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By Gayle Jo Carter
(First of two parts)
Noah Wyle is at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills, drinking Scotch and Amstel Lights, smoking Marlboros, wearing a velvet blazer, sneakers and jeans. Not what you'd expect from one of "ER's" young doctors. We'd met at the phone bank, where I'd come looking for him. I'd been in the lounge waiting; he'd been in the lobby waiting. He says, "Remind me to tell you a funny story about ..."
Q: So, what's your funny story about?
The last time I was in this hotel was probably ... 1987, maybe. I was working at the Beverly Center and I got in a really vicious car accident outside this hotel; my head went through the passenger-side window. It was a big mess. I came in and asked, "Where are the phones?" Everyone looked at me like I was insane.
Q: Were you bleeding?
I didn't think so, but they pointed to the phones. I called the police to come take a statement. There were these glass ashtrays, and my hands were shaking, and I knocked one over and it broke. I bent over to pick it up and cut my finger. I remember looking at the blood on my finger, and looking at my shirt, which was covered in blood, and thinking: How did that get on my shirt? Then I looked in the mirror, and my head was cut and my whole face was gushing blood. Just then I get a tap on my shoulder, and it's Matthew Modine, and he says, "Do you need some help?" The whole thing was so ... surreal. I was like, "No ... no, but thank you. And I like your work."
Q: You're so young, you don't have that much of a background, and then boom! You're on the No. 1 TV show. Do you feel like an overnight success?
I'm 24. It feels more overnight for you than for me. I have done a lot of plays ... I'm still active in two theater companies. So I feel I have done a lot, but nobody has seen it. It's kind of like a seven-year overnight sensation.
Q: Do you get a lot of fan mail?
I do, though I don't know what "a lot" is. Joey Lawrence gets a lot! Yaphet Kotto [of "Homicide"] gets a little. I'm somewhere between Yaphet Kotto and Joey Lawrence, to show you where American sensibilities are.
Q: Do you read it? What does it say?
I read as much of it as I can. My demographic is usually 9 to 14 years old. I get a lot of "I wrote your name in my locker."
Q: Were you shocked at the success of "ER"? Did you ever expect to be nominated for an Emmy your first year?
Not at all. I didn't really want to do TV. I was sort of naively snobbish about it. Everybody told me it was the most powerful medium, but you don't really know that firsthand until you do it. It was something I avoided, because I thought if it was a good enough story, they would have made a play of it or filmed it. And they kept canceling my favorite shows.
Q: What were your favorite shows?
I liked "Brooklyn Bridge, I'll Fly Away." And I thought, in terms of medical dramas, it would be really hard to outdo "M*A*S*H" and "St. Elsewhere."
Q: Did you watch much television as a kid?
I was definitely a latchkey kid, addicted to TV. I always liked dramas more than comedies. I call "M*A*S*H" more of a drama than a comedy. Of all the shows we've been compared to, I think we're most similar to "M*A*S*H," in that the comedic aspects of that show always came out of the dramatic aspects. You always felt that their sense of humor was saving their lives. That's what I hope we do with ["ER"]. This inner-city hospital on the south side of Chicago is the modern-day front-line battleground, and these people develop a dark sense of humor to balance the brutality that they see every day.
Q: Were you concerned at all about the competition?
Sure. In a lot of ways, "Chicago Hope" is more my taste. I don't mind a little proselytizing. I like big juicy monologues where huge, gigantic themes are dealt with. One of my favorite films is "My Dinner With Andre," which is just two guys sitting and talking about everything under the sun. Actually, if you like "My Dinner With Andre," chances are I'll like you. To me, the smallest things make something entertaining. "Chicago Hope's" sensibility of tackling the moral issues of being a doctor and the theological issues of being a healer I find interesting. It's rare we shoot a scene [on "ER"] that's more than two pages of dialogue -- you have to infuse all that into a very limited period of time.
Q: People want to see your character have a love life; if you get the girl, it shows all the good guys out there can, too.
Oh, please. I consider myself to be a good guy, and I've always lost out to the bad boy.
Q: Why do you think that is?
Because good guys are boring -- stable and supportive. They're like your second favorite college choice: You know you really want to get into Yale, but Northwestern's a good school.
