The origins of Adam Driver’s acting career stretch all the way back to a church sketch he appeared in alongside his family. In the latest installment “The First Time,” the actor and Rolling Stone cover star recalls how the bit revolved around an argument between his mom and dad over someone they didn’t want to see at church, whom they — very politely — referred to as a “turkey.”
“Then that guy knocks on the door and comes to their house — I don’t know what the morale or lesson was,” Driver says. “And then my line was to stop playing with my toys and say, ‘Mom, dad, it’s the turkey.’ I got a big laugh and it felt really good.”
Elsewhere, Driver remembers watching in awe as Arnold Schwarzenegger slung knives and one-liners in Predator, reluctantly mowing lawns in his neighborhood and how a failed attempt to make it big in Hollywood prompted him to return home to Indiana and sign up for the Marines. “The recruiter was like, ‘Are you on the run from the cops?’” Driver remembers. “Because no one tries to get out this fast, like usually you give time to think about it, but I kinda made up my mind that I was gonna do it… Also, I had no prospects for realistic employment.”
Driver also spoke about a couple of his first paid acting gigs, and how either a turn in a play or an episode of Law & Order netted him a $200 check, which he promptly spent on a pair of Air Jordans. “This was like 10 years ago and I never wore them because I didn’t want to mess them up,” he says. “And then I pulled them out recently because I felt like I should wear them and they had started growing bacteria cause I never wore them.”
