Zachery Ty Bryan struggled to find an acting job after starring as eldest son Brad Taylor in all eight seasons of Home improvement. He has opened up about the struggles and tough comeback to fame as a teenager, in a new interview that details his past as a child star and his current life, which is riddled with legal issues over domestic abuse charges, drunk driving and an apparent cryptocurrency scheme. .
Home Improvement starred Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson as Tim "The Tool Man" and Jill Taylor, parents of sons Brad (Bryan), Randy (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) and Mark (Taran Noah Smith). Bryan said it was "actually very difficult" to land more acting jobs after the Home improvement series finale in 1999, despite the success of the ABC show.
"If you're in a TV show today, you can be in any movie you want, but back then it was quite the opposite," Bryan said. The Hollywood Reporter. He said there was a stigma around TV stars at the time that made it difficult to break into film roles. It was an odd juxtaposition with being one of the stars of an acclaimed TV series.
"You've been branded as a TV star, and no matter how good your audition, you're never going to be taken seriously. But I kept going," he explained. Similarly, you could get turned down for a bunch of projects, but you could go out at night and hang out with your buddies at Mel's Diner and everyone knows you."
It still refers to the Home improvement years as "some of the best days" of his life, although he noted to the outlet that he started drinking at age 14 while working on the show.
"Back then, I would go to nightclubs and they would let me in because I was the kid of Home improvement," he said. Now he's trying "to stay away. I just kind of disengaged. I have my routine, I don't go out and turn on, and that takes a lot of the problems out of it."
Camera work continued to be hard to come by for the actor, leading him to move into producing in the 2010s. The change was welcome for Bryan, who compared being an actor to being a animal in a slaughterhouse in continued remarks to THR.
"What pushed me to produce was that as an actor, I felt like I was no longer in control of my career," he explained. “As an actor, you are like a cow going to the slaughterhouse and you have to rely on so many people, from an agent to a manager to a lawyer. necessarily need to act, there are other directions to take.
He enjoyed some success as an independent film producer, earning good reviews for films like Kindergarten Teacher And Skin. Over time, her second career act was free from the scandals usually associated with former child stars, but that would eventually change. After appearing as a "Hollywood insider" for conservative outlets like Fox News and Newsmax during the Trump presidency, Bryan made headlines in 2020 for domestic violence arrests, a DUI and for allegedly defrauding people for they invest in cryptocurrency.
Just two weeks after he and his ex-wife Carly Matros announced their separation in September 2020, Bryan was arrested and charged with felony strangulation, fourth-degree assault, coercion, threats, harassment and assault. interference in the writing of a police report in Oregon. The charges implicated Johnnie Faye Cartwright, not Matros. The felony strangulation charge was eventually dropped and he pleaded guilty to threatening and fourth-degree assault, two misdemeanors.
He had also earned millions after investing part of his Home improvement bitcoin trust fund. Her First child co-star, Brock Pierce (the so-called “hippie king of cryptocurrency” who served on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation before the crypto crash of 2022), briefed him on the outlook for Bitcoin. Bryan then helped agri-tech startup Producers Market recruit investors. Some of these investors said THR they then felt cheated out of Bryan and his crypto promises.
Allen said THR, "I don't know what's going on with him" in response to his legal torment. “Zach is a wonderful boy who has grown into a complex man. All you can do is step back and let someone follow their process.
"At some point he veered from the guy I knew to someone who reacts to situations I had nothing to do with and can't control," Allen continued. “I don't know what happens when people are corrupt. You just don't know.