I Never Sang At The Ryman (But I Did Have Lunch With Danny Glover)

Cop. Mob boss. Boxing trainer. Tow truck driver. Biker. Cowboy.If all of Creek Wilson’s jobs could be lumped together, it might sound like an audition for The Village People.“True story,” Creek says in a deep Tommy Lee Jones drawl, his cropped salt and pepper goatee widening into a grin. Sporting a teal polo shirt and shorts, he leans back in a chair under a covered patio roof where he has taken refuge from the molasses-thick afternoon heat. “April 15th, 2013. I decided I did not want to be in the business world anymore. My youngest daughter Kamryn was turning sixteen and I spent the summer with her. When school started back she told me I needed to find something else to do instead of being around her all the time. I said, ‘What can I do?’ She said, ‘You’ve been in theater. Why don’t you become an actor?’Kamryn had just declined an offer to be in a New Orleans-based reality show about Southern high school girls. “She told me how to get some pictures made and who to send them to, and two weeks later I was on the set with Nicholas Cage in the movie Left Behind.”Creek walked onto the Baton Rouge set as a background player, but was allowed to do a stunt involving a plane crash. “We got stunt pay for that,” he says.In his halcyon days as a young defensive end for the Walker Vikings in the 1970s, Creek had no interest in acting per se, though he would have loved being a stuntman. Recalling the famous rocket car stunt filmed in 1978 at an abandoned bridge on Highway 78 for the film Hooper, he makes a confession. “I was there,” he says. “I skipped school for two weeks. My cousin was the doctor on the set.”It was at Walker College where Creek first wet his toes in theater, in productions of The King and I and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum— but that took some persuading. “Randell Pickering actually talked me into being in the play,” Creek says. Although he enjoyed acting, he still dreamed of being a country singer-songwriter.In 1991 Creek moved to Hattiesburg, Mississippi and opened a business. “And that’s where all the acting started falling into place,” he says. He continued doing local theater, like Bad Year For Tomatoes and Catfish Moon.Flash forward to that fateful summer day in 2013 when his daughter suggested he pursue acting. After submitting head shots and bios, he began getting offers for roles. He was a biker in three episodes of the TV series Star Crossed. He landed a speaking role in the film 22 Jump Street but his lines were never filmed due to an accident, reducing his role to extra. “I got hit from the rear by a drunk driver,” Creek says. “He was doing about 70 miles an hour and I was at a dead stop.” He suffered a back injury and underwent two months of physical therapy.Because the Screen Actor’s Guild already has an actor registered under the name Scott Wilson, Creek could not use his first name, so he chose a nickname. “I used to ride with a motorcycle club,” he says. “Both my paternal grandmothers are Creek Indian, so my riding name was Creek.”The movie business can be fun, but Creek admits it’s “a lot of ‘hurry up and wait.’ ” On the plus side, he’s been fortunate to work with several famous actors, including Danny Trejo, Danny Glover, and John Amos. “All three of those men treated me like their sons,” Creek says. “I ate lunch with Danny Glover, and we talked about our kids.” He's rubbed elbows with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nicholas Cage, and even the Fresh Prince. “Will Smith spent the day going ‘Mr. Wilson!’, like on Dennis the Menace,” he says, grinning. “I’d say ‘Don’t do that’, but that just made him do it even more.”Meeting stars and signing autographs are all attractive perks, but it didn’t happen overnight. “You don’t jump out the back door and say ‘I’m an actor,’” Creek says. “You have to take classes. You have to work at your craft. I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with some great coaches, like Gary Grubbs. I’ve trained with him for three years.”Creek recently finished shooting a movie in New Mexico called Cowboy Drifter, to be released in 2017. He’s in a newly released comedy-suspense film called Porches and Private Eyes, and will also appear in a new suspense thriller called Iniquity.He may not ever make it to Nashville. You may not see him strumming a guitar on stage at the Ryman.Then again, anything is possible. Creek Wilson is an actor. 78