Whodunit Actor With a Penchant for Doing It All

Don’t even try to pigeonhole Randy Stone.

He was a child actor. A production assistant at 17, a casting apprentice at 18. Head of casting for Alan Landsburg Productions--and running his own company--at 21.

“But I didn’t want to have to be a casting director my whole life,” said Stone, 30. “I write music, sing music. I have an antique emporium. I buy and sell antiques. I buy houses, fix them up and sell them. And now I’m doing this play.”

“This play” is Barbara Bishop’s “Siblings,” opening Thursday at the Gnu Theatre in North Hollywood. In it, Stone plays an artist trying to woo back his ladylove (Talia Balsam), whose rich sister has just been bumped off. “It’s a whodunit,” he said, “funny and scary. A play with murder. A murder mystery, but not really. . . . I hate to pigeonhole it, just like I hate to pigeonhole myself.”

Stone’s introduction to the Gnu came last year, when he saw Rafael Lima’s “El Salvador”--and was knocked out. That led to a meeting with the theater’s director, Jeff Seymour, and recently the offer to read for this play. It will mark the first time that he’s acted in 12 years. But there are no plans beyond that, and he’s not quitting his day job at Stone/Powell Casting. “Right now, I want to do this play. Then I might act again--or I might not.”

Stone’s acting career began at age 5 when his mother took him and his 6 1/2-year-old brother on an audition for Purina Cat Chow. “The man said, ‘Say, “Here, kitty, kitty,” ’ and I said, ‘No!’ My brother said, ‘Here, kitty, kitty.’ The man said to me, ‘Do you want to try it again?’ ‘No!’ Three months later when I saw the commercial, I ran to my mom: ‘Why is Jeff on TV and I’m not?’ ”

From then on, he worked.

“Corn Chex, Rice Chex, Wheat Chex, peanut butter, Tide, Crest, Mattel Hot Wheels, Nestle’s Quik, Kodak film,” Stone said, reeling off his commercials. “I was a very quiet, happy kid, very into myself. But when I was in front of the camera, in front of people, I opened up. I remember a wrap party and everyone was patting my head, telling me how good I was. I know it sounds sick, but it was one of the happiest moments of my childhood and the first time I ever felt loved.”

He wasn’t getting it from his peers. “Kids would come up and say, ‘You were in a commercial,’ and I’d say, ‘So what?’ I thought every kid did it. It was never a big deal to me ‘cause I’d done it my whole life. But at about 12, you start noticing your body, a pimple. I went through this real awkward stage: short, kind of gangly, unattractive, awkward and insecure.”

Stone was also perennially on the move. “I must have lived 15 places when I was a kid,” he said without rancor. “In elementary school I always felt I was strange--like, ‘How could this baseball game be important?’ I never looked at my life from a kid’s point of view. It was from a serious, adult point of view. When I’m casting kids now, I tell them, ‘If you want to do this, you’ve got to commit to it like an adult. It’s an adult job.’ ”

For him, it was also a haven away from school. He still speaks of junior high as “hell,” and remembers kids who weren’t allowed to play with him because his parents were divorced. “I was like a fish out of water,” he said. “I had no friends. I never fit in.” The adult search for connection brought marriage and divorce--and, seven years ago, a conversion to Judaism.

Home is an English country house in Toluca Lake, beautifully remodeled. He has a swell career and could pass for Tom Cruise’s better-looking brother. And yet, Stone says quietly, “I still feel different. I always think, ‘What am I doing different than everyone else?’ That’s why I decided to do what I want to do, instead of second-guessing myself all the time.”

The quality that’s served him best in casting? “Taste,” he said good-naturedly. Also an affinity for actors. Stone’s TV-movie credits include the Emmy-winning “Bill” with Mickey Rooney, “A Long Way Home” with Timothy Hutton and “Adam” with Daniel J. Travanti and JoBeth Williams. Stone/Powell Casting is now finishing a movie-of-the-week for CBS; the week after the play opens, they’ll start work on another one.

“It’s easier with a good project,” he admitted. “Like when I was casting ‘Cheers,’ it was easier to get great actors to do that show. But sometimes it’s a challenge. When I was casting ‘Adam,’ nobody wanted to play the mom. The part wasn’t written. Everything was off the page. But JoBeth was smart enough to know she didn’t have to be talking. Her most incredible moments are between the lines.”

Right now, Stone is enjoying taking those acting rigors on himself. “People are going to put me down for doing this play,” he said. “They want to put you in one place. They don’t like you to deviate. They say, ‘Aren’t you happy? You must love your job.’ The truth is, I’m never satisfied. I’ll never be satisfied. I mean, I want to do everything. I wish I could live to be 200 years old.”