Marc Blucas

ACC basketball fans are not the target audience for The Jane Austen Book Club, described by one show business magazine as “a chick-lit flick with a vengeance.”

But the movie, which opens Friday in 800 theaters nationwide, features a familiar face if you happened to watch Wake Forest basketball return to prominence during the mid-90s. The handsome fellow in the sports bar — tie loosened, hand grasping the neck of a beer bottle, portraying an “oaf of a spouse” according to a reviewer — is Marc Blucas, a guard at Wake from 1991 through 1994.

“He reminds me a lot of some of the guys I grew up with, a little of that small-town mentality,” Blucas says of “Dean.” Blucas is from Girard, Pa., a working-class community of about 3,000 in the northwestern corner of the state.

Blucas, a chatty mix of enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, and self-examination, knew he was right for the part as soon as he read the script. Not simply because he empathized with the character, or because he meshed with Emily Blunt, the actress who plays his wife, a high school French teacher and member of the book club.

Rather, Blucas knew he belonged because the bit of dialogue he read at his audition involved Tim Duncan, a former Demon Deacon teammate. The character spouts off regarding San Antonio’s prospects in the NBA finals, predicting a four-game sweep, five games if the Spurs grow overconfident. “It isn’t going to go seven unless Tim Duncan gets hit by an asteroid,” he says.

Blucas laughed when he read the line, and laughs again as he recalls it. “Tim is my best friend, so I called him immediately," he says. "I’m like, ‘You can’t believe this stuff. You’re mentioned in this script. I have to get this job.’”

Mission accomplished. Blucas not only got the part in his 21st film — the fourth to be released in 2007 following After Sex, Thr3e and The Killing Floor – but convinced writer/director Robin Swicord to film a practical joke aimed at Duncan.

After delivering the line about the asteroid, Blucas, portraying a Spurs fan, inserted dialogue intended for his one-man audience. “I went on about a 2-minute rant where I completely dismantle his game,” Blucas says with relish. His voice takes on a slightly higher, lilting tone: “’Yo, I’m 6-11, but I just want to dribble through my legs and shoot jumpshots like a guard.’”

Later, Duncan came west to play against the L.A. Lakers and dropped by the set to watch the bogus clip. When Blucas’ character began swearing, Duncan, a laconic sort in public, looked questioningly at his friend. The room full of film folks burst into laughter.

“It was the greatest gag ever,” says Blucas. “It was hilarious.” He says the out-take is included on the DVD of the film.

Basketball has been a constant motif in Blucas’ adult life. Even at age 35, he finds his experiences as an athlete shaped his character and enhance his career. “Sometimes that sports past can really inform a meeting, depending on who’s in the room and how you play it,” he says.

Within the past week, Blucas was asked by a director to recount a personal situation that evoked strong emotion. He picked an instance at Maryland in 1993 when he hurriedly checked into the game and ripped off not only his warmup jacket but his game jersey, to the amusement of teammates and coaches and the derision of fans at College Park.

Blucas, a lightly recruited, 6-2 high school center, was part of a recruiting class that included Randolph Childress, Robert Doggett, Stanley King, Trelonnie Owens, and Rodney Rogers. He says he accepted a chance to play at Wake because “I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if I could play in the ACC.”

The answer did not come quickly.

Blucas played only 65 minutes as a Wake freshman, and was greeted by Duke students with the chant, “What’s a Blucas?” But he gradually established himself as an important supportive player on teams that averaged nearly 20 wins per season. He evolved into a formidable 3-point shooter (46.4 percent accuracy for his career), and supplied solid ball-handling and strong defense against the opponent’s top perimeter threat. By his senior year, he started 32 of 33 games.

“That’s a classic the-way-it-used-to-be story,” said former Deacon coach Dave Odom of Blucas’ maturation as a player. “He deserved everything he got…He did what he was capable of doing and didn’t try to do things he couldn’t do. He wanted to win badly.”

The child of educators, Blucas played pro ball for a year in England after college graduation, then enrolled in Wake law school on scholarship. But about that time he was smitten with acting. His first role was in Eddie, a Whoopi Goldberg basketball comedy filmed in Charlotte and released in 1996. “The cliché happened: I got the bug,” he says.

Later that same year he was the technical advisor for NBC’s 1996 TV movie, Never Give Up: The Jimmy V Story. He moved to California, where for the past 10 years he has lived in a modest house in Brentwood, near UCLA. His film credits include Pleasantville, The Alamo, Summer Catch, and Prey for Rock & Roll. He played a romantic lead opposite Katie Holmes (Mrs. Tom Cruise) in the 2004 film, First Daughter.

For a time he also appeared as the boyfriend of Sarah Michelle Gellar on TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Upcoming films include Starship Dave, a starring vehicle for Eddie Murphy, and Animals, in which Blucas performed all his own stunts. Blucas is hoping to land a part in an upcoming movie with Charlize Theron.

There is an unofficial Marc Blucas fan website, which asks, “What Do You Love about Marc?” He is included on a movie site that speculates on the dating lives of actors. That level of personal intrusion "scares the hell out of me, I’ve got to be honest with you,” says Blucas, who has merited writeups in Movieline and Ingenue.

Blucas is sufficiently successful to support himself by acting. He can pass on roles that hold no interest. He remains captivated and challenged by what he is doing. “I just want to work and meet people and have a good time,” he says. “It’s the same approach as what I did with basketball – I spend a lot of hours and I work really hard.”

Blucas is realistic about his basketball legacy. “I’m barely memorable as a player to the Wake Forest fans, let alone to anyone in the ACC community,” he says.

For years Blucas kept his hand in the game by competing in the NBA Entertainment League, a little-known circuit in the L.A. area. Games are usually attended by invitation only, the rosters comprised of musicians, actors, directors, casting agents and the like. The NBA-supported circuit has sponsors, uniforms, officials, game clocks, rings for champions. Among the participants from time to time are recognizable talents such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Ice Cube, Taye Diggs, and Dean Cain.

Several times, Blucas won MVP awards in the entertainment league. “In the world of professional athletes, I am a slug,” he says. “In the world of actors, I am a phenomenal athlete.”

Blucas eventually quit the league because he was getting fouled with regularity, risking stitches or a sprained ankle that might jeopardize his career. “Everybody thinks they’re Michael Jordan and they take this stuff way too seriously," he says.

Besides, strengths cultivated as an athlete can prove counterproductive in Blucas’ current sphere. For instance, he learned to mask his feelings when immersed in athletic competition, and now works with a coach to perfect the art of emoting on cue.

“I fell in love with being at the bottom rung again,” he says of learning a new trade. “I’m really lucky. At my age to have two passions in life is kind of unique.”

Speaking of passion, Blucas does have one rule about playing love scenes. No mates on the set, please. He adds that it helps to date someone familiar with life in show business, so they don’t get bent out of shape when you say, “I’m making out with Gwyneyth Paltrow all day today.”