‘About A Boy’ Star Previews Tonight’s ‘Heartfelt’ Premiere Event

Benjamin Stockham gives HollywoodLife.com the scoop on his must-see new series, premiering tonight on NBC!

Let’s hear it for the Boy! Following tonight’s presentation of the 2014 Winter Olympics, NBC is airing a special premiere of its most feel-good series since Parenthood — and with executive producer/writer Jason Katims at the helm, is that any surprise?

Based on the 2002 film of the same name, About A Boy uses the original source material as a jumping-off point, introducing Benjamin Stockham‘s character (aka “the boy,” Marcus) and his single mom (Minnie Driver) to Will Freeman (David Walton), a musician described as “the ultimate man-child.”

“It’s just a very heartfelt story about this boy and this man,” Benjamin tells HollywoodLife.com, explaining that both Marcus and Will have quite a bit of growing up to do.

“Marcus and Will become best buds, which is weird, because Will really doesn’t even want to like Marcus at first,” Benjamin explains. “It just goes to show that that Marcus is as cool as me.” He promises his similarities to the character end there.

And don’t expect Benjamin to be copying the movie’s Marcus (played by Nicholas Hoult) to a T. Benjamin “literally just turned 13,” so he hasn’t gotten a chance to see the film, but he promises to “get around to it.” He says he just hopes he “didn’t mess the character up too badly.”

(Spoiler alert: He’s actually so much better.)

About A Boy‘s special premiere event airs Feb. 22 at 11:00 p.m. ET, then moves to its regular Tuesday timeslot on Feb. 25 at 9 p.m. ET. Don’t miss out!