With a background in improvisational comedy and a reputation as a class clown, Dax Shepard seemed the obvious choice for the role of a Punk'd field agent — and the opportunity to put one over on some of the biggest names in show business must have been impossible to resist. Though it wasn't his first onscreen role, Punk'd provided Shepard with the recognition needed to further his onscreen career, and just a year after debuting with Ashton Kutcher's merry band of pranksters, the up-and-coming comic actor was scheduled to appear in no less than three major film releases. A Michigan native, Shepard studied improv with the famed Groundlings troupe before moving to Los Angeles to study anthropology at U.C.L.A. A minor role as a partygoer who couldn't hold his liquor in the 1998 romantic comedy Hair Shirt offered Shepard his first film role, and though there would be a five-year gap between that role and a minor supporting role in the 2003 comedy Cheaper by the Dozen, the exposure that he would subsequently gain from Punk'd more than made up for any lost time before the cameras. In 2004 Shepard appeared opposite Seth Green and Matthew Lillard in the wide-release comedy Without a Paddle, with supporting roles in Sledge: The Story of Frank Sledge and Mike Judge's long-delayed sci-fi comedy Idiocracy following soon thereafter. Small screen work on My Name is Earl and Robot Chicken served well to keep the bills paid as Shepard geared up to wage war on Dane Cook in the 2006 consumer comedy Employee of the Month.