In 2012, Alexander Pennecke was a sophomore at George Mason and irked that he needed an art class to graduate. Sports was his thing. He flipped through a course catalog and shut his eyes, resolving to take whatever course his finger fell on.
"Acting 1."
And the former sprinter from Chesapeake's Grassfield High, who once held the school record in 60-meter races, caught the theater bug -- bad.
Pennecke now has landed his biggest television role to date. He guest stars in an episode of the NBC medical drama "Brilliant Minds" that airs Monday at 10 p.m.
Inspired by the late author and physician Oliver Sacks, the series centers on Dr. Oliver Wolf, played by Zachary Quinto. Each episode, the neurologist and his interns work to unravel a medical case.
Pennecke plays a patient in Monday's episode.
He can't reveal much about his character, but he said the role resonated with him on the first read, and he hopes it will lead to more guest-starring spots.
"I believe that this is a major step forward for me because, before this, I had been getting one-liner TV roles," he said. "Now, I'm one of the main focuses of that episode and I think that it gives me, as an actor, sufficient time to prove myself -- sufficient time to, like, showcase myself."
After graduating in 2014 with a health, fitness and recreation resources degree, Pennecke moved home with his parents -- his mother is a reporter with The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press -- and began working with theater companies such as the Little Theatre of Norfolk. He starred as Brick in a Virginia Stage Company production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" before moving to New York at age 24 to pursue acting.
While auditioning, he took performance classes in Manhattan and in prestigious workshops at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and the HB Studio. To pay the bills, he lived with a relative on Long Island and worked as a golf caddy, assistant plumber and whatever else he could.
"I once worked at Honey Baked Hams burning sugar, layers and layers of sugar, into hams. ... The stereotype of a working actor is real."
He was cast in off- and off-off-Broadway plays at theaters such as the American Theatre of Actors and played Paris in "Romeo and Juliet" at the Hudson Warehouse theater.
In 2020, he appeared in a small role, a drug dealer who gets shot, in the NBC series "The Blacklist." In Monday's "Brilliant Minds" he'll have much more screen time.
"I feel like I'm just trying to do the character justice, serve the role."