Professional Passion

When Peter Berg moved to Hollywood two years ago, it never occurred to him that he might have to struggle to become a successful actor. So he’s not surprised that in such a relatively short time, he has been able to land a number of roles, including leads in both Wes Craven’s current “Shocker” and the independent feature “Race for Glory,” which opens next week.

“I’ve always been confident,” says Berg, 27, who got the acting bug soon after college and did “dozens of plays” while studying for his degree in theater arts and theater history from Minnesota’s Macalester College. “I spent a lot of time studying and preparing to work professionally. I had a lot of strong things going on inside of me and it exploded and I got a lot of work right away.”

Berg’s first roles were guest spots on the TV shows “21 Jump Street,” “O’Hara” and “Beverly Hills Buntz.” He then went through about 20 auditions before landing a lead in “Never on Tuesday,” which was released on videocassette this spring.

Berg says it is his passion for acting that helps him to land his roles. “I have a tremendous amount of energy and drive and desire, and I power myself into jobs,” says the outspoken Berg. “And I never want to lose that. To keep that passion strong is one of the hardest things to do as an actor--especially in Los Angeles.”

In search of that passion, when working on “Shocker,” in which he plays a high school football star who establishes a telepathic connection with a mass murderer, Berg closely followed and even attended the trial of “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, “to keep the immediacy of the pain and the horror of a serial killer.”

Despite his success in landing his roles in “Shocker” and “Race for Glory” (in which he plays a motorcycle engineer who builds a grand prix motorcycle), Berg knows that the battle is still uphill.