For fun, I put out an informal survey about athletes who became actors. Off the top of my head I could only think of a few: Jim Brown, The Rock, Ronda Rousey, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Hey, and as I write this there’s a commercial with LeBron James in it for something called “Trainwreck,” scheduled for release next month.

My Facebook friends came up with dozens … most often they mentioned Mark Harmon, John Wayne, Dan Marino, O.J. Simpson and Fred Dryer (I have lots of old friends).

In one recent case, the sports career ended DURING the show; it was painful-to-watch reality TV when Colt Brennan was told he could no longer play football due to medical reasons, after he was supposed to be the franchise player of the LA KISS arena team.

Interestingly, no one came up with the name of one of Brennan’s University of Hawaii teammates: Guyton Galdeira. You can see him in theaters right now.

Actually, you don’t even have to spend all that money on tickets and overpriced food, because he appears in the first 8 minutes of the movie “Aloha” that are available free online.

“It was pretty cool, I got a credit and everything, a speaking role,” Galdeira said.

Many in the audiences won’t understand what he is saying. Galdeira plays a hula chanter (ho‘opa‘a), something he has done for years as a professional. In fact, he took part of a UH football season off to pursue his hula career because of a job opportunity.

“I basically was doing what I do,” he said.

The performance of the halau was a genuine bit of Hawaiian culture in a movie criticized widely for lack of such, as well as for a dearth of local actors. That, as well as the name of the movie and the casting of a full-blooded Caucasian, Emma Stone, as a character who is one-quarter Hawaiian and one-quarter Chinese, raised enough ruckus to generate an apology from director/writer Cameron Crowe.

Galdeira, who is Native Hawaiian and a graduate of Kamehameha, doesn’t see a problem.

“I thought it portrayed Hawaii pretty well,” he said. “I’m not offended at all that she was supposed to be Hawaiian. It’s Hollywood, it’s just a movie. From my perspective as a Hawaiian, I just think it’s cool that a Hawaiian story was brought to light. There’s always going to be people who disagree and I’m just happy it was brought to the big screen. I look at the bigger picture of the vision of the artists, and I respect that.”

Galdeira was on set three days. He said he met most of the stars of the movie.

“Talking with Bill Murray was fun. He was pretty knowledgeable about Hawaii and the Hawaiian community.”

Galdeira laughed when reminded that “San Andreas,” another movie with a Polynesian former college football player among its cast, pounded “Aloha” at the box office its opening week.

“That’s OK,” he said. “I’m a big fan of The Rock.”

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.