He's an old pro at 20

The 20-year-old, who has worked in movies and TV since he was 7, has lived in Los Angeles for the past six years. He was a series regular on the sitcom "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter" (2002-05) and landed a significant role in "The Comebacks," a sports flick send-up that opens Friday. Spanjers plays Randy Randinger, a runt who attempts to make his way onto a college football team like the title character in "Rudy."

Spanjers has also appeared in several TV shows, including "Malcolm in the Middle," in which he was a finalist for the role that went to Frankie Muniz, as well as "Two of a Kind," "Touched by an Angel" and "Cold Case."

"I've just been so lucky my whole life," Spanjers said in a phone interview from Louisiana, where he's shooting his next film, "Spring Break '83," a comedy in which he plays one of four high school social outcasts who look to get back at bullies on spring break. "My parents brought me to L.A. to work when I was 10. They never pushed me; it was what I wanted to do."

Spanjers' parents — Frank, a facilities administrator; and Sara, an artist — saw their son catch an acting bug at a theater camp at age 7. Talent manager Aileen Reid liked what she saw and got him working in commercials. (The Spanjerses have another son, Matt, a 24-year-old restaurant manager in Colorado.)

"After he'd done a few things in Arizona, his mom asked me what to do. 'What do you think about going to L.A.?' I told her, 'He's not ready yet,' " said Reid, who has more than 30 years' experience in the business and now works in Los Angeles, still maintaining Martin Spanjers as a client.

"A year later I said, 'Now he's ready, and I'll set it up for you.' I called agents and had him come out and audition. Of course they fell in love with him. His mother was amazing. She literally moved out with him."

Sara says she never pushed for her son to move to Los Angeles and that the process happened organically. She and Martin shuttled between Hollywood and Tucson depending on jobs that came Martin's way, with the mother and son usually returning to Tucson for summers when the showbiz workload would die down. Eventually Sara says that eventually they were staying in Los Angeles 11 months out of the year.

By all accounts, Sara never wavered in supporting her son's ambition.

"I saw his passion, and I thought I had lived a lot of my passion and felt what that did for my career," Sara said. "I felt I saw something in him, and I wanted him to have the same opportunity to purse his passion, and it was the time, we thought, to do it."

Money was tight, so Sara and Martin had to live in trailer parks for several years before Martin got his break with "8 Simple Rules," which allowed them to upgrade to an apartment.

"I know that a lot of people thought we were crazy," Sara said. "We didn't always get good feedback, but we still kind of hung in there with it."

Martin kept up with school at Utterback via faxes and phone calls, then shifted to an actors-only school in California before settling on home schooling. Martin has lived on his own since turning 18.

"I love the monsoon. I tried to get back in time for the monsoons," Martin Spanjers said. "Lately I've been busy and I haven't been able to make it back. I'd love to visit my family there and come back for the holidays."

Spanjers, a budding filmmaker who directed a short film starring James Garner called "First Night" that's currently on the festival circuit, says the best experience of his career came on "8 Simple Rules."

"Doing a series for comedy is absolutely the perfect job," Spanjers said. "It was a great schedule. You always knew what was going to happen, what you were going to be doing and I really liked it. It was a dream job. Movies are a lot of fun, but a lot more time-consuming and more unpredictable. But it's exciting to see the end result."

The series was a bittersweet experience because of the 2003 death of star John Ritter from a problem caused by a heart defect.

"It's one of those things you never forget," Spanjers said. "Not only was he one of the nicest — if not the nicest — people I've ever met, he was the most genuine person you've ever met. . . . I will definitely miss him. It was really tragic. We all came together as a group on the set and really kind of just supported each other."

Spanjers said he still lunches regularly with co-stars Garner, Kaley Cuoco, Amy Davidson and Billy Aaron Brown, but doesn't hang out exclusively with actors. He's definitely not getting caught up in the hard-partying Lindsay and Paris lifestyle.

"I attribute that to having a strong upbringing. Family is so important," Spanjers said. "No way I'll fall into that kind of thing. I feel like some of the young actors out there are so lost because they don't have strong parents, really. You see the kids in the news out there, photos of them getting wasted, doing coke, whatever. That's an attribute of not having a strong upbringing."