Jonathan Lipnicki recent red carpet talk centered on a rare new swing: the 35-year-old appears in A24’s Primetime, where he plays Crazyfrog73 and takes on a full frontal scene. He says the role fits a broader reset, one he began chasing after praying nightly for clarity a little more than a year ago.
“I’m confident the best is yet to come for me,” he told People, adding that he wants to “turn this ship around” and keep moving toward bigger and better acting opportunities. “This is the thing I want to do for the rest of my life, and I think you just have to believe it’s going to happen and do everything in your power to take action in the right direction.”
Jerry Maguire to Primetime
Lipnicki’s current turn lands far from the child-star image that made him famous at age 6, when he debuted opposite Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger in Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire. He later appeared in Stuart Little, but Primetime gives him a darker, more adult role in a film that is now in theaters after debuting at the Venice Film Festival.
In Primetime, Robert Pattinson tops the cast as Chris Hansen, with Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, and Bokeem Woodbine also in the film. The story is loosely adapted by first-time screenwriter Ajon Singh from an Esquire article by Luke Dittrich, and it dramatizes the darkest year of Chris Hansen’s tenure on To Catch a Predator.
Crazyfrog73 in the kitchen
Lipnicki plays a character known only as Crazyfrog73, who gets caught in a compromising position in the kitchen while hoping to hook up with a boy played by Skyler Gisondo. That kind of role is not the safe lane for a former child actor, and he said in September that performers pray for dark material and for parts they can really sink their teeth into.
He also said, “At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, ‘Am I as courageous an artist as I say I am?’” and answered, “I had to answer that question, and I was courageous enough to take the plunge,” while adding, “I’ve tried to live by the idea that, when it comes to art, if something scares you, most likely you should do it.”
Los Angeles and the next turn
Lipnicki said he wants to act for the rest of his life, but he also described rough professional waters before this role. That is the part that makes Primetime more than a comeback headline: it is the first visible proof that the career reset he started with nightly prayers is producing work he says he actually wants.
He did not spell out his next acting project, which leaves the simplest open question in place: why he left Los Angeles, and whether this new stretch turns into a longer run. For now, Primetime is the answer on screen.
