Actor Devin Ratray would have been most familiar to you in the early nineties as the annoying older brother of Kevin McCallister in the Home Alone movies. Turn out the child-star who played Buzz is actually still a working actor and while he has no major roles until now, he has featured in the likes of Supernatural, Law and Order, The Good Wife and Blue Bloods as well as movies such as Nebraska, Masterminds and Rough Night.
Ratray has undoubtedly landed the second big break of his career though as he has landed a central role alongside Sharon Stone in Steven Soderbergh's much anticipated new crime thriller Mosaic.
The 41-year-old actor takes on the role of Nate Henry, a state police detective investigating a murder and he even got it without an audition.
Soderbergh called him up out of the blue and just offered him the part. Speaking to Vanity Fair, the actor recalled the moment he got the call, and telling the director: "This sounds like a very important role."
"He said, ‘Yes, yes, it is, definitely.’ I said, 'Why are you just offering this to me?' He said, 'Well, what are you going to do, a bad job?' It was one of the most surreal moments in my life. I can’t really say why he offered it to me. But I’m just eternally grateful that he did."
There he is now...
It wasn't completely random though, Ratray had worked with Soderbergh for two days on the 2013 film Side Effects while he had also auditioned for The Knick, with the director saying he had the "consummate professional" actor "on his 'pocket list' of go-to people. I know if I hire him, I can stop worrying about that part," he told VF.
Mosaic is also a crime drama with a difference in that it's an interactive storytelling experience that lets you choose your own path, and you'll need an app to do it.
The six-episode run, which kicked off on HBO Go and Now yesterday (it will arrive on Sky Atlantic later in the year) allows viewers to choose their own adventure, splitting the series' story into 14 parts called 'nodes'. Viewers are then able to pick exactly which order they watch the nodes in, based on which character they're most interested in following.
Jaysus. Very modren, wha'?
Colour me intrigued.