The SCGA caught up with actor and golf enthusiast Mark-Paul Gosselaar at his home course of TPC Valencia. The 40-year-old, best known for starring in the 1990s sitcom Saved by the Bell, was most currently seen in four seasons of the TNT legal dramedy Franklin & Bash. Gosselaar holds a 15.3 Handicap with the SCGA.
On Golf
I’ve only been playing seriously for a little over a year. I played in my 20s but it was more of a social thing. Celebrity events here and there. What got me into playing golf on a regular basis and being a fan of golf was that I wanted to play a sport that I could play my entire life and a sport I could play with my family. Golf is that. I also wanted to find something I would never be able to perfect or master. It’s a sport that you continuously chase after more and want to get better.
On Acting
I still, after all these years, feel that fire. I want to continue working and continue doing great projects with great people. I love the process. I’m just as ambitious as I was when I just started. I love what I do.
On Saved by the Bell
It was great. It was fun. But we didn’t have the level of sentiment that people have for it now. We had no idea it was going to be that big a deal because it wasn’t that at the time. After every season we thought we were cancelled. And at that age you aren’t overly sentimental, so I think I just enjoyed it for what it was at the time.
On Zack Morris
Zack was a character created by the writers and something that I based loosely on Ferris Bueller. He talked to the camera. When I first got the script something made me think of Ferris Bueller. And that’s sort of what I based my character on from that point on.
On Fatherhood
Because I’ve been on a TNT show for the past six years, and we do 10 episodes a year, I’m basically a stay at home dad eight months out of the year if I want to be. I do an odd TV show or film now and then, but I’m home a lot. Being a parent is the toughest job you could ever have. We have three children and it’s hard. But it makes you a better person and my wife and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We love having that energy in the house.
On Franklin & Bash
It was a lawyer show, but it was really about the relationship between these two guys. Somebody once described it to me as Ally McBeal with balls, but I described it more like Scrubs with lawyers. It was a great experience for me.
On Hobbies
I do CrossFit pretty avidly. That’s my stay-in-shape routine. My wife and I love to watch cooking shows. I used to be really into cycling, but that was my sport before golf. I got out of that to play golf.
On Goals for the Future
In golf, it’s to be a single digit handicap. In my career, it’s to have stability. And in life, just happiness.
