Schroder's acting career began at age 5 and he has worked continuously ever since. He grew up in Staten Island, N.Y., where his parents worked for the phone company. One of his father's co-workers mentioned that his children were making money by modeling, and he connected Schroder's father with the agent. So Schroder and his sister began modeling for print. He quickly moved into commercials, and before long he was cast in series and films, most notably the movie "The Champ," which made him a child star. Initially, Schroder did a lot of commuting between New York and L.A. for TV and movies, but after three years of working on the series "Silver Spoons," the family moved to L.A. Schroder continued working on screen projects and successfully transitioned from child actor to adult actor.
He currently stars with Laura Bell Bundy in CMT's first original movie, "To the Mat," which premieres Aug. 17. Schroder says he was interested in the project because he'd never done romantic comedy before and because the script (by "Sweet Home Alabama" writer C. Jay Cox) was well-written and very funny. "The Champ" was about boxing; Schroder wrote and directed "Black Cloud," a 2004 film about a Navajo boxer; and he says the world of wrestling in "To the Mat" wasn't that different.
But this film has a very different tone. " 'To the Mat' is a romantic comedy centered on a character that is really fun to play," Schroder says. "I've never had the opportunity really to do romantic comedy, so it was kind of fun to do that." He liked the script's "snappiness" and "truthfulness," he says. "A horrible script 99 percent of the time means a horrible movie. But if you start with a good script, odds are you're going to have a good movie."
Though he'd appeared in movies with a boxing theme, Schroder had never done any wrestling, but he jumped right in. "That's one of the things you have to do as an actor—you have to commit," he says. "And let me tell you, it wasn't easy to put on spandex and face paint when you have an average guy's body. But I owned that spandex and I owned that face paint and I pulled it off."
On Writing
Schroder thinks everyone has hidden talents, and writing was one of his. "I never thought I was good enough actually to write," he says. "I never thought I had that kind of skill." But when he was 30, he read a story about a Navajo boxer and the coach who helped him and other Navajo kids overcome alcohol and drug addictions—and Schroder wanted to write the movie. "When I sat down to write, I couldn't believe how easy it came to me," he says.
Still, of his various creative pursuits, he says writing is the most challenging for him: "Finding the discipline, the motivation, the focus, the passion to sit down in front of a blank piece of paper or a blank computer screen every day and then to make it come alive with characters and with plot is incredibly exciting and at the same time terrifying and frustrating, and sometimes it comes easy and sometimes it comes really hard."
But when it's the right project, it's not as hard. That was the case when he sat down to write a script, "Wild Hearts," for his daughter Cambrie: He wrote the first draft in four weeks. It's the story of a father (played by Schroder) and the daughter he doesn't know (played by Cambrie), who shows up at his doorstep and bonds with a wild horse on the ranch.
"My daughter's wanted to be an actress since she could talk," Schroder says. "And I've held her back because I didn't want her to be a child actress. Not because I regret what my life was and what my experiences were, but I didn't want to choose that for her, because it chooses a life and it doesn't let the child choose their life." But when she was 15 and still wanted to act, he felt it was the right time because she was aware of the decision she was making, and he wanted to be the first to work with her. "She's raw and emotional and powerful," he says. "And I wanted to be the one to give her the first experience in a film, and so 'Wild Hearts' was my opportunity to do that."
Besides writing and acting in "Wild Hearts," Schroder also produced and directed the film. He admits there were some challenges in directing his daughter, because as a director he can be very demanding, he says. "I want the best for [the actors] and I want the best for the movie. I worked with creative people who were very demanding of me, and they helped me reach performances that I never could have gotten on my own without being pushed and having trust in them. And so I know the best way to get the best performance of an actor, and that's not to coddle them or to baby them. It's to help them; it's to push them."
On Directing
Schroder decided to try his hand at directing because, after acting for so many years, he needed to challenge himself in a new way. "Directing for me feels the most natural," he says. "It even feels more natural for me than acting a lot of times, because if I'm acting with a great character that I've been given to play with great writing, it fits like a glove; it just feels right. But if it's anything but that, it feels hard to act for me. But directing, I just feel comfortable. I know what I want. I know what I want from my crew. I lead by example. I have limitless energy as a director."
Schroder compares directing to being the conductor of an orchestra: "Just to be involved and help steer all of those creative decisions along the way was so exciting to me, and I have so much fun doing it. I'm more alive on set directing than any other way in my life. I'm most happy in that place."
