Ari Stidham, who plays genius mathematician Sylvester Dodd on Scorpion, has seen his life do a 180-degree turn since he landed the part of the anxiety ridden statistician on the hit CBS show.

Ari Stidham On Scorpion

Before he joined the Scorpion cast, Stidham was living with his parents, hopping in between small acting gigs while simultaneously trying to work on smaller, more personal projects for which he had little resources to fund.

“I’m 22, so this is a pretty crazy employment situation for me. I’m very grateful. I was able to move into my own place and sort of start to fund my own artistic projects, which is what my dream has always been to make your own stuff,” Stidham told uInterview in an exclusive interivew. “And Scorpion is so great because it’s such an amazing character and the people here are so much fun that it doesn’t feel like I’m going to work. It’s just like an amazing process and such a cool show. I’m so stoked to be here.”

Stidham got his start in acting in his early teens after realizing he had a natural gift and love of being up on stage. “There was a play; they were doing Annie at my elementary school and I auditioned for it and I got Drake the Butler and Sandy the Dog and I was just a ham so it was fun,” Stidham confessed. “There was something cool about playing two characters; there’s something cool about being in front of people and I guess I was just an attention hog. But I liked it.”

Before landing on Scorpion, Stidham had a two-episode arc on Robin Williams sitcom The Crazy Ones. Speaking of the experience of working with the late actor, Stidham called it amazing, and noted that Williams always had time to talk to fans and pose for pictures. As for his personal experiences with Williams, Stidham revealed that they talked about songwriter Harry Nilsson and comedy.

“We nerded out about Harry Neilson, who is like my Elvis, and he did all the music for Popeye,” Nillson said of the movie Williams starred in during the earlier part of his career. “We nerded out a little bit about comedy, but I didn’t have a lot of lines and I wasn’t there for very long. But the time I spent there with him was instrumental for me definitely.”

In January, Scorpion was renewed for a second season.