The Real Reason You Don't Hear Much From Ben Savage Anymore
From his time at Stanford to a congressional run, Ben Savage has been busy — even if he doesn't grace our TV screens as much these days. So what is the formerly super famous young actor up to now?
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00From his time at Stanford to a congressional run, Ben Savage has been busy, even if he
00:05doesn't grace our TV screens as much these days.
00:08So what is the formerly super-famous young actor up to now?
00:12Corey Matthews finally met the world when Boy Meets World wrapped up in 2000, and lead
00:16actor Ben Savage was ready to move on.
00:18He told Rolling Stone,
00:19"...I was 19 at the time and had been on the show for seven years.
00:23I was really focused on going to college."
00:25And that he did.
00:26Savage enrolled at the prestigious Stanford University, and he mostly retreated from show
00:30business, only appearing in one major role over the next six years, in 2002's Swimming
00:34Upstream.
00:36At Stanford, Savage surprisingly didn't major in theater, film, communications, or any other
00:41kind of arts- or entertainment-based discipline.
00:43Instead, he pursued a degree in political science, with a special interest in government
00:47and structure.
00:48As many high-achieving college students do, Savage also supplemented his studies of how
00:53the government works with the kind of prestigious, high-profile internship that most any political
00:57science major would want.
00:59He worked in the Washington, D.C., office of the late Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter.
01:03He told Rolling Stone,
01:04"...getting an internship in D.C. is really all about connections.
01:08I thought it would be a fun experience."
01:10It's not that Ben Savage has completely disappeared from Hollywood.
01:13It's just that he's not the out-and-out star of a popular situation comedy anymore.
01:17He does, however, stay in the world of show business by playing the episodic TV guest
01:21star of The Week game.
01:22Not only does that kind of work pay the bills, it also gives an actor a chance to put his
01:26performance skills to the test, potentially playing a wildly different character with
01:30every new gig.
01:31Savage has really mixed it up, too.
01:33He played a nerdy military engineer on Chuck, a possible murderer on Without a Trace, a
01:37nasty blogger on the Kidcom Shake It Up, a sketchy lottery winner on Bones, and as the
01:42younger version of Mandy Patinkin's character on a flashback episode of Criminal Minds.
01:47"...it's never been more important to catch a guy like this."
01:50If you're over the age of, say, 20, you're probably most familiar with Ben Savage for
01:54his role as Corey Matthews on Boy Meets World.
01:57If you're under the age of 20, you know him from reruns of Boy Meets World that have aired
02:01on the Disney Channel for the past 20 years.
02:03The show proved so popular that it led to the network sequel series called Girl Meets
02:07World.
02:08A brief synopsis, Corey and his Boy Meets World girlfriend Topanga are now adults in
02:12their 30s and the parents of a tween named Riley.
02:15It turns out that going back to the role that made him famous in the first place is
02:19just what Savage needed.
02:21Girl Meets World ran for 72 highly-rated episodes.
02:24The Disney Channel ended the series in 2017 before it had a chance to get stale.
02:29Somewhere in between a guest star gig and being a full-fledged series regular is the
02:33casting status known as recurring role, in which a character pops in every few episodes
02:38or a few consecutive installments as part of a plot arc.
02:41After the demise of Girl Meets World in 2017, Savage signed up for a stint on a semi-obscure
02:46sitcom called Still the King.
02:48It starred Billy Ray Cyrus as Vernon Vernon, a scandal-prone one-hit wonder who can't find
02:53any traction in the music industry, and winds up becoming a drunk-driving Elvis impersonator
02:57turned church handyman on parole.
02:59It was, in short, the complete opposite of Boy Meets World.
03:02And yet it attracted Ben Savage, who over the course of four episodes played Gene, a
03:07federal agent and master of disguise.
03:09Unfortunately for Savage, CMT canceled Still the King in late 2017.
03:13I'm a port-a-potty baby!
03:16During the relative obscurity between when Boy Meets World went off the air in 2000 and
03:20when Girl Meets World debuted on the Disney Channel in 2014, Savage made one notable attempt
03:25to return to TV as the star of a primetime show.
03:28In 2007, Savage headlined a lawyer sitcom called Making It Legal.
03:33Created by Freaks and Geeks writer Jeff Judah, the series would have concerned two attorneys
03:36competing for an open partner slot at their Chicago firm.
03:40Savage stayed in his wheelhouse, playing a neurotic, nervous, and eager-to-please young
03:43lawyer.
03:44The cast also included Scott Wolfe, Ashley Williams, and Jeffrey Arendt.
03:48Making It Legal could have been Savage's big comeback, and it could have represented a
03:52complete break with his kid-stubbed past.
03:54But unfortunately, the pilot didn't get picked up for a full series run.
03:59Savage has tried to get a movie career going with a variety of roles in an array of low-budget,
04:03independently produced films.
04:05While they might have earned solid reviews and enjoyed modest audiences at festivals
04:08and on home video, they were small movies in every way, as opposed to big blockbuster
04:13hits or major award winners.
04:14They didn't do much to increase Savage's reach.
