Rick Gonzalez: The genre-hopping, competition-mopping newcomer

"In a home video of myself at five years old, my father was messing around and asked me, 'Ricky, you're going to be a star, aren't you?"' 23-year-old Rick Gonzalez recalls. He answered with a deadpan yes. "I didn't know what I was saying, but I knew what I wanted!"

Though the lifelong New Yorker has been working since his feature debut in Mambo Cafe (1999), the first few months of 2003 are shaping up to be the start of what the stars-truck toddler envisioned. Gonzalez can currently be seen in his first sizable role, playing the woman-crazy Primo in Biker Boyz--"He's the most exaggerated version of Rick Gonzalez," the actor explains--and hamming it up opposite Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Will Ferrell in the just-released comedy Old School. He scores a personal trifecta, and shows some considerable range, playing a partied-out youth in the new drama Laurel Canyon. While one of the challenges on the last film was to replace his Brooklyn accent with a California twang, that didn't compare to the trepidation he felt going into Old School: "I was intimidated until Will Ferrell told me, 'Be the funny you that you are." Luckily, the rather cryptic advice worked.

With some downtime before his next movie project, Gonzalez has been concentrating on music. "I'm an MC," he boasts. 'I've been writing rhymes for six years." He might not yet be Brooklyn's answer to Tupac (one of Gonzalez's heroes), but having prophesied big things for himself at the tender age of five, he's a good bet to pull double duty.

Anita Sarko is currently at work on her first book. Above: Clothes by H&M. Shoes by HOGAN. Styling: AMY LIU. Grooming: LISA RAQUEL/See Management. Special Thanks: SPLASHLIGHT STUDIOS. For fashion and photo details see page 189. Photographer: ADAM WEISS.

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