Most New Trier seniors have spent the past year performing the same types of tasks: balancing schoolwork, extracurriculars, a social life, and perhaps most importantly, college preparations. Kevin Quinn, however, is not your typical New Trier senior.

In addition to making sure his school life goes steadily, the 17-year old Wilmette native has seen his professional acting career blossom the past two years.

In July, Quinn landed a role in an episode of “Chicago P.D.”, an NBC drama featuring Sophia Bush and Jesse Lee Soffer. The episode will air Oct. 1.

According to Quinn, his agent informed him of the opportunity one day before the audition, and he was offered the role within two hours of his tryout.

“I spent four days filming,” said Quinn. “We worked from 4:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., constantly filming. I did a lot of location work where I would go to a certain location and we’d film, for example, a chase scene. We filmed on the L tracks, we filmed in tunnels on the L, we filmed in different neighborhoods on the south side- basically all over Chicago.”

This wouldn’t be the first time that Quinn appeared on national television. In 2013, Quinn appeared on the reality show “American Idol,” where he made it to the Hollywood auditions, but was eliminated during the final cuts of the Hollywood auditions.

Quinn’s musical ambitions didn’t stop there. He published a song on Apple’s iTunes titled “When You Were Mine.”

After his television debut on Chicago P.D., Quinn appeared in a smaller role on an episode of the Showtime comedy-drama “Shameless.” This role was followed up with a performance in an independent film that, production pending, could end up on the Disney Channel or another cable channel as a made-for-TV movie. Quinn’s run of success came in spite of the difficulty in finding roles consistently.

“As an actor, you just don’t get jobs as often as you audition,” said Quinn. “If I had to guess, I’d say for every ten auditions you get one job, so getting ‘Chicago P.D.’ [and other roles] over the summer was amazing.”

Adding to the success was the fact that these TV and movie appearances served as Quinn’s introduction to film acting. Prior to his acting for Chicago P.D., Quinn had only done stage theater. Now that he has accomplished the goal he set in 2013 to land a film role so that he could see the difference between film and stage theater, Quinn considers himself a more well-rounded actor.

“When I finally got the gig, I wanted to see which gig I liked better, and I actually ended up liking film a lot,” said Quinn. “Stage will always hold a special place in my heart because I love being on stage, but film is so cool. There’s so many special effects you can do.”

Finding a way to balance school and acting responsibilities has proved to be a challenge; at one point last year Quinn was in a Steppenwolf play and a Shakespeare play at the same time, cumulatively missing approximately two months of school. But Quinn praised New Trier’s handling of his unique situation.

“[Former Assistant Principal for Administrative Services] Mr. Ottaviano told me to go for it. He was great about it. I actually haven’t had that much trouble balancing schoolwork because whenever I’m backstage, or even during a show when I’m offstage, I’m getting homework done,” said Quinn.

According to Quinn, his most difficult role so far was his work in Henry V at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, in which he was the only actor or actress under 35 years old. Instead of reading the play, he ended up reading the simplified ‘No Fear Shakespeare’ version of his lines online. He also had to research numerous historical events such as the Battle of Agincourt.

“It required a lot of technique about how to approach a certain text for acting,” said Quinn. “I just remember walking in on the first day of rehearsal and reading the script and thinking, ‘wow I have a lot of work to do.’ I ended up accomplishing and understanding the play and its characters, and it is now one of my favorite plays.”

Quinn has decided to graduate a semester early in hopes of continuing his recent success. He is looking at colleges specifically in Los Angeles because of the film scene and is interested in a career in politics if acting doesn’t work out.

“I’m moving to Los Angeles for all of February and March. I’ll be visiting a lot and I’ll still try to make it to school dances and [other events], but I’m not going to be in school. I’ll be auditioning out there. I’ve been pretty good with landing these parts, and so my goal is that if I can keep the momentum, I would like to continue acting.”