Shane West, the young co-star of ABC-TV’s new dramatic hit “Once and Again,” makes his lead feature debut in the new teen romantic comedy “Whatever It Takes.” He plays Ryan Woodman, a high school senior who, in a plot reminiscent of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” helps campus jock Chris (James Franco) get a date with his best friend Maggie (Marla Sokoloff) in return for Chris’ help in setting him up with the girl of his dreams, luscious Ashley (Jodi Lyn O’Okeefe). The story may suggest lots of other previous pictures in the same genre, but in a recent Dallas interview West said he had brought a bit of personal history to what might be dismissed as a formula role.
“From sixth to tenth grade,” West said, “I was very much like Ryan. I had a couple of friends, and I would always dream about being with the most attractive girl in the school, and my world was comic books and professional wrestling. I was very shy.” Things changed only at the end of junior high. “As a senior at the end of tenth grade, I finally started weariung looser clothes and let my hair go,” West recalled. “And a senior girl got a crush on me. All she did was think I was cute, but–how ironic high school can be–it spread all over, and then all of a sudden I was thrown into the popular crowd, whether I wanted to be or not. So it was kind of similar to the movie.”
But also like Ryan–and one’s hardly spoiling the end of the picture by writing this–West realized that his real friends were his old friends, not the “popular people” who gravitated toward him for a while. “Whatever It Takes” isn’t West’s first film–he had a small part in Barry Levenson’s “Liberty Heights”–but it does represent an important stage in his career’s upward spiral. Born in Baton Rouge, the actor recalled that it wasn’t until fairly late that he began acting, largely as a result of seeing friends do it. “I was really trying to find out something to do with my life,” he said. “I was sixteen years old. So I got into it [acting] kind of as ‘something to do.’ But I wanted to succeed at it. And it took me two-and-a-half years to get a single part–not even a commercial. And so it was very tough, kind of depressing. But it made me more interested in the business, made me want to succeed even more, to prove the critics wrong. So finally it became a career choice.” 
West’s big break came in a Los Angeles stage production of “The Cider House Rules,” in which he played Angel for some five months. There were also roles on such TV series as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Sliders,” and “Picket Fences.” Finally he was cast in the pilot of “Once and Again,” but before the show was picked up, the chance to make “Whatever It Takes” offered itself.
“It was eight weeks of crazy, non-stop humor,” West said of the film’s shoot. “So how coul you not like it? The whole ‘Whatever It Takes’ experience was really kind of a dream. I’d never been a lead in anything.” And the fact that Sokoloff (or TV’s “The Practice’), already a friend, secured the distaff lead, while his own roommate Aaron Paul
was eventually cast as Ryan’s flaky best buddy, was an added bonus. “It was a dream come true.” While the film was shooting, “Once and Again” was picked up for the ABC schedule, and two days after finishing “Whatever It Takes,” West began work on the season’s episodes. The series has thrived first on Tuesday and then Monday nights, and the young star says, “I’m very thankful to be in the show.”
But a successful series won’t stop West from making more movies–though not, he thinks, a raft of teen comedies. “It’s not something I really want to do,” he explained. “When you’re thinking more career-wise, you can’t keep doing the same thing. People will like you, and they’ll remember you, but they’ll remember you for about three years, and then you may have come and gone…. So right now I’m looking for sort of edgier roles and some more offbeat movies.” 
So while adolescent girls can enjoy Shane West in “Whatever It Takes” for the moment, we can expect to see him next on the big screen in one or more of the smaller, independent films that he’s currently eyeing to shoot during the series hiatus which begins in April. And although “Once and Again” hasn’t yet been officially picked up by the network for next year, its critical and ratings success suggests that viewers will continue to be able to watch him on the tube, too.