Carter Jenkins is loving his run on NBC’s “Surface.” The water may be cold, but his career is heating up.
He was “Carter Who?” when he was introduced to television critics on a stage at the Beverly Hills Hilton last summer.
Viewers might have seen him before as an extra or guest star on “CSI: NY” or “Scrubs.” He once was credited as “kid” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Then, last year came a film role in the remake of “The Bad News Bears” (but not as a Bear), and finally his big break on NBC.
Now he’s Carter Jenkins, that kid from “Surface.”
Jenkins and crew just wrapped up the undersea sci-fi adventure’s 17-episode first season on NBC, (7 p.m. Mondays on KUSA- Channel 9 and 5 p.m. Mondays on the Scifi Channel) unsure of what’s ahead for the show, but riding at least a favorable mention from NBC president of entertainment Kevin Reilly.
Though not a ratings powerhouse, the seafaring saga is a top-50 show, averaging nearly 9.5- million viewers, better than Fox’s “Prison Break” and “The Simpsons,” better than Dennis Hopper on NBC’s “E-Ring” and way better than the high-dollar Matt LeBlanc NBC sitcom “Joey.”
And at center stage is Jenkins, a 14-year-old Tampa native who has spent this season talking to a mark of tape (and sometimes a cereal box), jumping in and out of the Intracoastal Waterway in Wilmington, N.C., and slowly turning into a creepy creature.
“It’s been great, everything about it,” Jenkins said.
Despite his youth, Jenkins seems every bit the accomplished Hollywood star. As he talked about shooting scenes, hitting restaurants and playing poker with the guys, it was easy to forget he is a high school freshman in his home-school classes.
He has had a busy year with a challenging role in a TV season cluttered with science fiction.
The biggest thing viewers probably don’t know about “Surface” is that Jenkins never sees the co-star he deals with the most. The sea creature he is raising on the show, a super-intelligent, electrically charged undersea iguana called Nimrod, is a computer-generated image added after scenes are shot.
Jenkins has to have entire conversations staring at nothing.
“Sometimes it’s just a piece of tape. The other day it was a box of cereal,” Jenkins said. “When we’re shooting, he’s not there; it’s all visual effects. Acting is reacting, and when you don’t have anything to act to, it’s tough.” The first glimpse he gets of how “Nim” fits into the scene is when the show airs, Jenkins said.
Jenkins said he wears a thin wet suit under his clothes, but it’s hardly enough to keep out the cold. Jenkins said he has little in common with his character, Miles. “We look alike,” he said, invoking the old show-biz line.
But where Miles was a loner without any passions before taking in the baby sea creature, Jenkins said he always has had outside interests. First it was baseball. Now it’s acting.
NBC’s Reilly wouldn’t say in January if the network would pick up “Surface” for another season, but he hinted it was possible. “The show has done a pretty good job over on Monday,” he said. “I think it’s creative. It’s got a very loyal audience. A number of (sci-fi) genre shows came out. I actually think that this one has fared the best.”
