Joel Embiid thought someone was messing with him.
The Sixers were playing the Nets in November at Barclays Center, and Embiid recognized a familiar face on the court during warmups.
“That looks like Junior,” Embiid told a teammate, referencing a character on Black Rabbit, a Netflix crime thriller released in late 2025.
A Nets staffer overheard Embiid’s comment and replied: “That is Junior.”
Embiid wasn’t buying it. What was an actor from a hit Netflix series doing checking the team’s towel supply before an NBA game?
The interaction led multiple staffers to chime in. Yes, Nets game-day attendant Forrest Weber played Junior, a violent mob enforcer who chases degenerate gambler Vince (Jason Bateman) across New York City on the show. After Weber came over to say hello, Embiid was finally convinced.
“What are you still doing here?” Embiid asked Weber.
Embiid isn’t the only NBA star who recognized Weber this season—and who is wondering what’s next.
Weber studied acting at Boston University, graduating in 2012, and moved to New York to pursue an acting career shortly afterward. In 2014, he picked up a side gig working as a team attendant for the Nets as a minimum-wage side hustle. (He had been a Spurs ball boy while growing up in San Antonio; current Nets GM Sean Marks was a player for the Spurs while Weber worked there.)
“There are some ball boys who would give them a tip and sometimes they would do things for the tip, just for the money,” former Spur Bruce Bowen tells Front Office Sports. “The thing I remember about Forrest is there would be a lot of times I gave him a tip, but I never saw him do less because he didn’t get a tip.”
In New York, Weber got his start in TV pilots and off-Broadway shows while spending his downtime working for the Nets. He’s assisted with offseason and draft workouts, mini-camps, and training camps over the years, but now mostly works game nights because of his acting schedule. His tasks include managing the referees’ locker room and assisting with the visiting team’s needs.
Despite the limited pay, the organization’s flexibility with his acting career is one of the reasons he’s stayed so long.
“It’s never been about the money,” Weber tells FOS. “My acting career has been my source of income. It’s a great role to be in an organization if you’re trying to move up. I’m in the 1% of people doing this job who are comfy where they are.”
Weber’s first big break came in 2015, a year into his Nets tenure. He had a sizable role in the pilot for NBC’s American Odyssey; though he was killed off at the end of the episode, the role gave him enough screen time to pick up other jobs. The same year, he made an incredibly brief appearance in the Oscar-winning Spotlight: He berates a Boston Globe reporter, a scene that was clipped in a trailer.
“My friends were like, ‘We can’t wait to see you in Spotlight,” Weber says. “And I’d be like, ‘Well, you already did.’”
As Weber continued to pick up acting gigs, the Spurs he knew as a ball boy took notice. “Forrest is doing his thing,” Bowen recalls telling Manu Ginóbili and Tim Duncan.
Weber developed a good relationship with casting directors in New York and Boston, which allowed him to get cast on episodes of Law & Order and The Blacklist. But it wasn’t those connections that landed him the breakout Black Rabbit role.
Alexa Fogel was the casting director for the show and Weber had never worked with her or actor and director Jason Bateman, who co-starred with Jude Law. On the show, Bateman and Law play brothers who cofounded a restaurant; Bateman is in the deep end with a mob family, and Weber is tasked with collecting.
“I doubled down and worked probably twice as hard as I’ve ever worked on any other audition in my life,” Weber says. “When it came time to do the scenes live for Jason on Zoom I did them twice, we had a great conversation, and we were on the Zoom for about 30 minutes. So I left that call feeling good about my chances. And then a couple weeks went by and I didn’t hear anything. I thought it was falling through the cracks.”
It turned out to be the opposite. After the audition, Weber says Bateman went onto another call and said, “We found our Junior.” Weber later learned the delay was because Netflix needed to be convinced, too. (Unlike most of the main Black Rabbit cast, Weber does not even have a Wikipedia page.)
“I think Netflix might have wanted a slightly bigger name in that role initially,” Weber says. “But Jason went to bat for me and said this is the right guy for the role.”
Weber proved Bateman right. The show got strong reviews and critics praised Weber’s performance as a wannabe tough guy and son of a local loan shark, with The Boston Globe calling him “a striking presence.” The show had both of Weber’s worlds in it, with Barclays Center serving as a setting and multiple characters donning Nets gear.
Inside Barclays, he’s become a local celebrity to visiting players and coaches. Knicks star Jalen Brunson stopped him at midcourt in November and told him to “keep it up.” Jazz coach Will Hardy congratulated Weber on the show before a December game. Rockets forward Tari Eason yelled “Junior” at him before their game on Jan. 1. Nuggets guard Tim Hardaway Jr. had a different observation about his performance.
“I thought you were like 6-foot-5 watching you on TV,” Hardaway, who is listed at the same height, told him.
“I thought the same thing about you,” Weber replied.
The success has allowed Weber to “be more calculative” with his next acting gigs.
“I think it makes sense that I’m closer to that now than I have been before,” Weber says about the end of his Nets tenure. “I’m gonna play it by ear. I’m passionate about sports. I’m passionate about being involved in the NBA.”
Whenever his time with the Nets ends, Marks has already given Weber a way to commemorate his tenure. Early in the season, Weber was summoned to the GM’s office before a game. “I was 99% sure I hadn’t done anything wrong,” Weber says. When he arrived, Marks presented Weber with a Nets jersey that read “Junior” on the back.
“Sean has seen me go from a 12-year-old ball boy to a guy in these shows,” Weber says. “I expected a congrats or two, but he called his staff in and said a kind word. That meant a lot to me.”
