Here’s a quick guide to The Goldbergs star Sam Lerner’s other movies and TV shows. California-born actor Sam Lerner rose to fame playing neurotic high schooler Geoff Schwartz in ABC’s 1980s-set sitcom The Goldbergs. Originally introduced in a recurring role as one of Barry Goldberg’s best friends, Lerner was promoted to series regular in season 5 after his character started dating Barry’s older sister Erica. It’s his best-known role to date, but The Goldbergs was by no means his first gig.
Lerner comes from an acting family that includes his father Ken Lerner - who plays his TV dad Lou Schwartz on The Goldbergs - and his uncle Michael Lerner, who received an Oscar nomination for his role in the Coen Brothers black comedy Barton Fink. Lerner followed in their footsteps and nabbed his first role playing a neighborhood kid named Patrick in a season 4 episode of Malcolm In The Middle. Soon after, he added more TV roles to his resume with one-off parts in other popular sitcoms including Two And A Half Men and The King Of Queens.
Sam Lerner’s first movie was the 2004 comedy Envy, in which he played the son of Ben Stiller and Rachel Weisz’s characters. A couple of years later he voiced Chowder in the spooky animated kids’ movie Monster House, which earned him a nomination for Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature at the 2007 Annie Awards. His next big gig was a voice role too, playing lead character Zak Saturday - and his evil counterpart Zak Monday - on the Cartoon Network series The Secret Saturdays.
Prior to joining the cast of The Goldbergs in 2014, Lerner took a series of one-off roles in TV shows including Sonny With A Chance, Rizzoli & Isles and NCIS. He also had a recurring role on the ABC sitcom Suburgatory as Tessa Altman’s (Jane Levy) nerdy classmate Evan and had a small part in the 2012 indie drama Nobody Walks which starred John Krasinski and Olivia Thirlby.
Since he started playing Geoff Schwartz, Lerner has enjoyed a steady stream of work outside of the sitcom too. He starred in the 2015 found-footage sci-fi film Project Almanac and had parts in movies like Mono, Fun Mom Dinner, Walk Of Fame and Truth Or Dare. On the TV side of things, Lerner had a one-off role in sitcom Workaholics and voiced King Gristle Jr. in the DreamWorks animated series Trolls: The Beat Goes On!.
He also appeared in an episode of The Goldbergs spin-off Schooled and had a three-episode stint in Ballers playing Dan, an employee of Rob Corddry’s Joe Krutel. Next up in his career, Sam Lerner will star in the forthcoming comedy film Liked opposite Alycia Debnam-Carey and Jack DePew and if The Goldbergs is renewed for an eighth season, he will almost certainly be back as Geoff too.