Young Canadian star Dustin Milligan has never been asked to play dumb before.
"I've done stoners before, which is a different kind of dumb," says the ex-castmember of the new 90210, who steals all his scenes as a clueless gigolo in Mike Judge's workplace comedy Extract.
"But this is the first flat-out, probably-dropped-as-a-baby dumb guy."
As Brad, the "pool cleaner" who's been hired by Joel (Jason Bateman) to try to seduce his wife (Kristen Wiig) as a test of her fidelity, "I really was trying to concentrate on the guy's sweetness. Brad is so sweet, he's so good intentioned for someone who's trying to seduce another man's wife for money. As stupid as this guy is, he's very nice and endearing and innocent."
Which is a switch from how TV viewers saw the Yellowknife native recently, as bad-boy Ethan in the first season of the new 90210. Although he had a key role in one of the series' central love triangles, he was unceremoniously dropped from Season 2.
"Ethan did have a bit of a role in the first season, but he will not be back for the second," Milligan confirms. "He didn't even get a death. I'm pretty sure he just moves to Montana.
"Still, it was a cool experience to be part of it while it was launching. The publicity and that kind of stuff was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. It was really nice to get along on the first season the way we all did -- before everybody got a chance to start hating each other.
"Now I get to move on and try new things."
Among those already wrapped: an indie film called Eve, with Vanessa Redgrave, and Gunless with Paul Gross -- "a Canadian Western in which I play a Mountie, Corporal Jonathan Kent, an overachieving Mountie, a child in a bright red uniform, basically. But I got to grow a moustache for it. My own moustache, no extra stache added."
Basically, the 24-year-old Milligan says he's open to wherever his career takes him.
"About the only thing I can think of, is I would love to not play a teenager. It's difficult, though, because I do look like a teenager."
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