“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star Charlie Day will put his illiterate, man-child character aside on Sunday as keynote speaker to more than 500 graduating seniors at Merrimack College. “I think people are going to be expecting me to be wildly funny, but I think I will probably speak more earnestly and directly from the heart, more about the reality of how I got where I got,” he said. Day received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts (perhaps the only one) at Merrimack in 1998. “They didn’t have an acting program,” he said. “But there not being opportunities made me hungrier to graduate, get out, and get things done.” After Merrimack, Day joined the Williamstown Theatre Festival, leading him to the Huntington Theatre, and finally to New York, where he landed on the long running FXX series “Sunny.” Day said he strayed from the standard path into the acting world, but is thrilled with the results. “I took the more reckless choices I think. It’s not just doing what makes you happy but doing what makes you great.”
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