Actors/Actresses: August 2008 Archives

Jason O'Mara wanted to make one thing clear: he's not changing his haircut for his new ABC series "Life On Mars."

Even though his character of NYPD Det. Sam Tyler finds himself sent back to 1973 when he's hit by a car while chasing down a criminal, Jason didn't go for a retro look. After all, Sam had been living in 2008 until his little accident.

"I don't think it's really necessary to do anything to my hair," the actor told me recently.

I guess a bad 70s hairdo ("Mod Squad" anyone?) wouldn't be so good for ratings. One thing the Irish-born actor is trying to do though is work on an accent for the series, based on the British hit of the same name.

"I'm gonna try and give it sort of a New York flavor. That's very difficult to do, to do a subtle New York accent," he said. "It's easier to do Italian or something very specific."
On the show, Sam is trying to understand what has just happened to him and figure out how he can get back to the present day.

Meanwhile, he doesn't know who to trust and is, of course, without any hi-tech crime fighting techniques.So what would Jason miss the most is he really was transported back to the 70s

"Well, I would certainly miss the Internet, iPods, my DVR, microwave oven and cell phones of course," he said.
The Irish-born actor is no stranger to television audiences after roles as a regular or guest star on a number of series including "The Closer," "Grey's Anatomy," "CSI: Miami" and "Criminal Minds." He was part of the cast of "The Agency" on CBS and co-lead of "In Justice" on ABC and did several pilots that didn't make it on the air.

"I've been working with ABC for the last four years and this is kind of the culmination of a lot of that work."

The series doesn't premiere until early October but in recent weeks, the promos featuring Jason have hit the airwaves.

"This is a new deal for me, I've never had a fall launch like this," he said. "We're the only ABC fall drama so there's a lot of pressure so, it's very exciting."

Jason has lived in the U.S. for the last six years where he has consistently worked. He has a home in a small town in Connecticut with actress wife Paige Turco and their young son David. Paige, who Jason met when both were regulars on the CBS drama "The Agency," is currently one of the stars of the FX drama "Damages."
The couple's main priority right now is "trying to stay in the same city" as they juggle busy acting careers.

Neal McDonough fans who miss seeing the former "Boomtown" star on television each week can celebrate: Neal has joined the cast of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" as Nicolette Sheridan's love interest.

"It's like Disneyland, it's the happiest place on Earth," he said of the "Housewives" set. "Nicolette is terrific, she's great. It's just this great cast."

Neal had not done a steady television gig since the cancellation of NBC's "Medical Investigation" in 2005. Instead, he was busy making movies including "Flags of Our Fathers," "88 Minutes" and "The Hitcher."

"I was traveling everywhere, I wanted to see my wife and kids," Neal said during a recent chat. "I was about to go off again and ('Desperate Housewives' creator) Marc Cherry and said, 'How'd you like to be the new guy?' It's just a lot of fun and it's nice to drive 3.5 miles to work, get home and kiss my wife."

Edie Brit (Sheridan) has has been unlucky in love on "Housewives" but in Neal's character of Dave, she finally seems to have found the perfect man.
Or so she thinks.

"There's definitely a past to the guy that no one else knows about and he's hell-bent on revenge as the year goes on," Neal said. "The audiences is gonna like this."

While Neal makes his debut on the show next month, fans can see him even sooner than that because his latest film, "Traitor," hits theaters Wednesday.

It's an espionage thriller that also stars Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce and Jeff Daniels.

"To work with Don and Guy and Jeff, those guys are fantastic," he said. "It's a very smart, entertaining film. This is one of those smart thrillers where you will never guess what's going on. If you can guess, you are pretty amazing. It's just really layered and that's what I like about it. It was one of those characters that was just right for me."
So what would Neal consider to be a "just right" character?

"I generally play those hardened tough-as-nails type of guys, I think that's what I am," he said. "Lee Marvin, John Wayne kinds of guys, not a lot of BS about us. We like to get to the bottom of situations, not dance around issues. These are the kinds of characters I like."

In "Traitor," Neal plays FBI agent Max Archer who he said "fights his way through to get answers."

Neal, 42, was trained at the London Academy of Dramatic Arts and Sciences and was a busy theater actor but soon began landing guest spots on various television series including "NYPD Blue," "Quantum Leap" and "Murder One." His first significant film role came in 1996's "Star Trek: First Contact" which was a dream come true for a life-long fan of the franchise.

"I get a kick out of watching myself on screen," he admitted. "I'm so blessed to have the career and the life I have."

