Andy Gray

“I’ve played so many homeless guys, I could buy a house.”

Comedian Bob Golub wrote that line as a joke, but it’s not a lie. The Sharon, Pa., native has upcoming guest appearances on a couple of series, “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” on Max and “Good Trouble” on Hulu, where he plays someone who is “unhoused” (neither episode has a premiere date yet).

Those episodes follow Golub playing opposite Denzel Washington in the 2021 release “The Little Things,” where he also played a convenience store customer who, let’s just say, didn’t look like a property owner.

He returns to the area this weekend — and will have a place to stay — when he does a co-headlining gig with Steve Marshall at the Apollo Maennerchor in Sharon at 7 p.m. Sunday, but his acting career was on a hot streak until the SAG-AFTRA strike started in July.

He was only on camera for a few seconds in “The Little Things,” but he was on hold for seven weeks, which meant he got paid for the work he had to turn down while waiting to shoot his scene.

“I made more money from that than I did ‘GoodFellas,'” Golub said, referring to the 1990 Martin Scorsese film that was his first major acting credit.

Of course, there are perils that come with playing the disheveled. Golub went through costumes and make up for his “Good Trouble” scene, which was shot in Los Angeles. His scene was going to be the first one shot after lunch, so someone suggested he go to lunch early so he would be back in time.

Golub is standing in line at catering when a cop who was working security said, “What are you doing? You can’t eat here. Put down that food and leave.” Golub kept telling him he was one of the actors, but the officer wasn’t buying it until an assistant director came by, recognized Golub and confirmed his identity.

Film and television have been criticized in the past for only casting minorities as criminals or the poor or the homeless, and Golub said he believes he’s benefiting from producers trying to avoid that criticism.

“I’m the go-to homeless guy,” Golub said. “Throw it to me, man. ‘Pretty Little Liars’ held me for a week, so I got paid the whole time.”

Golub isn’t limiting himself to homeless roles. He has bigger parts in two upcoming films — “Killing Cookie,” a low-budget mockumentary about the first mobster ever put into the federal witness protection program, and “Pig Hill,” a horror film about a Pennsylvania legend that was shot earlier this year in Meadville, Pa. “Pig Hill” gave Golub a chance to re-find his western Pennsylvania accent, he said

Golub got his start doing standup comedy, and he’s never left it, even as he took acting gigs or developed film and television projects. He’d hoped to work on one of those projects during his trip back this weekend, but he said some new ideas for the reality series forced them to delay filming plans locally.

Despite his local roots, Golub plans to let Marshall close the show (tickets are $25) because of his unique approach — he spends his entire set working the crowd and never actually goes on stage.

“It’s going to be a unique comedy show,” Golub said. “You’re getting two headliners. Steve headlines Vegas. I headline Vegas. His show is unbelievable.”

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.