The Tuc Watkins Interview...

Tuc is the kind of tall, dark and handsome actor who could easily coast on his looks. But what makes this new "Desperate Housewives" cast member stand apart are his comic chops honed for over a decade as the studly and conniving David Vickers on the ABC soap "One Life to Live."

So so far on "Housewives," which casts him and Kevin Rahm as the first gay couple on Wisteria Lane, most of the funnier lines have gone to Kevin Rahm who plays the more domestic, and bitchy, of the two. I mentioned this to Tuc.
"You're right! it's sort of the opposite of David Vickers," he said. "David is usually the one who has the ba-dum, ba-dum ching. The way I think of it as, I'm Andy Griffith and Kevin is Barney Fife. Kevin is always standing a little bit in front of me - I'm usually standing a little behind him and over his shoulder just like Andy and Barney did. We are sort of the yin to each other's yang. I think he and I really work together well. Sometimes he's got the funny line and I'm the guy that sort of rolls my eyes at him.

For the 41-year-old Tuc, the role of Bob Hunter on "Housewives" is a prime-time breakthrough in a career that has included more than a decade, on-and-off, on the soap as well as two seasons on the
acclaimed Showtime series "Beggars and Choosers" which cast him as gay television executive Malcom Laffley.

"It's a lot of fun to join a show that is already running at full steam ahead," Tuc said. "Kevin Rahm and I are lucky that Marc Cherry was interested in bringing on a gay couple and he's brought a gay couple on that's not issue-oriented. We meet a lot of what are considered minority characters through their issues and we're not issue-oriented, we're not stereotypical. There's some sorta gay cliche jokes but then he'll also take what would be considered a stereotype and spin it on its ear like this horrible fountain we had. Not all gay people have great taste it turns out. It's a lot of fun to go on and be a couple on the street and not having to explain who you are and just immediately start mixing and mingling and causing trouble."

I love Tuc on "Housewives" but I wondered if he would ever find another role as good as that of Malcom on "Beggars" which had a stellar cast that also included Brian Kerwin, Charlotte Ross, Beau Bridges, Jim Belushi, and the cutie pie William McNamara who I will never forget from "Doing Time on Maple Drive."

Malcolm had to come out of the closet to clear himself of sexual harassment charges levied against him by a woman. "'Beggars and Choosers' was one of the greatest shows I ever had the opportunity to be on," Tuc said. "I loved that show and I loved playing that character. It was so well-written and I really wish that it had gone on 20 years. Everybody on it was great, we were all huddled together up there in Vancouver and only had each other to lean on. It was a real shame after the second year that the show kind of fell though the cracks."

Tuc has done scores of guest spots on shows ranging from "Six Feet Under" to "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and his film credits include "The Mummy" (pictured, left) and "The Good Shepherd."
But the lying, scheming gold-digging, multi-married (including a trip down the aisle on Friday's show) but very charming David Vickers remains his signature character.

"'One Life to Live has made it possible that I can go back there and be David Vickers (pictured above with Erika Slezick's Vicki Buchanan) from time to time. I'm based out here in Los Angeles now so I can do 'Desperate Housewives' and luckily, the schedules have permitted me to continue to do both and it's great to play such polar opposite characters."

While his "Housewives" character is gay and in a steady relationship, Vickers has had many women in his turbulent life.

"I feel very fortunate that I've gotten to play a lot of gay characters and a lot of straight characters," he said. "Most of the gay characters that I've played haven't been what would be considered stereotypes and so I feel proud about maybe changing people's opinions of what gay people may be...It's great to be able to do both. So if people want to see me as a role model, then I'm thankful for that."

ONLINE EXTRA: The great thing about cyperspace is that there is so much SPACE! Here are some tidbits that didn't make the print version:

On the women of Wisteria Lane: "The women on that show have done such a good job of creating
archtypes that are individual but they work collectively. Dana Delaney had a really tough time this year of coming on and finding a niche in a show that already has a full canvas. She's done an incredible job. She's really funny and she's really scary at the same time."

On Prime-time fame: "Every actor should be so lucky as to have the opportunity to play a character that gets watched. So I feel very lucky. Actors, by what they do, they have an audience. We don't exist in a vacuum, we live in the real world. Sometimes people see you and they see you on their TV in they're living room and they feel like, 'Oh! You're from my living room, I can come and say hi. By and large, people are nice and have nice things to say. It's actually great. You go to the grocery store and you feel like you've got friends."

On my favorite Beggars and Choosers line: I tell Tuc that my all-time favorite line of his from that series was
when a really handsome computer tech comes into Malcom's office to fix something and he says to himself, "Hello, lunch!"
Says Tuc: "The way that was written, I was supposed to say, 'Yummy.' And I said to the director, 'Can I try something? Can I try saying something else and he said, 'OK.' And I said, 'Hello, lunch.'"

On being a passanger on a scary JetBlue flight that was forced to circle over Burbank for hours a few years back: "I'm actually a big fan of JetBlue. It sounds like I'm being a paid spokesman. They really handled that situation as professionally as they could. I've been asked that question a lot about what it was like and to tell you the truth, it wasn't as dramatic or terrifying as I think that it may have been made out to be.The way the crew and the pilot handled it, I felt like everything was going to be fine and it was."

On his "I Think I Do..." and "Beggars and Choosers" co-star Alexis Arquete: "Alexis Arquette is one of the craziest human beings I've ever met in my life and whenever I run into him, I always have a big smile on my
face."