Greg Grunberg was spotted at Awesome Con in Washington, DC Apr. 26 – 28, 2019 NerdAlertNews caught up with him. The popular actor is known for his fandom genre projects such as “Heroes,” “The Flash,” “Star Trek Beyond,” and of course his role as Snap Wexley in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” It so happened that Grunberg was also in D.C. that weekend for the National Walk for Epilepsy.
His eldest son Jake has epilepsy, and together they do a lot of work in the community. The Grunbergs were representing the company LivaNova, the makers of VNS Therapy- the medical device Jake has to help control his seizures. The National Walk for Epilepsy is an event they try to attend every year. Lucky for Greg’s fans this year it happened to line up with Awesome Con.
Jadeen Mercado: How has the convention been for you so far?
Greg Grunberg: Really great. I wasn’t supposed to be here so this is really cool. It’s wonderful. I’m also here for the National Walk for Epilepsy. Jake my oldest son is here with me. He has epilepsy and we do this national walk on The Mall (Washington DC Mall) every year, but I’m not able to come every year so this worked out. I was like Awesome Con and I contacted them and they were like “oh my god we’d love to have you”, and Milo’s going to be here (Ventimiglia) so it worked out. Tomorrow on The Mall there are going to be over 10,000 people all walking to try and end epilepsy and remove the stigma.
JM: So since “Heroes” that’s a nerd kind of thing and a lot of people are here for that. How have your conventions changed from then until now?
GG: I’ve been so fortunate to have been on a bunch of things that resonate with this audience, and really I’m just so lucky to be a part of such a great community. It seems to be like whatever’s the hottest thing at that moment–I’ve got Episode 9 (Star Wars) coming out now and everybody’s excited about that now. “Star Wars” Celebration was over the top great, but “Heroes” man, people come back to “Heroes” like crazy. That show resonated–the characters resonated, the timing was great. I would say that’s the one but it just changes depending on which con. When I did “Star Trek” that was hot at that time.
JM: “Heroes” was very iconic. I was young but I remember how big it was. So the epilepsy walk that you’re going to be doing, I know you’re doing something with our favorite band Louden Swain. Tell us about that and your work with them.
GG: Robbie Benedict and I have known each other forever since “Felicity” and we have become very very close friends. He is just the greatest. Every time I ask him to play an event, or, I have had a band called Band From TV for many, many years and he joined us there. He joined us at Comic-Con, but Louden Swain is the real deal.
Ya know we do this for charity, we play cover songs, and we have a great time. Robbie is such an amazing musician. You see a musician play and you’re like wow, they’re really good, and then you see someone like Louden Swain and all those guys are–but for me, especially Rob his heart is into everything he does. I love watching them play live, I love his voice, and he’s just amazing. He’s not acting like a musician if that makes sense. To me he is a great actor, don’t get me wrong, but I think he’s a musician first and he loves acting. I mean he does both equally well, but man I love watching him.
Greg and friends’ Band From TV:
JM: What things from you can we look forward to?
GG: I’m doing a pilot with Gael Garcia Bernal for Showtime called “Hombre.” That was announced yesterday. And then Episode Nine is coming, and also I have two podcasts. one’s called “Coroner’s Stories” and one’s called “Talk About It” an epilepsy podcast. Everybody, please check out what I’m doing.
Follow Greg on Twitter to stay up to date with what he is doing next and check out his latest projects. Thank you, Greg, for your time!
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Written by Jadeen Mercado
