June 9, 2002
Nine years into a career inseparable from TV's reigning weekly drama, "ER" - on
which he plays the achingly sensitive Dr. John Carter - Noah Wyle continues to
look for ways to complicate his screen persona.
Let George Clooney, one of the "ER" grads who left the show to chase marquee
glory, play footsie with Julia Roberts. Wyle's grooving on the fact that he's
about to become the program's senior cast member. And he still gets to have some
fun during the off season. That's when he took a dastardly turn in "Enough," the
new thriller in which an abused and then empowered Jennifer Lopez gets revenge
on a vile husband - whom Wyle's character abets.
During a recent chat with freelance writer Steve Dollar, the native Los Angeleno
confesses he'll stay with "ER" until its ratings flat line. Meanwhile, he's just
glad that he doesn't always have to play nice.
Did you want to flip around your fuzzy-cuddly TV image?
That was certainly part of it, the fact that he's such a different guy than Dr.
John Carter. The fact that Michael Apted was directing it was probably the most
important to me. He's such a soft-spoken and intelligent man.
And having a chance to work with the likes of Jennifer Lopez, it all made good
sense.
And you don't have to be the guy whose butt she kicks.
No, no! I really like playing smaller parts in bigger movies, where you can come
in and be like a hired gun that does his job and goes on his merry way and
doesn't have to worry about opening the picture.
When you began "ER," you were at an age when most people are just getting out of
college and starting their first "real" jobs. You've had this opportunity to
grow up on TV.
Very much so.
How has that experience changed you?
How hasn't it? I mean, my parents are the same. A couple of my friends are the
same. Everything else is pretty different. I don't live in the same place. I
don't live in the same way. I don't wear the same clothes. I don't go to the
same places. I've got a lot of new friends. There are a few more countries I can
go to now, and I have to wear sunglasses and hats.
On the rare times I offer advice, I try to caution not to be frustrated the way
I was at trying to make my old life fit into the new life. It just doesn't fit.
You're going to lose people, and people are going to disappoint you and you'll
disappoint them. You won't be available for their wedding and their birthday.
You won't be able to go to the movies at a moment's notice anymore. You're like
a doctor. You're on call.
If I could save anybody the sleepless nights I had trying to make sense of all
this, then I consider it time well-spent.
How did you make it work?
Meeting my wife was pretty instrumental. And being smart enough to stick it out.
Once we got married and started to build a life - outside the business, outside
Los Angeles.
We have a little farm that has quite a menagerie of animals, and every second
I'm not working I'm there. Shoveling dung and doing farm-y things. That keeps my
feet on the ground.
We're expecting our first baby in the fall, and that's another perspective shift
I'm looking forward to: having the sense that all this work has not been for
myself.
It struck me funny that you were born in Hollywood.
Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, which is now owned by the Scientologists. My mother
and father aren't in the film business. My mother remarried a man named Jim
Katz, who was in the film business. Jim had been a vice president of United
Artists in the '60s and done everything from craft service on "The Manchurian
Candidate" to producing his own independent films.
When he came on the scene he was producing movies like "Lust in the Dust" with
Tab Hunter and Divine. My world changed. Our house guests got very colorful
And now you're working on your agricultural chops.
Yeah. We live in a small town, with a real strong sense of community. You feel
like you can really be invested in how things work. Which is very different from
growing up in L.A. The schools there, kids learn how to count from counting
horses in the fields and sheep in the barn.
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.