CULVER CITY, Calif. — A speeding Ford Fiesta passed the Sony Pictures gate and swerved into a parking lot across the street. It was 1:07 p.m. Was this finally him?

Frannie and Irwin don’t like to wait.

A young man in a tight sweater tumbled out of the car. Clutching a black binder overflowing with scripts, he started to walk-run toward the Culver City Senior Center. “Ta-da!” he said as he approached the entrance, adding a little ankle turn for effect. He hugged me — we had never met before — and apologized profusely for his harried schedule:

“Girl, it has been a morning.”

Matthew Hoffman’s basic story is as old as Hollywood itself. After studying theater at the Boston Conservatory, part of Berklee College of Music, he packed a suitcase and moved to Los Angeles in 2006, determined to become a star. He got a roommate and a restaurant job and started to audition.

But then life took an unexpected turn.

Mr. Hoffman, now in his late 30s (and fussy about it because of ageism in Hollywood), has become a celebrity, if not quite the kind he had envisioned. A few years ago he started to volunteer at the senior center as a type of acting coach. He helps people in their 70s, 80s and 90s perform scenes from films like “Casablanca,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Wizard of Oz,” even providing wigs and costumes for special videotaped performances, which they toast with champagne flutes filled with vanilla Ensure.