It wasn’t enough of a challenge for Kevin McMahon to become a world-class diver. Now he is taking on Tinsel Town.
McMahon said that throughout his life, inside or outside the pool, he has worked hard to be successful. “Whenever I enter into anything I always end up being the best at it,” he said.
Rick Alloway, broadcasting faculty member, said he saw that drive during McMahon’s years as an undergraduate. “I remember Kevin as being a real hard-working individual,” he said.
McMahon said diving was what made him yearn to be the cream of the crop. “Diving makes you a perfectionist,” he said.
McMahon has been diving for 13 years. He started in high school and later received a scholarship to be on the diving team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
McMahon was on the U.S. national diving team for seven years. He won a bronze medal in the Goodwill Games in 1994; in 1995 he won a gold medal and set a world record for the highest score in men’s 3-meter synchronized diving. In synchronized diving, two men dive on side-by-side boards while doing the same or complementary dives. The diving score is the sum of the two individual scores.
McMahon also tried out for the 1996 and 2000 Olympics but wasn’t chosen for the team. McMahon said he should have made the 2000 Olympic try-outs but didn’t because of politics.
“I’m kind of bitter because it was the first time in Olympic history that the United States did not win one medal in men’s diving. I think it’s because they sent the wrong people.”
The 29-year-old now lives about 10 minutes away from Hollywood in Los Angeles. He occasionally dives to keep in shape, but he’s busy working in Hollywood as a freelance production assistant, film director, director of photography and production editor.
Breaking into the entertainment industry is tough, but networking is the best way to get in, he said.
“I’m in the midst of a huge challenge,” he said. “Just trying to stay with it in the entertainment industry is really super-hard, because no one wants to let you in.”
Alloway said on-camera roles aren’t the only entertainment jobs that are difficult to land. “The behind the scenes jobs are just as competitive,” he said.
McMahon, who was a broadcast major and film minor at UNL, is working long hours to try to get to the top of the entertainment industry. His workdays can be anywhere from 12 to 24 hours long.
“I’m kind of putting in my time,” he said. “What I really want to be doing is writing and directing feature films.”
McMahon said he wanted to write and direct because he wanted to see the story ideas in his head come to life on film. McMahon’s focus is currently on a comedy television show he co-produced with a friend. The two men shot a pilot episode, and in December they pitched the show to a production company. The production company took over the show and is now working on selling it to television networks. If a network buys the show, McMahon and his friend will co-produce it.
Alloway didn’t need a crystal ball to know that McMahon was going to be successful.
“You had the intuition that he was going to do something incredible with his life,” Alloway said.
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