Molly Shannon in a new TV comedy?

I'm so there!

This "Saturday Night Live" alum is an absolute riot and will be playing Selma Blair's mother in the NBC comedy "Kath and Kim" which premieres this fall. It is based on a popular Australian comedy of the same name.

"It's really fun to play a character and it's fun to be different from yourself," she told me recently. "I even wear a wig."

The wig is to help the audience believe that Molly, who turns 44 next month - and is mother to two young children in real life - is old enough to play mother to Selma who is 36.

But hey, it worked for the late Estelle Getty on "The Golden Girls." She was actually a year younger than her TV daughter Beatrice Arthur.

What really worried Molly the most were inevitable comparisons to the original "Kath and Kim," a show about a dysfunctional mother and daughter, living in a suburban community in Florida.

"It's a little hard because I'm such a big fan of the Australian version so I get a little nervous thinking, 'Oh God I could never imitate that,'" she said. "A couple of years ago, they did a version of the script with a different writer and they came to me with it. I didn't like the writing so much. Then they brought in a new writer and came back to me a year later and I really liked this new version."\

This marks the first TV series Molly has headlined since 2004's "Cracking Up" which lasted just nine episodes. She's confident things will go better this time around.
"It's just such an opportunity," she said. "Just to be in this position where the network's excited about the show, we're picked up for 13 (episodes). I just feel so grateful for that."
"There's so much you can't control in TV, I just try to have fun and enjoy the people that I'm working with. But of course I hope it does well."
Even though Molly left "SNL" in 2001, her characters remain fresh in the minds of fans - none more than the neurotic and melodramatic Catholic school girl Mary Katherine Gallagher who ended up being the central character in the spinoff movie "Superstar."
Her guest spots have also lived on including the "Seinfeld" episode on which she plays Sam, a co-worker who drive Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) bonkers because she didn't swing her arms when she walked.

And, of course, there was her recurring role on "Will & Grace" as loony neighbor Val who became the nemesis of Grace (Debra Messing).

"People love that show," she said of 'Will & Grace." "I only did a few episodes and people act like they saw me so much on that."

That's because she was so unforgettable.

Charlie Hunnam may be just 28 years old, but he is an actor who would rather not work at all than accept a bad role in a film or on television.

Before he was cast as the lead in the new FX series "Sons of Anarchy" which debuts Sept. 3, he didn't find any projects that appealed to him to he took some time away from acting to write a screenplay.

But the star of such features as "Nicholas Nickleby" and "Green Street Hooligans" was finally offered a part that he knew was absolutely right for him: Jackson "Jax" Teller in "Anarchy," an action-drama that explores the life and brotherhood of a notorious outlaw motorcycle club.

"They are pretty bad," Charlie said recently. "If ever anything comes into their world and compromises the way they live their life or their freedom, then they strike out with a vengeance."

Katey Sagal plays his force-of-nature mother and Ron Perlman is his stepfather and president of the club.

"He's trying to distance himself a little bit from the violent nature of this club," Charlie said of Jax.

When we spoke, I wondered about the tatoos that were on the actor's arm. I asked him if they were real.

"No," he said before explaining that he participated in the selection of his character's body art: "You can either pay attention and make a specific choice about tatoos or you can show up and have the make-up artist put some tatoos on you. And I thought long and hard about it. I didn't want to go overboard but I wanted something very specific."
Real tatoos that are visible can be problematic: "I love tatoos but it's just such a pain to have them covered."

The English actor, now based in Los Angeles, was open to doing a series even though he had been getting steady work in such films as "Cold Mountain," "Children of Men," and "Abandon."

In fact, two of his most memorable roles were on TV: the original British version of "Queer as Folk" and the FOX comedy "Undeclared" which was cancelled after one season but remains a cult favorite.

I wondered if playing a tough guy was much oif a stretch for Charlie.

"I was a rough little kid growing up," he said. "I definitely had my share of fights but all that's behind me now. I'm an actor. I'm not a bad-ass anymore."

Here is a scene from "Queer As Folk: filmed nearly 10 years ago:

Kyle Chandler was the star of one of my favorite shows, "EarlyEdition."

You remember it, right?

It was about a guy who, for reasons completely unknown to him, gets tomorrow's newspaper on his doorstep today. Then he's got just 24 hours to try and prevent whatever calamity he reads about.

Talk about stressful!

When I ran into Kyle recently - who now heads the cast of NBC's "Friday Night Lights - I had to tell him how much I enjoyed "Early Edition."

"That was a fun show," he said. "I've been very fortunate, no doubt about that. I went four years on that."

