>> Oscar nominee Brad Pitt (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”)
>> Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (“Capote”).
>> Oscar nominee Bennett Miller, the movie’s director. (He too was nominated for “Capote.”)
At Benson High School, Erich Hover was interested only in playing baseball and getting good grades. He finished second in his class of 281.
At the University of Nebraska at Kearney, he earned a marketing degree, then became director of ticket sales for the Omaha Royals.
Then he was a real estate agent.
Nothing in Hover's young life suggests he should be where he is this month, which is acting in a movie that stars Brad Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
The movie is “Moneyball,” the story of how Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane built a winning franchise with the lowest-paid team in major league baseball by using computer-generated analysis of which players to draft. The movie is expected to open nationwide sometime next year.
Pitt plays Beane. Hoffman plays A's team manager Art Howe. Other big-name talent in the film include Robin Wright (“Forrest Gump”), Jonah Hill (“Superbad”) and Chris Pratt (“Everwood”).
Hover was cast as Larry Sutton, a journeyman A's player.
“It's a small role,” Hover, 30, said last week while in Omaha during a break in the shooting schedule. “I have a couple scenes with Hoffman and one with Pitt, mostly the baseball scenes of the movie.”
Hoffman has hung out with the actor-athletes a lot through the shoot, Hover said. When Hoffman needed a catcher as he practiced batting, Hover stepped up. Next thing he knew, Hoffman introduced himself: “Hey, I'm Phil.”
“I was surprised how down to earth Phil was,” he said. “But when it came time to work, he was so focused. It was almost like he got into a zone. I learned so much just by watching him.”
Similarly, Hover rehearsed a scene with Pitt. Intimidation (“He's one of the most famous actors in the world!”) gave way to chatter about a pizza place they both know in Springfield, Mo., where Pitt grew up. “After I met him, we did a scene, and I wasn't nervous anymore. He's just a guy, and you're in the moment of the scene.”
Hover's uncle, Tony Pane, former head baseball coach at Millard South High School for 20 years, helped him prepare for the movie audition.
“All these guys I went up against to play a major league baseball player were retired pros, minor leaguers or former Division I college players,” Hover said. “I was rusty. I hadn't played competitively in seven years.”
Uncle Tony, now on staff at the Ultimate Baseball Academy, spent hours drilling Erich on his hitting, fielding and throwing. It paid off. During an initial audition and two callbacks in June, Hover said, he hit every ball pitched to him.
Suddenly he found himself in an A's uniform walking onto the turf of the Oakland Coliseum, home of the A's and pro football's Oakland Raiders, to begin filming July 25.
“It was an overwhelming feeling,” Hover said. “The extras in the stands were cheering for us. I said, ‘Guys. We're playing baseball where the Oakland A's play.' We looked at each other like, ‘Whoa.'”
He may have been wide-eyed in that moment, but the road to big-budget movies wasn't without work. It took three years of waiting tables in Los Angeles, finding an acting coach and an agent, commuting 50 miles for months from an affordable apartment in Orange County to his job and auditions, then enduring endless rejections.
“It's not what you think it's going to be,” Hover said. “You hear, ‘No, no, no, I don't see it in you, change your look, change your hair.' If you don't love the work there's no way you can stay focused.”
He grew up near 58th and Corby Streets, the middle son of three boys born to Ed and Jerrie Hover. His father, now retired, managed the biology store room at the University of Nebraska at Omaha for 20 years. His mom is a day care provider.
Erich was first turned on to acting five years ago by a friend active in local theater. With his Omaha real-estate career, he found he could take lessons at Actors Etc., audition for commercials and low-budget area movies (“Ulterior Motives,” “Kitty Cats and Exit Signs”), and continue to work full time.
His local claim to fame is an Iowa Lottery commercial in which he bursts out of a barrel of oil, covered in black goo.
He made the break to Los Angeles in the fall of 2006 and has since been cast in a horror short, “Sardines,” and a small-budget independent feature, “Forgiveness,” plus some commercial work.
“He never gave any inkling of this growing up,” said his mom. “To have one of your sons that far away is hard. We're a close Italian family. But sometimes you just have to let go.”
A low point came shortly after Hover's move to California when his car engine blew up. After four months of riding buses, he got a national commercial and could afford a car again. “Moneyball” is his first big-budget studio film.
Hover said he will return to Omaha in October to play the lead in “Diesel,” an independent feature produced by Omaha filmmaker Derek Baker. Hover calls it a coming-of-age story, an action movie involving classic muscle cars of the early 1970s.
But before then, he has more “Moneyball” scenes to shoot in Los Angeles. Shooting wraps Sept. 10.
“I can count on the fingers of one hand the natural-born actors I've known in 35 years in the business,” said Manya Nogg of Actors Etc. “And I'd have two fingers left over. Erich is one of those three.”
Hover credits his supportive parents and uncle, plus the help of Nogg, his agent and manager Dorothy Koster-Paul, in getting this far.
“Growing up, I never thought I was going to be an actor,” he said. “I still ask myself, ‘How did I get here?' But things keep happening. I've been very lucky.”
Contact the writer:
444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com
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