Paul Walter Hauser On Keeping It Real As ‘The Luckiest Man In America'

Forbes

03-04-2025

Paul Walter Hauser in Samir Oliveros' 'The Luckiest Man In America.'
Emmy-winning actor Paul Walter Hauser, the lead of game show drama The Luckiest Man in America, came close to life imitating art and being a contestant himself. It was just one of the things he did to try to get by before making it in Hollywood.
"I did so much stupid stuff for money back in the day," he recalls as we chat over Zoom. "I took a job once in my hometown dressing up as Chester Cheetah, the icon from the Frito Lay snack and walked around a Walmart handing out stickers or tattoos to kids to promote Cheetos. I got an offer to go on a game show at one point, and I was going to do it, but then they found out I didn't live in LA, and they rescinded the offer, even though I was willing to travel to go."
"I remember I told my buddy Brian Huskey that I needed a place to crash in LA. He said, 'I wish I could help you out, but I can't have guests right now,' however he said, 'Let me ask some of my friends.' Ed Helms got back to him and said, 'Yeah, your buddy can stay at my place. I'm shooting The Hangover 2,' or whatever it was. It was crazy that Ed Helms didn't even know me but was willing to let me crash at his place because I was friends with Brian, who is very funny, by the way."
Set in the 1980s, The Luckiest Man in America, which lands in theaters on Friday, April 4, 2025, is based on the true story of Michael Larson, an unemployed ice cream truck driver who appeared on Press Your Luck after working out how to game the system. Hauser plays Larson and heads an ensemble cast that boasts The White Lotus' Walton Goggins, Sneakers' David Strathairn, and Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams, to name a few.
"David is very much slept on by Hollywood," the Black Bird actor says in awe. "The guy is incredible, but I think he gets overlooked because he's selfless. David's not a showy, 'look at me' guy. He's a workhorse actor who's as good as any of them, and when you give them a lead role, like in Good Night and Good Luck, you see him at his highest potential. His greatest powers are unleashed. We were lucky to have those guys drop in and do this. It felt like we got so many wins, with people saying yes to this. Maybe it was because it was during the strike, and we were one of the ones that caught the SAG waiver, but I look at the cast on the poster right now, and I'm like, 'How did we get all these people?' No pun intended; they were game for it, wanted to play, were hungry to act, and knew this was the cool piece to be in. It really elevated the film."
David Strathairn in 'The Luckiest Man in America.'
Hauser, who will be seen in The Naked Gun reboot with Liam Neeson and The Fantastic Four: First Steps this summer, relished playing quirky con man Larson and made the most of the opportunity to focus his performance on one 48-hour period of the contestant's life.
"It was nice because we couldn't distill it to where he was at that exact time without knowing the full chronology of his lifetime. I knew more about the scandal and some of the tactics that went into it, but I didn't know a lot about his personal life," the actor says. "We definitely echo truth in that he had a daughter who had a birthday around that time. He was not totally in the kids' lives, and he eventually wound up with three different children from three different women and was not very accountable to them all. We took some liberties, and added some drama to the story by having it be a little more pressing in the moment and putting him in a predicament while he's trying to pull off this grift, as it were. I clung to the story, but the Game Show Network documentary on the topic was very influential for me and the rest of the cast members to dive in and get the inside track on some of the folks who were there that day."
Hauser leans into Larson's almost cartoony persona and physicality, saying it was "less of a choice and more of something I noticed in the actual footage."
"There are moments where the hands look wild, and he looks almost unhinged because he's so undignified in his celebrations. I thought that was interesting. How does he sit in the chair? Is he making eye contact with anybody? You try to find the little things, and hopefully, they can be indicative of greater truths."
Paul Walter Hauser in 'The Luckiest Man in America.'
Hauser, also known for star turns in Cruella and Cobra Kai, considers the film's production team to be "a top two best crew" that he has worked with in his 15 years in the industry.
"Their enthusiasm and their artistry was unparalleled," he enthuses. "They all had the same vision as the director. Usually, you see the crew talk about the director behind his back and say, 'He wants to do this, but I want to do this.' This was everybody full bore with our director Samir Oliveros' vision because he really knew what he wanted. When I watch the film, I almost get distracted, and I'm worried less about my performance because I'm just looking at and marveling at the art design and the wardrobe. How did we get the period on the budget? We really stretched the dollar and got creative, and then it feels like a great time capsule piece that people will go back to."
Most of the film's action occurs at the legendary CBS Studios lot in Los Angeles. However, the film wasn't shot in Hollywood, which makes the set even more impressive.
"Some people really thought it was the CBS Television studio lot, but we recreated all of that on a soundstage in Bogota, Colombia," Hauser reveals. "It's a testament to the brilliant crew and the fact that they made it work on the budget we had. We priced this movie out in Los Angeles, Greece, and looked at a few locations, both typical and non-typical, but we found that our money could go way further there. They had some infrastructure from local Colombian television shows and soap operas. We loved the experience, the food, and the people. I would go back there and shoot in a heartbeat."
(Left to right) Brian Geraghty, Paul Walter Hauser, and Patti Harrison in 'The Luckiest Man In ... More America.'
The Luckiest Man in America also marks Hauser's first feature credit as a producer. It won't be his last.
"I'm attached to several projects that I'm a producer on, like the Chris Farley movie, but this is the first time I've produced in the sense of a greater-sized project, and I've really enjoyed it," he concludes. "I saw Margot Robbie produce, I, Tonya, and her support, spirit, and choices she was making, being a part of the bigger decisions, inspired me. I've always wanted to produce and be a bigger part of it. In this case, it had more to do with casting. I brought in some of my buddies for a few different parts and had to oversee some of that. It was a really great experience."