UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – For one Penn State wrestler, most of his drama comes off the mat rather than on it. Shakur Rasheed, ranked third in the country at 184 pounds, is a theatre minor and aspires to make a career in Hollywood.
For Rasheed, it all began watching Will Smith in his favorite TV show growing up.
"When I was younger I looked up to the character Will Smith played in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air," Rasheed said. "That was my show. I watched it every day. I watch a lot of shows and movies. I'm a pretty outgoing guy, and I love acting. It's so intriguing and I knew I was interested in it."
Rasheed is a theatre minor, not a major, but only because the schedule for a major wouldn't work with wrestling.
"There are things in the major where you have to do a play, and you have to do this and that it would interfere with the days we have our matches," Rasheed said. "There was no way I could do both so I'm a minor in theater and I take extra classes above being a minor to get as much experience as I can. I've taken classes where I have to act, I've taken classes where I had to direct little scenes in plays that are pretty popular and stuff like that."
Rasheed even works with one of his instructors outside of the classroom.
"I've built a really good relationship with my professor from last year and I'm going to talk with him and work with him on the side," Rasheed said. "Not for credits but just to improve my acting and just to do as much as I can for after school to become the next Leonardo DiCaprio times Will Smith times Mark Wahlberg times whatever."
While Shak, as his teammates call him, didn't act in any plays growing up, he did act a lot with his brothers. At 12 years old he started "Shak Show".
"That's the funny thing; I never did plays or anything growing up," Rasheed added. "Me and my brothers used to play around and I called it the Shak Show and I would play around and I'd have an episode. I'd be in front of them and do my own little episode. Then I started doing skits, taking videos that I'd send to my boys and I've sent a couple to people on the team."
Teammate and one of Shak's closest friends Anthony Cassar have been a recipient of some of those videos.
"He'll send me snapchat videos now and then of him working on some roles," Cassar said. "He could do anything. He's good with Italian accents, he could be a good gangster, he's got a wide variety, so the sky is the limit for his acting career."
Rasheed's coach, Cael Sanderson even knows what kind of roles Shak would excel in.
"He's going to want to be the guy that saves the world probably," Sanderson said. "The guy that has to take his shirt off and show you his 10-pack. But he's also got that personality. I'd say the Rock better watch out because Shak's probably coming for his job."
And Rasheed agrees.
"He's not wrong," Rasheed said. "I have to put some weight on before that, but he's not wrong. I would go for roles that he plays in. I think a cool role would be like Leonardo DiCaprio in Wolf of Wall Street. Any movie that I get to be the cool guy that rips my shirt off. I would even play a role like Ryan Gosling in the Notebook. I'm diverse, I'm versatile, I can play anything."
Shak says his teammates enjoy watching him act and sometimes ask him to do things on the spot.
"They do talk about it," Rasheed said, "They're like oh you're an actor, alright go, act right now. And I tell them it doesn't work like that, what do you want me to do start breaking down and crying? And they'll say yeah let me see you cry."
"They ask questions here and there, but they figure I'm going to be some movie star and I hope so, but there's a lot of work I have to do."
While he has his eyes set on a lofty goal, Rasheed says his family has confidence in him and is helping him prepare for the difficult journey ahead.
"They all have full confidence in me, but they let me know that it's a rough life and that the struggling actor is a real thing," Rasheed said. "You live check to check until you get that breakthrough role. I'm prepared to go through that but thank God I have wrestling, so as I'm doing that and waiting for that big role to get my career going I'll have wrestling to take care of me. In my family, I guess you could say I'm the clown so I guess they figured I would do something like this."
Once his wrestling career is over, Rasheed can't wait to begin his adventure.
"There's no doubt I want to get straight to it," Rasheed said. "I think about fighting as a backup plan but above all that is acting for sure. I want to be big time, I want to be Hollywood and then after Hollywood, I want to be a huge character in my own show."
