TV’s ‘Parker’ Looks at the Big Picture : Television: ‘I want to become the caliber of an actor who they just give you scripts and say, “Please, be in this movie,” ’ confesses Corin Nemec of the Fox comedy series.

At the tender age of 20, Corin Nemec has already invested his teen-age earnings as an actor to build a future in stocks and real estate with the help of his business manager. “We’re really trying to make money out of money, and not just let taxes eat it up,” Nemec said.

And that’s just the beginning for the clear-thinking Nemec, who will add to his impressive list of acting credits Sunday with the CBS movie “My Son Johnny,” in which he portrays a lifetime victim of torturous abuse by his violent older brother, played by Rick Schroder.

“I still haven’t accomplished my goal yet,” said Nemec, who shot “Johnny” in Canada last summer while on hiatus from the Fox series “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.” “My goal is to get to a specific point in my career where I don’t have to worry about not working, where I don’t have to worry about reading for jobs. I want to become the caliber of an actor who they just give you scripts and say, ‘Please, be in this movie. We just want you to do this.’ ”

That may sound presumptuous for an actor--nicknamed “Corky” because his grandmother thought he was a “real corker” as a baby--who just last Tuesday bid farewell to his teen-age years, but consider that Nemec has never been in anything less than highly regarded projects. Even at the start of his career, after winning his first acting role as Jeff Bridges’ middle son in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1988 feature film “Tucker: A Man and His Dream,” the tall, fair-haired boy was turning down roles.

“Well, it wasn’t that I was so much turning them down,” Nemec said over a hamburger, french fries and onion rings last week during a lunch break on the “Parker Lewis” set. “Scripts would come, I’d read them, call my agent and say, ‘Tell them I’m not available.’ And I wasn’t really in the position to say that, because I had only a few things on my resume.

“But I’m trying to look at the big picture, not just the immediate picture. I want to do quality work for the rest of my life. I don’t want to become famous and then disappear from the face of the planet.”

Nemec was nominated for an Emmy for his first TV movie, “I Know My First Name Is Steven,” in which he played Steven Staynor, a boy who was snatched off a street in 1972 and held captive by a loner for seven years before escaping. In last spring’s “For the First Time,” Nemec was a Jewish boy who falls in love with his Catholic neighbor despite the disapproval of the couple’s parents.

So far, they’ve all been sympathetic roles, although that hasn’t stopped Nemec from stretching for more. “I tried out a few months back for a feature film, and I was supposed to be an angel dust fiend,” he said. “You know, a drug addict who lives on the street. And I didn’t get the part. That’s all right. Life goes on. I think I did a great job in the interview, but some of the more powerful influences on the picture wanted a bigger name.”

The creators of “Parker Lewis,” now in its second season, were willing to take a chance on the virtually unknown Nemec for their lead role after seeing him in an unsuccessful pilot from Eddie Murphy’s production company, “What’s Allen Watching?”

“He’s offered everything in the world,” said Clyde Phillips, creator and executive producer of “Parker Lewis.” “But he’s got terrific taste. He’s a very smart young actor, with a great sense of discretion. If you look at his pictures, they either pose significant role models, or they’re somewhat controversial in nature.”

“My Son Johnny” undoubtedly falls on the controversial side. In the dark movie, co-starring Michelle Lee as the boys’ mother, Nemec is the good son who finally loses control after years of physical and mental torture by Schroder, his thug sibling.

In a sense, Nemec and Schroder are as striking contrasts off screen as they are on screen. Nemec was a fairly average 12-year-old kid living in Atlanta before he turned to acting when his mother took a job in Los Angeles. Schroder, on the other hand, spent his early childhood in show business. Then in 1982, when he was 12, he signed up for the sitcom “Silver Spoons,” entrenching him in viewers’ minds for the next five years as the squeegee-cheeked Ricky Stratton.

“The main thing about ‘Silver Spoons,’ you learn so many bad habits on a sitcom, because you do 24 shows a year and it just becomes a job,” Schroder, now 21, said from his house in Colorado, where he lives with his wife, Andrea. After he left “Silver Spoons,” Schroder took a break from acting, during which time the tabloids turned him into a spoiled Hollywood rebel.

“The only way you can avoid that is to be non-abrasive to every single person,” Schroder said. “But it’s impossible. You don’t like everybody, and not everybody’s going to like you. It’s a shame people try to destroy your career, but that’s what they’re going to do. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have told so many people off.”

When asked if “Parker Lewis” might typecast Nemec the way “Silver Spoons” corralled him, Schroder said: “I don’t think ‘Parker Lewis’ is going to hurt him at all. I think he’s old enough, certainly wise enough. It’s not like he’s going through a transition like I did from 12 to 17, growing up on the show. He started at 17. He was already a dude. I think it’s just going to build up a fan base of people who like him, and I think he can use it as a springboard.

“But there’s so many variables involved here. Do you lose interest in the business? Do you get a girlfriend? Do you become a drug addict? There’s so many things that can happen. There’s really no way to predict that.”

Based on the series’ skewed vision, it’s unlikely that “Parker Lewis” could ever turn Nemec into a mugging sitcom star. On the series--a sort of Nintendo comedy show popping out with lights, sound effects and extreme camera angles--Parker is a wise-cracking high school kid in loud shirts with Arsenio Hall’s hip and Dick Cavett’s droll.

Nonetheless, Nemec does worry about being pegged as Parker.

“Of course,” he said. “That’s why on hiatus I’m trying to do as much work as I can. Something that’s different, that has a different character to it. That way people don’t just constantly see me as Parker Lewis. That’s where I think a lot of actors go wrong, is when their hiatus comes, they take off for three months and go to Europe and then come back to their show, because they know they have a job.”

“Parker Lewis” has received critical attention as one of the freshest series on television. And this season, upon Fox’s request, the producers have developed more serious story lines--including censorship, the low pay teachers receive and, this week, Parker’s first love--to broaden the audience. But as long as it airs Sundays at 7:30 p.m. opposite ratings powerhouse “60 Minutes” on CBS, “Parker Lewis” may be destined to continue languishing in the ratings cellar.

“The ratings really don’t frustrate me because the show is such a great show, you know?” Nemec said. “I mean, another time slot would be nice, of course. I mean a prime-time one. But I’m not really going to complain, because I’m lucky to have the job.”