Brian Stepanek Became a Fan Favorite as The Suite Life of Zack & Cody’s Arwin. His Agent Told Him Not to Take the Part

You probably know him as Arwin Hochhauser, but if Brian Stepanek’s agent had their way, you wouldn’t.

Stepanek, who played fan-favorite Arwin Hochhauser on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, opened up about his time on the series on the July 23 episode of Magical Rewind, hosted by Boy Meets World alum Will Friedle and The Cheetah Girls star Sabrina Bryan. Friedle, 48, said that Stepanek, 54, is one of the few people who became a “Disney Channel legend” because of the role he had on the channel as an adult, not a kid.

“He’s probably my favorite character I’ve ever played,” Stepanek said of Arwin, a Greek-American inventor who works as a stationary engineer for the Tipton Hotel. He called the character “a joy.” 

But when Stepanek moved to Los Angeles in the early 2000s after finding success as an actor in Chicago, he originally landed roles in dramas, despite his comedy chops. At his audition for Arwin, the other actors were all “husky, hairy dudes,” and he worried, “They’re looking for something totally different than me.” So when he did his audition, “Instead of making them kind of a lumbering oaf, I made them like a hyper savant.” The writers loved it and changed the character to be more in line with his vision.

But Stepanek had one more hurdle: his agent. “My agent, when I booked Arwen, told me not to do it,” he remembered. “She was like, ‘Don’t do this. This is a kid’s show. Don’t do this. You don’t need to do this.’ ”

The actor didn’t agree. “I was like, ‘I’m not wealthy. I have nothing else to do next week, and this just seems really fun.’ ” Even though the job played “very, very little,” he said, it “turned into a huge deal.”

Stepanek also thinks people don’t appreciate actors on kids’ series enough. “I think it is much harder to be a comedic actor on a kids’ show than a dramatic actor in a single-camera drama,” he said. “The reason I say that is, when you’re an actor and you’re doing your work leading up to the project and you’re coming up with all of your actor thoughts and your choices, when you make a choice in kids’ comedy, if it’s the wrong choice, you are swinging hard, and everyone sees it. It’s a big swing.” He continued stating that if you make a choice in an adult drama, it’s “small” and people don’t “always notice.”

Even though Suite Life fans love Arwin, he pointed out on the podcast that of the show’s almost 100 episodes, he appeared in less than half. But the character was so beloved that he even filmed the pilot for a spin-off series with a young Selena Gomez. “It was a crazy little ride to go on,” he said.

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The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, which starred Dylan and Cole Sprouse, Brenda Song, Ashley Tisdale, Kim Rhodes and Phill Lewis, ran from 2005 to 2008.

Stepanek also served as host for the Disney Channel Games. He’s continued to work widely on both children’s and adult TV, including, most recently, on Nickelodeon’s The Really Loud House.