It’s truly refreshing—and extremely rare—to hear a story like Tobit Raphael’s out in Hollywood. The fresh (read: completely unknown) actor has landed a plum supporting role in The Internship, the new comedy starring those jokers from Wedding Crashers—yes, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. That’s right—no nepotism, no inside connection. Just a hopeful young actor with light experience landing a great role!

“For some reason, it felt really right,” Tobit remembers about receiving the call for the audition. After just a few years out of school, the role virtually landed in his lap. “It’s very surreal—It’s such a fantastically different world for me now!” he remarks about this incredible twist of fate.

The film takes place in the much-fabled offices of Google, where interns compete to land jobs at the tech wunder-company. “My character’s name is Yoyo,” Tobit describes, a nervous and shy intern under immense pressure from his parents. Luckily, it isn’t the same for Raphael in real life – his family was and continues to be extremely supportive of his decision to go into the world of acting.
Yoyo has his own mini storyline in the film, overcoming some of the social hurdles that befall him. “I think every comedy has a little bit of drama,” Tobit explains about the layers of his character. “I tried to keep it coming from an honest place—I can relate to social anxiety.”

As for working with comedy veterans Vaughn and Wilson, Tobit can’t say enough. “Those guys really know what they’re doing,” he observes. “It’s like watching this chemical process happen.” And since Tobit studied primarily in the world of theater acting, landing a role in a major Hollywood film was a bit of a deep-end situation for the upstart actor. “They taught me a lot about working for the camera.”

The result looks to be highly entertaining. Look for Tobit in the film, in theaters nationwide June 7.

—DH