Q: Do you believe in God?
I don't know. I would say I'm more religious than I've ever been in my life, but it's not so much in terms of faith or belief; it's more in terms of curiosity. I just started rereading the Bible. The thing is I went to Israel this past summer. I'm half Jewish -- my father is Jewish -- and when I came back I started feeling tremendously guilty that I didn't have a basis of understanding for the sites I had seen. So I decided to backtrack. I got this book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which I've always been very curious about. I'm reading it and I'm understanding it, but I'm not appreciating it, because I don't have a good background to understand the text. So I thought: Why don't I hold off on the Dead Sea Scrolls, go back and reread the Bible, then read the Talmud and work my way back to the Dead Sea Scrolls? So, that's what I've been doing with my free time.
Q: Do you believe in an afterlife?
I don't believe in heaven per se, or hell. I also don't believe when you're dead you're just worm food and that's all. There's something in between there where the energy is around someplace. I don't know if you've ever had the experience where you're walking down the street and you catch a smell but there's nobody around you and it smells just like your grandmother. Or you hear something and you swear it sounds like your friend who died, his voice or his laugh. And it takes you out of wherever you are and makes you remember them. I don't believe that's a coincidence. I believe they're somewhere.
Q: If you could see yourself in 20 years, would you want to be a Clint Eastwood type, or Harrison Ford or Tom Hanks?
They all hold a certain appeal. I don't consider myself to be much of the action-adventure hero type. I feel a little too scrawny for that. I would not pay $7.50 to see me shoot people or beat anybody up.
Tom Hanks' career I really admire -- how he started doing "Bosom Buddies" and now he's considered to be the leading dramatic actor. I admire his tenacity and his longevity and just his spirit. He's directing a film now, and I got to meet with him about it. He was very charming, sweet, inquisitive. Seemed completely unaffected. He was everything I hoped he would be. One of the worst things about the success of "ER" is I get to meet everybody that's been a hero to me, and seven times out of 10 you're disappointed. It's your own fault. I don't know if you read the story in "The Globe" about me supposedly being with three women in one weekend?
Q: I meant to buy that today, but I bought "The Wall Street Journal" instead.
Shame on you -- it's an excellently written piece. This guy's been hanging outside my apart ment taking pictures of me. He caught me at my neighborhood coffee shop. The girls that run the place are friends of mine, and he started to take pictures and tried to create this whole piece about how I'm this playboy of West Hollywood.
-- Continued in "2. Noah's Arc: Women and George Clooney"
Photo by Sandra Johnson for USA WEEKEND
Copyright 1996 USA WEEKEND. All rights reserved.
Issue date: 3-10-96
By Gayle Jo Carter
(Second of two parts)
-- Continued from "1. Noah's Arc: A star on the rise"
Q: Speaking of women, I hear you and your ex got back together after you got on "ER" ...
We did. Last year, briefly. I actually left a message for her today.
Q: When you got famous, she looked you back up?
No. No. We had a special relationship. I can honestly say she was the first love of my life. The success of "ER" had absolutely nothing to do with us getting back together. There were unresolved questions and curiosities. It would have happened anyway.
Q: Do you believe everyone is destined to be with one particular person?
No, I don't believe in that. I believe that people are perfect for each other for a finite period of time -- the unsolicited opinion of a hack TV actor on love. I think unless they grow together at relatively the same rate or have similar stimuli coming into their lives, people grow apart. The notion of there being a yin to your yang or a yang to your yin or a perfect soul mate or a Gemini twin or whatever it may be is a bit of a romantic ideal. It's not very practical. I mean, I'm 24, and the chances of me meeting the person I'm going to be with for the rest of my life or for the next three years, let alone five, is highly unlikely.
Q: What do you look for in a woman?
Patience. She's gotta exhibit a lot of patience. I'm a fairly moody person. Going back to acting -- there's no other profession on the planet where you can kiss your girlfriend goodbye for three months while she goes and "plays" making love to someone else, only to come home to you, make you sit down on the couch and watch it, then tell her she was great. Plumbers don't have to deal with that.
Q: Do you hate interviews?
I keep doing them in the hope that things that really mean a lot to me will get in print.
