He has acted with Tom Hanks in
”
Forrest Gump,
”
Robert De Niro in
”
The Fan
”
and Mike Myers in
”
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
”
He has had TV roles on
”
Malcolm in the Middle
”
with Frankie Muniz and
”
Invasion Iowa
”
with William Shatner. He is in a coming Jack Black film and was
recently cast in the lead role of a film that will be shooting in
New York.
He has acted with Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump,” Robert De Niro in “The Fan” and Mike Myers in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” He has had TV roles on “Malcolm in the Middle” with Frankie Muniz and “Invasion Iowa” with William Shatner. He is in a coming Jack Black film and was recently cast in the lead role of a film that will be shooting in New York.
And the dude still won’t go big-time and renounce his proud Hollister Haybaler roots. You wouldn’t expect anything less from the man named “Most Spirited” by his classmates in the 1989 San Benito High School yearbook.
He is Kirk Ward, actor, writer, comedian and up-and-coming rapper. Next month, Kirk and fellow actor Michael Rivkin will be at The Vault in downtown Hollister to perform as the group Supafloss, a comedic hip-hop duo whose video for the song “Chuck Norris” features appearances by Black, Chris Parnell of “Saturday Night Live” and John C. Reilley, who was Will Farrell’s sidekick in “Taladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”
But enough of the name-dropping (all of which was generated by me, by the way). Kirk is a performer who takes messing around seriously.
Growing up in these parts, Kirk was known to many as Kip Ward’s little brother. Kip, now a local middle school teacher and football coach, was the star quarterback who led the ‘Balers to three straight CCS titles in the mid-’80s. Kirk, an athlete in his own right, now gets a workout in a Supafloss stage show he describes as “high-energy, dance-to-the-beat, laugh-your-fanny-off music show that is very physical, sweaty and expressive.”
Being in a band was but a dream for Kirk, since he didn’t play an instrument, but he was fascinated by the beats and rhymes and phrases of rap music.
“A lot of it – though not intended to I’m sure – made me laugh,” he says. “For me, any time something gets way too serious and self-important, I want to flip it and find the humor in it.”
While he draws inspiration from the patterns and stories of beat writers such as Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and William S. Burroughs – “the way they combined words and images to create vivid concepts” – Kirk can keep it real and spit lines like “I’m afraid you won’t understand and think I’m growing mammary glands” as his Supafloss character Twista cops to a “man-crush” for his sidekick Grotzky (Rivkin).
Kirk remembers catching the acting bug while watching a stage version of “Grease” at Gavilan College when he was a seventh-grader at Sacred Heart School. “All these cool dudes with cigs in hand, dancing and singing … it looked like fun,” he recalls. Kirk began to spend time at El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista, watching how plays were written and sets were built “and how creative you can be with just one simple concept,” he said.
“Then I saw the comedy troupe Culture Clash and I wanted to join the circus,” Kirk says. “That was it – impersonation, music, sketch, dance. Everybody and everything was poked fun at – game over. I haven’t looked back since.”
While his career is branching out, he remembers his roots.
“Living in L.A. you don’t have a real community,” Kirk says. “It’s spread out – you just create your own community instead of living right in the center of one. That’s what I love about Hollister. It’s community to me: family and old friends who know who you are no matter what’s going on in your life. I’m proud of being from Hollister.”
And the popular Hollister brand of clothing that is all the rage? Kirk isn’t buying it.
“(Hollister) is not a logo on a shirt that’s sold in a mall somewhere in America. … What’s that all about?” he says. “I hate it when I see those shirts. I went into the Hollister store the other day at the mall and wanted to go postal. The decor and the lighting and the artwork – so not us! Don’t put my town’s name on a shirt and try to sell it.”
Kirk adds, “maybe I’m clueless and some hardworking small business owner that lives in Hollister is the mastermind behind it and he’s going to come to the show on Nov. 11 and blast me with salt rock … hope not!”
As Twista, Kirk drops lines like “Who is the homeboy with skin so porous that will kick your a– into the rainforest? Chucka, Chucka, Chucka, Chuck Norris.”
Offstage, he recalls Hollister as “a beautiful little town with character, charm, integrity and people with heart.” Kirk says Supafloss will connect with the 20-something crowd, but he is inviting everyone “to come to the show and bring between two and 200 of your closest friends.”
Supafloss, which Kirk says has performed in venues ranging from The House of Blues to the Viper Room to “our friend Ted’s living room,” will perform upstairs at The Vault in downtown Hollister at 9pm Nov. 11. Tickets are available at The Vault for $20. For more information or to see the “Chuck Norris” video and have its chorus stay in your head for three weeks, go to www.supafloss.com.
Adam Breen teaches journalism and yearbook at San Benito High School. He is former editor of The Free Lance.
