauai that weekend," he said. But Stockwell, also a surfer, promised Chidester that he would be back in time to compete.
Lugging backpacks and a surfboard, mother and son arrived at LAX, then checked into a studio-arranged luxury three-bedroom suite in Century City. "Aren't you glad you had me!" Chidester yelled to his mom when he saw the room.
He auditioned for four hours, including interacting with "The Break" star Dylan Bruno, who portrays his father in the series.
"John reminded me to just be myself," said Chidester, who had walked into "large green room" that appeared to be "an auditorium filled with people."
"I was pretty nervous," he said. "Then the room got really small and I felt like the walls were all closing in on me. I didn't want to make a fool of myself; I tried not to stare at anyone and just read the lines and do the facial expressions they wanted."
When it was over, Chas and Jacqueline planned to visit friends and family in Seal Beach, where Chidester was born, eat at his favorite Mexican restaurant, El Burrito, and surf at Huntington Pier.
They were packing when Stockwell asked them to stay for another reading. That didn't stop Chidester's California surfing. "We got up at 4:30 a.m., drove 50 miles to Huntington Beach so Chas could surf with his buddies, then drove back to Beverly Hills for the audition," Jacqueline said.
The network had arranged for a direct flight for the pair to Kauai that night so Chidester could make the surf contest. Then it was a nervous five days until Chas got the call he had won the part. "It really hasn't hit me yet that I could be in a TV series," he said.
The 15-day pilot filming wrapped on Friday. Stockwell expects to hear the network's decision within a few weeks.
On the set, Stockwell and Bruno took the novice thespian under their wings. Stockwell used encouragement rather criticism to motivate him; Bruno acted more like a big brother than an on-camera dad.
"Dylan's incredibly cool," Chidester said. "He's really been helpful about acting. Told me how important it was to just be me 'cuz they hired me for me."
Chidester, who began surfing at age 2 with his father in California, is impressed by Bruno's North Shore surfing bravado.
"He's only been surfing a few years, but there he was the first day of filming in some 6-foot Pipe waves," said Chidester, who hopes to spend some of his "Break" salary for a surf trip to Australia's Gold Coast.
"I haven't gotten my paycheck yet, but I know it's coming," he said.
If the show becomes a series, he hopes his notoriety will land him sponsorships for surfboards and board shorts.
Otherwise, nothing much has changed for the Sunset beach kid, except having his blond hair dyed brown to match Bruno's. "My mom never let me dye my hair before but she likes this," he said, then whispers. "Now I'm gonna dye it maroon; I l-o-v-e that color."
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