Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/HBO
Several breakthrough stars have come out of Nathan Fielder’s twisted new HBO series The Rehearsal so far. First, there was Kor, a man worried that his trivia friends might drop him if they found out he didn’t have the master’s degree he claimed to possess. Last week, we met Robbin, who crashed his Scion TC going 100 mph and now sees numerological signs everywhere. But it’s Vincent A. Cefalu, who stars as a fake, diaper-donning grandpa in the latest episode, for whom fans are already mounting an Emmy campaign.
The whole scheme began innocently, with watching Dragon Ball Z and changing grandpa’s diaper. But how did Cefalu, a retired federal agent known for his undercover work, get involved with The Rehearsal?
“My No. 1 goal in all of this was to get exposure for my book,” Cefalu tells The Daily Beast, in an interview following the episode’s debut. He was referencing his non-fiction memoir Ratsnakes, about his time working as an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The TV show promised a bit of promotion, Cefalu tells me, though the hour-long interview he filmed with HBO about it didn’t make the final cut. “They fell a little bit short on their representation… that the book would be pumped, somehow, on the show,” he says.