Standard-Examiner staff
OGDEN -- Filmmakers must wonder if half the kids in America want to be in the movies. Before the casting calls for “Three O'Clock High" were over, about 3,200 actors had auditioned for the lead role.
Chicago-born actor Casey Siemaszko was one of the 3,200 who showed up for casting calls in Los Angeles, New York or Chicago – or who sent in a videotape (they came from 17 states) – hoping to win the part of high school journalism student Jerry Mitchell. Two and a half months later, in September 1986 – after a series of readings and screen tests – Siemaszko got the part. Four days later, he was in Ogden preparing for his first starring role in a motion picture.
"The first time I read for (the part) I had just finished 'Gardens of Stone,’” Siemaszko (pronounced Sham-OSH-koe) said during a lunch break at Ogden High School last November. "I was a soldier in that film and I had a buzz-cut and flat-top and I wore a white T-shirt. … I didn't feel like I looked right for the part.