Q: Has there been one you haven't liked?
A few. It's the nature of the beast. I talk about Israel or my affinity for history or how I love fellow cast members and my job, and they print, "He was a Gemini, his ex-girlfriend lives in New York, he drives a Bronco."
Q: If there were one thing you wanted printed about you, what would that be?
Oh ... I don't know. That's a good question, because it's making me put up or shut up.
Q: So, if you weren't here, what would you be doing on your day off?
So far today, I went to my neighborhood coffee shop and had coffee. Made some phone calls. Played with my dog. Cleaned my apartment.
Q: No cleaning lady?
Yeah, she comes once a week, but I'm a little messier than just once a week.
Q: You collect Noah's arks ...
I have arks from all over the world. Ones I've had since I was a baby.
Q: Did your parents name you biblically?
No. I'm named after the son of a close artist friend of my parents. I always said it is the one name everybody knows but not many people have.
Q: You don't need a stage name?
No. Now that I'm reading the Bible, it's fascinating. It says Noah planted a vineyard and drank the wine and "thus was drunken and he was uncovered within his tent naked.''
Q: Hmm. What sorts of things make you angry?
I don't like wasting time. To me, time is very precious, and even if I spend the entire day in bed, that's a day well spent because I chose to spend it in bed. It's going to sound awful to say this, but I have a real tough time with ... I won't say "incompetence," but it comes across as incompetence. I worked in a restaurant for a long time, and started as a very bad busboy and became a pretty good waiter. But I grew to love it; it was great nobility in humility. There's a true art form to service, and when it's done right it's a real pleasure to watch someone work. I've worked with some of the best waiters in the city. The application of putting a table together goes across the board -- it applies to acting, it applies to business, it applies to everything. God lies in detail; it's in the specific and the little things.
Q: What was the first thing you bought when you had money, besides the Bronco?
I bought a king-size bed.
Q: Is it on the floor?
No, I'm not into that sleeping-on-the-floor business. It's a big sleigh bed.
Q: Do you have a cellular phone?
I do, but I very rarely use it. It was a gift. Steve Spielberg bought us all cellular phones. ["ER" is co-produced by Spielberg's Amblin Television.]
Q: Do you think you'll ever be "People" magazine's sexiest man alive?
I hope not.
Q: Why?
Because that's being known for something I don't necessarily want to be known for. I get very embarrassed. I've never thought of myself as a hunk. That's like saying Hugh Grant is a hunk. He's not a hunk; he's a good-looking guy. He's charismatic, he's charming, he's self-effacing in his humor -- but not a hunk.
Q: Is George Clooney a hunk?
George is a hunk. He's a hunk in that throwback-to-a-different-era kind of way. He's a hunk in the Tyrone Power school of hunkdom.
Q: Now that you have reached some sort of fame -- is it lonely?
Not really. It's isolated in a different sense. One of my favorite pastimes used to be going to a mall or some busy place, sitting on a bench and just watching people. I can't sit around a lot of people and be invisible -- at least one person in a hundred is going to go, "That's the guy in 'ER'!" Whether they come up to me or not, I see them whisper or nod.
Q: When you get into your car, do you ever think, 'Oh my God! I'm on the No. 1 show'? Do you wonder if it's real?
That is one of the reasons George and I are such good friends, because I truly believe that everyone needs a George Clooney in his life.
Q: Why is that?
George has the ability to truly enjoy the benefits of his labor. One memory I will always have of George was at this big premiere party last year. George and I decided we would go together. I bought a new suit for it, and he bought a new suit. He picked me up in his car [a convertible] and got the car washed and waxed. It was a warm summer night, we were driving up to this "Great Gatsby"-ish mansion in Brentwood, we had great music playing and the breeze was blowing, and I looked at him. He had this big grin on his face. I remember thinking: What's so funny? Instead of asking him, I started thinking about it. We were looking sharp, it was a great night and we were going to a fun event. And it was like, "Yeah, that's the way I should always remember this."
Gayle Jo Carter is an assistant editor in charge of entertainment coverage at USA WEEKEND.
Photo by Pacha/LGI
Copyright 1996 USA WEEKEND. All rights reserved.
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