04:17Among the interesting but obscure projects in which Savage starred are The Addiction
04:21Slash Family Drama The Caterpillar's Kimono, The Opposites Attract Romantic Comedy Girl
04:26Meets Boy, The Teen Cancer Tearjerker Swimming Upstream, and Palo Alto, California, a dramedy
04:32about four friends reuniting in their hometown on the first Thanksgiving of their college
04:36years.
04:37Ben Savage has a lot in common with his older brother, Fred Savage.
04:40Both got their start as kid actors and are best known for long-running ABC sitcoms that
04:44became cultural touchstones — Ben for Boy Meets World and Fred for The Wonder Years.
04:49They've also both moved behind the camera and behind the scenes as they aged, choosing
04:53to act less but opting to direct and produce.
04:56Fred Savage has produced a few comedy shows, such as Party Down and Garfunkel & Oates,
05:00and he's directed dozens of half-hour episodes for shows like The Goldbergs and It's Always
05:04Sunny in Philadelphia.
05:06Ben Savage has once again followed his older brother into the family business.
05:09Savage served as a co-producer for more than four dozen episodes of Girl Meets World, and
05:14he also took the director's chair for ten episodes of the hit Disney Channel revival.
05:22A lot of actors who dominated TV in the 1990s by virtue of starring on a heavily-watched
05:26network sitcom didn't actually disappear from pop culture or quit acting — they just
05:31moved into a niche where their services are appreciated, and their mere presence provides
05:35comfort and nostalgia.
05:37Several former child stars and teen actors from the 1990s and early 2000s nowadays make
05:41a decent living and enjoy sizable followings by starring in movies made specifically for
05:46cable TV stations.
05:47This includes Savage.
05:48In 2020, Savage headlined Love, Lights, Hanukkah.
05:52It's one of the Hallmark Channel's many holiday romance movies and one of the few with a non-Christmas
05:57Two years later, Savage broke out of his easygoing and comedic wheelhouse with the Lifetime original
06:01Girl in the Shed, The Kidnapping of Abbie Hernandez.
06:04In the true-crime docudrama, Savage portrayed real-life kidnapper Nathaniel Kibbe.
06:12Ben Savage is a seasoned veteran of multiple television shows over the decades, and so
06:16is Mandy Patinkin.
06:17As such, Savage now fills a very specific niche for TV producers.
06:22He's the guy to call when a script calls for a younger version of a Patinkin character
06:25in a flashback sequence.
06:27In the second-to-last episode of Criminal Minds, which aired in 2020, Savage played
06:31Jason Gideon, Patinkin's character from the series, in some scenes set in the distant
06:35past.
06:36Then, just a couple of months later, Savage guest-starred on Homeland as the younger past
06:40version of Saul Berenson, who is played in the present day of the series by Mandy Patinkin.
06:45Homeland co-creator Alex Gonza told TVLine,
06:48"...there was some talk of trying to make Mandy, who is 67 in real life, look like he
06:52was in his late 20s, but we did some tests and it just wasn't believable."
06:57After dismissing the idea of hiring one of Patinkin's real-life sons, Gonza learned that
07:01Savage had played a younger version of a Patinkin character on Criminal Minds and reached out.
07:05Gonza said of the decision,
07:07"...he just bears such an uncanny resemblance to Mandy."
07:10Not in the public eye as much as he once was, actor Ben Savage has valued his privacy and
07:15his time out of the spotlight, choosing to cultivate personal relationships with that
07:19de facto freedom.
07:20He embraced living a life not under constant scrutiny and developed a romantic relationship
07:24that he kept virtually secret for four years.
07:27According to People, Savage quietly began dating Tessa Engermeyer in 2018.
07:31About four years later, around Christmas 2022, the couple announced their engagement in an
07:36Instagram photo.
07:37The photo was posted on Savage's account, as Engermeyer has her account on private.
07:41They'd only occasionally appeared in public together, but Engermeyer was present for Savage's
07:45campaign events while running for West Hollywood's city council in 2022.
07:49In a written statement, Savage's representative told People,
07:52"...they are both very grateful and enjoying this exciting time with their families and
07:56friends."
07:57Ben Savage isn't as exceptionally busy as he once was with his acting career, which
08:01gives him the time and energy to pursue other passions.
08:04In his college days, Savage served as an intern in the Washington, D.C. office of Pennsylvania
08:08Senator Arlen Specter, and decades later, in 2022, he ran for office himself.
08:14Savage vied for a seat on the city council in West Hollywood, California, where he'd
08:17lived for nearly two decades, according to his campaign website.
08:20When all the votes were tallied, Savage didn't win one of the open seats on the board.
08:24According to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, Savage finished in sixth place out of 12 candidates,
08:30garnering 6.32 percent of all ballots cast.
08:33Undeterred, months later, Savage officially set his sights on a higher federal office.
08:38In January 2023, Savage announced that he'd filed with the Federal Elections Commission
08:42to run as a Democrat in California's 30th House District in the U.S. House of Representatives,
08:47a seat set to be vacated when Rep. Adam Schiff leaves to run in a U.S. Senate election.