After retiring from 36 years in the telecommunications business, Roger M. Schueller, Long Beach State ‘65-Life, is having a very high-profile second act. But it’s not the kind he’d anticipated.

 

For the past five years, Schueller has been working as a Hollywood actor, with more than 200 film and television credits to his name. Mostly he’s been an extra in films like last summer’s “Star Trek” and TV shows like “Mad Men.” But he’s also had a number of speaking roles, such as portraying a doctor on an episode of “Everybody Hates Chris.”

He gets calls from surprised friends and colleagues asking, “Was that you next to Laurence Fishburne in ‘Mission Impossible III?’” Schueller even has a fan club of sorts — an e-mail list of about 50 recipients who want to know the next time they can see him onscreen.

“I like the moment of acting in the scenes, even if we have to do the scene over and over again,” he said. “That’s my satisfaction, is doing the actual performing.”

Schueller stumbled upon this second career purely by accident. Six months after retiring from various management roles at GTE/Verizon — including handling Ronald Reagan’s communication needs while the president was at his Santa Barbara ranch — Schueller said he’d already knocked out everything on his wife’s “honey-do” list. He came across a newspaper ad for extras, answered it at his wife’s urging, and soon found himself elbow-to-elbow with showbiz glitterati.

A sixty-something novice in a new trade, the 6-foot-3-inch, silver-haired Schueller discovered a demand for older, distinguished-looking gentlemen.

“I still had all my business suits, and I started becoming background attorneys, doctors, businessmen. I would go in and work. And I really enjoyed it.”

A speaking part in a straight-to-video movie made him eligible to join the Screen Actors Guild, which led to bigger paydays. After spending his entire career in management, Schueller said it’s been an eye-opening experience being on the other end of labor negotiations as a union member.

 

Despite the obvious differences between being a businessman and a performer, Schueller said his experiences with Alpha Kappa Psi and GTE/Verizon prepared him well for acting.

 

The fraternity taught him the importance of building relationships socially and professionally, which served him well while networking to find acting jobs. And his work history of making presentations and speaking publicly helped drive away any jitters.

 

“I think that my business career actually did away with any stage fright I might have. When I was asked to say the lines, I wasn’t afraid.”

 

 

Films:

Star Trek (2009)
Mission Impossible III
Red Eye
World Trade Center
Good Night, and Good Luck
Evan Almighty
Get Smart
Herbie Fully Loaded

 

TV:

Boston Legal (13 episodes)
Everybody Hates Chris
Medium
Charmed
The O.C.
The West Wing
Entourage
Mad Men
Desperate Housewives