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Erwin Stone has had a long career in Hollywood as an extra and character actor in TV, film, and commercials. But for his first-ever staged performance, he bombed. More accurately: He didn’t even get the chance to bomb. “I chickened out,” he says.

Having been encouraged to give a reading at a Malcolm X Day celebration, Stone—fresh out of college and living in Los Angeles—was simply overcome with stage fright. “I was there and dressed,” he says, “I just couldn’t do it.”

Rather than permanently turn him off from public speaking, however, the episode persuaded Stone to conquer his anxiety. Shortly thereafter, he signed up for improv classes at the venerable Groundlings theater company, a famous springboard for comedic actors including Paul Reubens, Laraine Newman, and Will Ferrell. The structured nature of improv helped him build confidence onstage and allowed his natural charisma to shine through. Within three years, he’d been accepted to the Groundlings Sunday Company, where actors like Maya Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy were also players. He also booked his first paid acting job: two episodes of the long-running soap General Hospital.

That willingness to learn on the fly has been a hallmark of Stone’s career—as has a willingness to say yes. (Or rather, according to the maxim of improv comedy: Yes and…) “You hear a lot of no’s in acting,” Stone says with a chuckle.

But yes is what keeps the credits rolling: Yes, he said, when a friend of a friend called with an offer to play Wesley Snipes’ body double in the vampire-hunting megahit Blade. Yes when Richard Elfman, a fellow member of the Al Malaikah Shrine (and brother of the Oscar-winning composer) asked him to be in a “goofy, fun movie that probably nobody ever saw” called Aliens, Clowns & Geeks. And yes when he was offered a spot in a commercial for Beats speakers opposite Kim Kardashian. (He plays her personal trainer.) That, in turn, led to a lead spot in a national ad campaign for Progressive Insurance.