In the classic teen comedy, the high school experience is often depicted as a wild playground of awkward moments, outrageous pranks and wild parties.
For South Side native Khalil Everage, that wasn’t exactly the case during his later high school years. At 17, the actor took on his first major role in the 2019 Netflix film “Beats,” about Chicago’s music scene.
Though filming took place over the summer, he went on to book a role in the Netflix action series “Cobra Kai,” which took up most of the first half of his senior year. Everage missed weeks of school to film in Atlanta and eventually transitioned into finishing his high school education online.
“It was kind of hard because I missed prom, I didn’t get to walk across the stage,” Everage said.
Stepping into the shoes of a teenage jock in his new movie “The Crusades,” Everage — now 22 — finds himself living out the high school experience he once sacrificed to pursue a career in acting.
“It felt like I was in school everyday,” Everage said of filming the coming-of-age comedy. On Friday it opens at the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge and on digital platforms.
The brainchild of writers Leo Milano, Jack Hussar and Shaun Early, “The Crusades” follows three friends — named Leo, Jack and Sean — attending an all-boys private high school. Before their lives are completely changed by their school merging with a rival institution, Leo, Jack and Sean aim to have one more grand weekend.
The movie is based on the writers’ experiences at Notre Dame College Prep in Niles. Director Milano attended Columbia College Chicago, as did producer Brent Madison.
For Everage, who grew up in South Shore, playing Sean was a little different from his own experience at Humboldt Park’s Chicago High School for the Arts, where he focused on singing as a vocalist.
Sean, a football player, spends most of the film navigating relationship drama with his girlfriend, Jess (Indiana Massara). Everage said he had “better luck” than Sean when it came to romance in high school, but he similarly struggled with balancing having a girlfriend and wanting to hang out with his closest friends.
Though Everage himself didn’t play a sport at his high school, he grew up playing basketball with his friends.
It was his love of the game that made him most excited to land a role in “Shooting Stars,” a film released last month on Peacock that follows the origin story of NBA superstar LeBron James. Everage plays a young Sian Cotton, one of the members of the “Fab Five,” the core group of players on James’ renowned Ohio high school basketball team.
Everage said he’s honored to be part of James’ legacy and considers him to be one of the “greatest of all time,” but he’s a lifelong fan of the Chicago Bulls.
“My dad literally cut his hair bald because of Michael Jordan,” Everage said.
Now living in Atlanta to focus on his career, Everage said he gets homesick for Chicago and enjoyed filming “The Crusades” in nearby Glenview and Niles, though he gained about 15 pounds while filming because of all the Portillo’s and Giordano’s he ate while in town.
Looking back at his time in high school, Everage said he values the path he chose during his teen years, even if he had to miss some rites of adolescence.
“I had to risk a little bit, I had to miss a couple core memories that I would’ve had, but I think it’s definitely worth it.”
