A 17-year-old's ego can be a fragile thing, and Paul McGill was trying to encourage his son and yet cushion the blow he suspected was coming.

Five years ago, the Bellevue man was driving the teen to New York to audition for "La Cage aux Folles." The younger McGill, also named Paul, had just started his junior year at Northgate High School but had a chance to leapfrog to Broadway as a "swing," covering for a dozen roles.

"I say, 'This is a great experience for you, it's great, but you know you're not going to get it because you're 17 and they're not going to want the liability, and if you do get it, you're not going to take it because you're 17,'???" he recalled.

"La Cage" auditioned a chorus of Broadway dancers, plus one teen from suburban Pittsburgh, narrowed the field to four and offered the job to the only hopeful who had cut school that day.

Paul, who sells Wigwam socks to retailers, and his wife, Shaler Area High School teacher Shari McGill, decided they couldn't deny their son this opportunity.

"That was on a Monday; he left Thursday. Our heads were spinning," the elder McGill says. "The guts it took, he was 20 days past his 17th birthday, to get up and walk away from everything he knew."

Today, after appearing in "La Cage aux Folles," a Broadway revival of "A Chorus Line" and "Man on Wire" as the young Philippe Petit, Paul McGill bursts through another barrier. He plays Kevin in "Fame," a reinvention of the 1980 movie about dancers, singers, actors and artists at a New York high school of performing arts, opening in theaters today.

Paul, now 22 and splitting his time between Los Angeles and New York, credits his sister, Emily, with inspiring him.

"She was the one taking dance lessons. She started when she was 3 and I guess I was 1, and I would always go to her recitals and dance, and then I asked my mom to take dance lessons," McGill said earlier this year, during a visit home to Bellevue.

His mother agreed, as long as he played baseball, joined the Boy Scouts and did other traditional "boy things." But, he says with a laugh, "I did them, but I'm still dancing. I don't feel like I could express myself in baseball. It was beneficial for hand-eye coordination, but so was dance."

The founder of the Rosalene Kenneth Professional School of Dance and Performing Arts in Collier suspected McGill was bound for bigger things.

"He just was one of those kids who had it, from the beginning," says Kenneth, who has run the school for 57 years. "He had all the personality and the intelligence and the rhythm and talent, and we just brought it forth."

McGill worked with Kenneth along with her daughter, Rachelle Rak, and Donna DeMark and later studied with Ken Gargaro and Pittsburgh Musical Theater.

"He was a kid, couldn't have been much more than 9 or 10," Gargaro recalls. "He was bright-eyed, lively, a fabulous dancer at his age."

McGill wanted to expand his horizons and embrace acting and singing and immediately became integral to PMT's production program. He was disciplined about attending class, a hard worker and blessed with "nice parental support," Gargaro says.

It was Rak, a Broadway pro recently seen in the documentary "Every Little Step," who recommended the Bellevue teen for "La Cage aux Folles."

"Rachelle called me and said, 'Mum, do you know anybody who could do the part? They're looking for a young actor-dancer that can tumble' and I said to her, 'Why don't you send Paul McGill?'???" Kenneth recalled.

And a career was born.

Sitting in Bellevue's Muddy Cup with coffee, journal, sunglasses and flip-flops, he looked very California casual -- and yet was instantly recognized by old friends who stopped for a smile, hug and quick update.

This was months before "Fame," which is raising his profile considerably given the movie trailer, music video, TV commercials, Web chatter, magazine stories, photos, red-carpet appearances and assorted other publicity.

"I think a lot of people know me as a dancer, Broadway performer. In this movie I don't really dance much -- to my benefit. Hopefully, they'll see me as an actor now."

McGill plays Kevin, an Iowan whose mother owns a dance studio and who sends him to a performing arts school in New York to become a ballet dancer.

"We had six weeks of rehearsal, which was like boot camp, basically, where they had me in ballet class three days a week and they had acting rehearsals with us, and some people had to learn instruments -- piano, drums -- voice lessons, acting lessons. We were doing it all and rehearsing," in Los Angeles in October 2008.

Filming began Dec. 3 in L.A. with most of the dance scenes. "It was interesting doing a film, as opposed to theater, doing it out of order. You have to check in with yourself, which is hard."

Cast and crew went on location to various middle and high schools in L.A., where one actress in particular -- Anna Maria Perez de Tagle -- caused a stir. She played Ashley Dewitt on "Hannah Montana" and found herself signing autographs on set.

The production shifted to New York (with base camp on the street where Paul and Emily McGill have an apartment). "Doing Mark in 'A Chorus Line' was where I was in my life, I was really eager to be on Broadway and to get the job and to work hard. With Kevin, all I had to do was go back to high school."

His own school experience had been anything but traditional, with McGill living in a New York apartment, covering a dozen roles in "La Cage" and studying with a tutor and taking Pennsylvania cyber classes. He later enrolled in a performing arts high school.

(Early on, his mother took a leave of absence from her job and lived with him for three months and taught him how to bank, grocery shop and do laundry.)

At one point the dancer had to leave school three days a week to make the Wednesday matinees and Thursday and Friday understudy rehearsals, which put a crimp in his class time. "I didn't go to science three days a week so my science teacher failed me, so I had to go to summer school because I couldn't make it to lab because I was on Broadway."

The closing of "La Cage" coincided with the end of his junior year, and he tried to earn money by dancing at bar mitzvahs on Long Island and to save money by eating cottage cheese for dinner.

He returned to Pittsburgh and took classes at Community College of Allegheny County. "I missed a few classes to go to a couple of auditions for 'A Chorus Line,'???" which one teacher apparently thought was a whopper of an excuse.

McGill graduated with his class from Northgate in 2006 and immediately moved back to New York and started "Chorus Line" rehearsals. By the time that revival prepared to close, he had lined up five auditions, including one for "Fame."

Now, McGill is getting a crash course in public relations, thanks to the movie and his character. "The first part of the job, I thought at the time, was hard, but I'm learning this PR thing is really difficult because of what to say, what not to say, especially with the content of my character," who takes some unexpected turns.

He is returning to Pittsburgh this weekend for a VIP reception and movie screening, with proceeds benefiting Pittsburgh Musical Theater. In a nod to the success of McGill (and his parents who correctly believed a 17-year-old could handle Broadway) and PMT, it is sold out.

When back in Los Angeles, he has been staying in shape and being creative with his time and money, drinking wine with friends on the beach in front of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's house one day earlier this year. "Yeah, L.A.'s cool. They all live there."

Gargaro keeps in touch with McGill through Facebook and Twitter and visits to New York.

"He's actually handled his success with a great deal of humility," Gargaro said. "It's really extraordinary how nice he's been to everybody, and it just feels right to me."