Park Rapids native reflects on roller coaster career in Hollywood – Park Rapids Enterprise

Matt Clementson, 60, a Park Rapids native, returned to his hometown three years ago after spending about 35 years in the Los Angeles area, pursuing a career in television acting.

I grew up very poor here, he said, remembering parents who didn't work. There was really nothing to go home to. They wouldn't even cook you a meal. So, I mainly devoted myself to my university studies.

Before fleeing to Hollywood in his early 20s, Clementson studied business in Wahpeton, North Dakota, and basically flunked everything, he said. I had to pay for it myself.

Degree in hand, he went into selling garage doors, a job he returned to time and time again when his acting gigs didn't pay the bills. To this day, he works in Warner Garage Door's northern sales territory and runs his own chainsaw carving business,

Viking tree sculptures

on the side.

In between, he spent 35 years in Los Angeles, making sales to fund his acting career.

I still audition in Hollywood from here, because these days you can do it at home with a laptop, he said. You can read the plays right at your house, and if they hire you, they just take you to film it, and you can still live here.

He has an agent to circulate his photo and demo and to organize auditions. He clearly didn't give up, even if he shook his father body.

Before, I wasn't fat. “Actually, I was pretty when I was young,” he laughed. But they like funny, stocky characters. It's still sold in Hollywood. I worked more like a heavy actor than a skinny actor. Isn't that crazy?

However, he hasn't landed a role since returning to Park Rapids.

This was not the case at the start of his television career. When I got to Hollywood, Clementson said, I had roles on Days of Our Lives, like 20 different episodes. At first a lot of these parts had no lines, then all of a sudden they start giving you less than five lines.

The problem is, unless you're under contract as a lead actor, there's no money in appearances under 5 on a soap opera. They will get $200 for the day, and then the broadcast will never air again. So you're not going to make a living doing this.

Then he landed some national commercials. One of them was for Goodyear Tires' Serious Freedom campaign.

It spread around the world, Clementson said. I bought a house with it. So now I'm stable. So I quit my job selling garage doors and thought I could make a lot of money.

But that contract eventually ended. They aired it for two years, he said. I made a lot of money. But I was stupid, I invested in a boxing club with it and I lost my ass.

His next break was a commercial for Sony Playstation Atlantis. “I play a crazy father who pushes his family into the ocean, because that’s where Atlantis is,” he said.

He didn't say any lines, but according to a Screen Actors Guild rule, if your face is recognizable on screen with two eyes and a nose, he said you'll get residuals. At the time, that meant a $100 check each time the ad aired.

That's what an actor makes a living, Clementson said. You have to hope the streaming continues to pay your bills at home. But then the broadcast will stop. He's laughing. So what ? You better have a good day at work.

Her biggest breakup came when close friend and fellow chainsaw artist Stacy Poitras began dating Clint Eastwood's daughter Alison. She thought it was funny that these crazy people were drinking beer and operating chainsaws, and she decided to make a reality show about them.

She's going to introduce him to Clint, and Clint just wants her to work, Clementson laughs. He gives him this TV series and casts us in it to be the main characters.

The show ran for 10 episodes in 2012–2013 and was a ratings success, but it was canceled because Alison lost interest despite marrying Poitras.

He's the star, Clementson admitted. They wouldn't let me touch a chainsaw because I drank too much beer around it. But they told me to drink.

When I went to the interview, Clint said to me: Are you okay with drinking on national television and playing a drunk salesman? And I said, “Well, that's actually kind of who I am in real life.” As long as you buy beer, I will. Who the hell tells you to drink beer when you work for them? Person! But it happened. Every episode you'll see I have a beer in my hand.

The series went off on a high note, with a heartbreaking episode in which Clementson's brother with Down syndrome, Mark, meets his hero, Dukes of Hazzard star John Schneider. It continued to air for a few years and is now available for video streaming.

People are buying it now and I get about $1 for every time they buy one, Clementson said. If a million people buy it, I'll have a nice house.

Three years ago, Clementson finally said goodbye to Hollywood with his wife, Lana, and their daughters, Samantha and Roxanna.

I wanted to come home and raise my children here, he said. I always dreamed of bringing them here to be raised the way I was raised. Not as poor, but with this city. They like what I brought them to, compared to California.

He remembers living in the hills above a large city riddled with poverty and homelessness.

People can't afford to rent and live, he said. When you live like I lived, with an up-and-down income, you always have this anxiety about being next.

Clementson would never advise anyone to become a television actor. Especially with children, he says, you can't live like that. There are simply no guarantees. Things can be broadcast and undone. You depend on this residue to happen, but it doesn't. It’s a life of rejection interrupted by casual work.