Kyle is hopeful that the critically-acclaimed but never highly rated "Lights" runs at least that long. He plays Eric Taylor, coach of the high school football team in the fictional town of Dillon, Texas. The show is about a lot more than football and uses the small-town backdrop to dramatize issues facing Middle America these days.

The show was in danger of being cancelled after each of its first two seasons but has managed to weather so-so ratings and a writers strike to return in the fall - first exclusively on DirectTV then rebroadcast on NBC in early 2009.

"To have this opportunity with the third season, I'm very excited for it," Kyle said. "I think the show will be as strong as ever. I think it's a new opportunity. As long as they keep it on the air, I can focus on the stories."

"Everyone is excited," he added. "I'm working with some very, very intelligent people who are very, very creative. It's the best working atmosphere that I could ever imagine and I think a lot of that shows in the episodes. It all fits together."

This is the first year the show will air on DirectTV first in an arrangement that helped ensure "Nights" survival on broadcast television where shows are rarely given time to prove themselves and grow in the ratings.

Kyle is so confident about the show's quality that he believes if people just sample it once or twice, they will never stop watching.

"I think the people that don't watch it are the people that haven't seen it," he said. "A lot of people that I know who have seen it who initially thought they wouldn't be watching it for whatever reason ended up finding out that it was a lot different than they ever had
anticipated. We have a lot of very strong followers of the show. I expect that to continue and I expect a whole new audience with 17 million subscribers to Direct TV having a shot at it. It's really exciting. We've got a real chance of showing a lot more people what
we have."

Television viewers first got to know Kyle, 42, from his roles on the well-regarded television series "Homefront" and and the final season of "Tour of Duty" followed by roles in the short-lived the Joan Cusack sitcom "What About Joan" and the Rob Lowe drama "Lyons Den." He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his memorable
four-episode gig on "Grey's Anatomy" and has appeared in such films as the Peter Jackson-directed "King Kong," "The Kingdom" and "Mulholland Falls."

But the role of Eric Taylor on "Lights" is one he's been waiting his entire career for.

"I really like him a lot," Kyle said of his TV alter-ego. "I was unsure about him at first but I like everything about him."

With its endless reruns airing several times a day, "Scrubs" sometimes seems to me to be on its way to becoming almost as ubiquitous as "I Love Lucy," the most repeated comedy in the history of television.

The two shows are so different and yet they do have one thing in common: both feature comedy teams that are the heart of the show. Where "Lucy" had best friends and neighbors played to perfection by Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance, "Scrubs" is anchored by the extremely close - and very funny - relationship of young doctors Christopher Duncan Turk and Dr. John "J.D." Dorian played by Donald Faison and Zach Braff, respectively.

Donald told me recently that the chemistry between he and Zach was instant, "from the day I met him."

"We joked around really well together," he said. "For some reason, his sense of humor was the same as mine. I think pretty much everything that you see us do together, on that show, is how we are in real life. Maybe times that by ten. In real life we're that on
steriods."
The two characters are so close (J.D. calls Turk his "brown bear") that there has been some question - and many jokes - about whether they are gay and just don't know it.

Donald said that although "I am definitely his brown bear," he believes the two are merely engaging in typical male bonding: "I think that's in all male relationships. There's always references toward one's sexuality. It's a bonding tool. I don't think you'd be
dudes if you didn't do that. How could someone be your best friend if you can't do that?"

"There's not just gay references," he's quick to add. "There's black references and white references. Everything. The fact that I'm called brown bear or chocolate bear, it's not because I have the physique of a bear. It's because my skin is brown! It's definitely fun to not have to worry about being politically correct."

Although it's never been a blockbuster in the TV ratings, "Scrubs" has quietly built-up a loyal following throughout its seven years on the air. The many reruns and popularity on DVD led ABC to pick up the show for an eighth season when NBC was ready to send it to that big operating room in the sky.

So come January, we'll get more adventures of J.D. and Turk and their friends.

"Eight years on television, you can't beat that with a baseball bat," said Donald, who previously was a regular on the "Felicity," "Clueless," and "Clone High." "When we first started the show, I was 26. So I've almost lived a decade doing this television show and I
wouldn't change that for the world."

"I dreamt of it," he added. "Watching 'Cosby' and 'A Different World' and watching 'Family Matters' and 'Family Ties' and 'Cheers'and 'Friends' and 'Frasier' and all those shows. I think everybody dreams that that will happen one day. I for sure dreamed that it would happen. And it did and it's awesome."