You’re Killing Me, Smalls!
Last night I saw Patrick Renna in a commercial and I thought, “Hm… I wonder what he’s been up to since The Sandlot.” I hopped on good ol’ IMDB and decided to showcase him in my Where Are They Now column. I know he isn’t what one would call a horror celebrity, but I think you’ll be surprised to see where he’s ended up after being part of my childhood (our childhood?) in the 1990’s.
Born in Boston, MA in 1979, Patrick moved to California when he was 11 to begin his career as a child actor. One of his first roles on record was a featured spot in an episode of “Salute Your Shorts” in 1992, a television film on Nickelodeon that I can barely remember yet it still has a huge fan-base to this day. His first break out role was as Ham in 1993’s The Sandlot. The Sandlot stayed in the top 10 films at the box office for seven weeks and I think we can all agree that Renna had all of the best lines in the movie. Eventually in 1995 he would book his first starring role in The Big Green, a comedy that debuted at #4 at the box office. Following guest spots on “Boy Meets World” and “Home Improvement,” Patrick would make the jump to more mature roles, most of them being in our favorite genre of film.
Starting in 1996 at age 17, Renna booked a small role in Sometimes They Come Back… Again, which he followed up with a guest spot on “The X Files” in 1998. A year later he was one of three leads in scifi-comedy P.U.N.K.S. and started off the millennium with a role in comedy Poor White Trash (2000). From here on out he’d spend the rest of his career bouncing between horror, comedy and television roles. Later in 2000 he appeared in Ricky 6, a documentary about real life murdering Satanists and in 2002 he had a small part in murder-drama The Contract. His next roles were supporting ones in comedy’s Dorm Daze (2003) and scifi’s Game Box 1.0 (2004). During this time he also served in recurring roles on “Judging Amy” and “Over There,” culminating in another recurring gig on “Boston Legal” until 2007. At the end of his television triumph, he booked the male lead as Bill in After Dark Original Dark Ride.
So, where is Patrick Renna now?
He’s still doing a little bit of everything. Good for him! He played a supporting role in Life Blood in 2009 and continued to do unimportant gigs until he returned to television with a guest spot on “Bones” in 2014. In 2015 he played the second male lead as Chris in SyFy’s Lavalantula as well as playing the lead in comedy Bad Roomies, a film that served as his first time as producer. His first and only role so far of 2016 was the supporting role as Tom in Fear, Inc.
