TOTALLY EXCELLENT ALEX
On-screen he plays boneheads brilliantly,
but off camera actor Alex Winter is way smarter than your average dude.

The shooting of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure II is just being wrapped up in Santa Clarita, CA. Blond moptop Alex Winter is perched on a rock in the hot sun, watching an actor dressed up as a demon pull rats out of his mouth. Pretty gnarly, but all in a day's work when you're half of America's favorite dude team. At 25, Winter is probably Hollywood's youngest hippest master of all trades, with as much experience behind the camera (director, writer, producer) as in front of it. He even has a movie production company called Stern Winter Productions, which he founded with his college buddy Tom Stern, back when they were students at New York University's prestigious film school. Despite that and an impressive list of film and stage credits, you probably won't see Winter talking on the phone in a black BMW. Winter is on the cutting edge of the new, young Hollywood - the Hollywood that prizes intellect over a buffed, tanned bod and believes movies can be art too. While Bill & Ted co-star Keanu Reeves is well on his way to becoming a leading man in the classic Hollywood mode, Winter's aspirations have more to do with the entire craft of filmmaking.

Alex at home
Home is a modest house he shares with his girlfriend (whom he'd rather not name) in funky, arty, Venice - about as far away from the celebrity trails as one can get and still be within commuting distance of Hollywood. "I like Venice," says Winter. "It's got the beach, and there aren't a lot of slick, Hollywood types running around." Born in London, Winter moved to St. Louis, MO, when he was five, and then at 11, followed his parents, who are professional dancers, to New York City. Chances are they were the ones who gave Winter his energy, his intellect and his drive.

The hardest working man in show business
Winter's work for Bill & Ted II consisted of seven weeks of 12- to 14 hour days that started at 5.30 a.m. Nonetheless, Winter is enthusiastic about being Bill again. In this classic odyssey, there's a bad guy, wild worlds and lessons to be learned. Winter won't say much about the new movie - "I'm not ruining the surprise" - except that Bill and Ted do go to the land down under, "where we have to face our worst fears - a real hell ride." No doubt Winter's up to the ride. This spring, just as Bill & Ted II was starting to shoot weekdays, Winter and Stern were hard at work weekends, putting the final touches to the premiere of MTV's new comedy series, The Idiot Box, which he and Stern wrote, produced, directed and starred in. As soon as Bill & Ted II wraps, Winter intends to work on Freakz, an action adventure which he and Stern wrote and Winter plans to star in. "It's a horror comedy," he explains, "about a Brat Pack actor who goes to South America to help fight the drug war and gets turned into a freak by a religious zealot who runs a freak show." And with that, Alex Winter has to run.