Actor goes from sub shop to ‘Task’

PHILADELPHIA — It was February 2024 and a normal workday for Michael Bertrando at Kennett Square’s Sam’s Sub Shop when his phone rang. The sandwich maker removed his gloves and saw an unfamiliar phone number flashing on the phone screen. He usually avoids them, but decided to answer this one.

It wasn’t spam. A Heery Loftus casting agent was asking if he’d be interested in being a stand-in for actor Mark Ruffalo in the HBO crime drama “Task.”

“If I’m being honest, I didn’t want to do it at first because of the sub shop,” Bertrando said. “But it’s a good opportunity, obviously. So, I took them up on the offer.”

Later that month, he appeared for camera tests at Sun Center Studios in Aston, where he met “Task” directors Jeremiah Zagar and Salli Richardson-Whitfield. By the beginning of Marc