The Savage Within

Unlike a lot of former child stars, Fred Savage has not ended up fodder on tabloid talk shows. In fact, since his Emmy Award-winning ABC series “The Wonder Years” left the airwaves three years ago, Savage has been enjoying a normal life outside of the media spotlight.

With the series over, Savage was able to return to regular high school on a full-time basis. “My senior year was my first full year of school since probably second grade,” he says with enthusiasm. “So I was really excited to do it. It was the most full year--sports, dances and proms. I was Captain Hook in the school musical. I got to do all the things I always wanted to do. It was a great year and a great time.”

Savage, 19, is having an equally great time as a Stanford University sophomore majoring in English. “I always wanted to go to school,” he says. “That was the natural progression--grade school, high school and college. You join a fraternity. I didn’t really think about it as giving up acting. I thought, ‘This is the what I am going to do.’ If I can work acting in with it, that will be the best of both worlds. I have the luxury to come in and out a little bit.”

During his Christmas break, Savage returned to a shooting schedule for the disturbing NBC movie “No One Would Tell,” airing Monday night. The role puts him back in high school, but playing a character 180 degrees removed from the sweet-natured Kevin Arnold whom viewers loved on “The Wonder Years.” Here he’s cute, popular Bobby Tennyson, the star of the school’s wrestling team who also happens to come from a dysfunctional family. Bobby is haunted by the memories of his abusive father, who left his family years before. When he becomes obsessed with his latest girlfriend, Stacy (Candace Cameron), his possessiveness turns tragically to violence.

“I haven’t seen the film yet,” explains Savage, who, over breakfast at a delicatessen in Encino, appears to have matured into a personable, well-spoken young adult. “My mother and sister, when I came home from spring break, they were telling me how much they hated me, which was a good reaction. This was an opportunity for me to do something else. It was also the first main thing I have done since the show, so it was a good way to get myself back out there in a different light.”

To Savage, the weirdest aspect of Bobby’s personality is that, despite his violent rages, “he’s not a psychotic person, a crazy man. He’s on the wrestling team and fairly popular and pretty well-adjusted. But his fault is this temper he has.”

Savage found it a challenge to make Bobby menacing yet also keep him normal. “I don’t know if it would be as scary if he was this menacing crazy guy,” he says. “When I think about all of the scary characters I remember seeing in movies, the most normal ones are the most eerie.”

Shooting “No One Would Tell” caused Savage to miss the first two weeks of his winter classes. During breaks, though, Savage could be found in his trailer calling Stanford, “trying to convince professors to let me take their classes. I was constantly trying to put together a schedule so when I got back I could catch up and be a student. I managed to work it out. In fact, I was able to get my books sent from school.”

So far he’s only acted in one play in college. “It was not the best experience in the world,” Savage says, rolling his eyes. “It was just awful. So I have been hesitant to go back on stage. The drama department, though, has a lot of good productions and I want to start getting involved.”

After graduation, Savage intends to return to the entertainment business. “I am not sure exactly what I want to do,” he says. “I know anything I feel passionately about can be found in the entertainment business. If that is as an actor, or a writer or a director, that will be great. I am trying to write now, and directing is something I have always wanted to do. By graduation, I want to have a script that I wrote [completed] so I can go and beg for money from everybody and make the movie a year after I graduate. That’s my time frame now.”

Savage credits his parents for giving him a strong foundation. As a child star, he says, “I had this life outside of acting. That is the key, I think, to being happy later on. Because people whose whole lives are surrounded by the show--it’s inevitably going to end. When it does, that is your life and it’s over. I went to school. I had friends. So when ‘The Wonder Years’ was finished, I wasn’t sitting around saying, ‘What am I going to do?’ I was like ‘Great. Now I can go do all of these things I wanted to do.’ I had this whole other life to fall back on. I think that the most important thing is to maintain some sort of touch of reality while going through all of this other craziness.”

Savage is now watching his young brother Ben going through a similar experience as the star of the ABC teen comedy “Boy Meets World.”

“The way our shows were done are really different,” Savage says, adding that there’s no jealousy between the two. “His is taped and ours was filmed. I am glad he is getting to do what I got to do because I had a great experience. I never regretted anything I ever did as far as acting.”

“No One Would Tell” airs Monday at 9 p.m. on NBC; repeats of “The Wonder Years” air weekdays at 5:30 p.m on Fox.