Ryan Pinkston on AllMovie

Maryland-born actor Ryan Pinkston's interest in competitive karate predated his devotion to acting, but all of that changed at the age of 13 when a performance on the Ed McMahon-hosted Star Search lifted him into the national spotlight, and not long after, when Ashton Kutcher featured Pinkston on the MTV candid camera series Punk'd. The sequences in question found Pinkston approaching unsuspecting celebrities and hurling insults at them in front of a hidden camera (as a self-described correspondent for a "kid's interview show"). Taking the success of this as a cue, Pinkston gravitated to a full-time career in acting, and specialized in comedic films that mirrored the Punk'd bits in tone and mood. These included the raunchy Billy Bob Thornton comedy Bad Santa (2003), the urban farce Soul Plane (2004), the sex comedy spoof Extreme Movie (2007), and the teen-oriented sex comedy College (2008).