NOAH WYLE draws a Blank

``ER'' star Noah Wyle's been named artistic producer of L.A.'s Blank Theatre Co., where he'll work with fellow artistic producer Christopher Collet and longtime artistic director Daniel Henning to step up the acting company's presence.

``I got involved seven years ago when I auditioned, and got a role in 'Sexual Perversity in Chicago,' and now that I'm on a show and I have extra money, it seemed a natural step,'' said Wyle. The company recently took over the Second Stage on Santa Monica Boulevard and is eyeing larger space as well.

Blank puts on four shows a year along with a reading series and young playwrights festival for writers under 20. ``I'll be hitting the fundraising circuit hard,'' Wyle said.

Henning thinks Wyle could spark some serious growth for Blank. ``We've had notoriety, won lots of awards, but we've never had any money,'' said Henning. ``We've relied on scrap lumber and patchwork costumes long enough.''

Reuters/Variety

A new project on its way:

NEW YORK (Variety) - Noah Wyle, the young, affable doctor on ``ER,'' is set to star in a new film as the man who polished Adolf Hitler and helped introduce him to the upper social circles the Nazi leader needed to finance the Third Reich.

``The Populist,'' a European co-production, will be directed by Ted Kotcheff (''North Dallas Forty,'' ``Rambo'') from a script by Oscar-winning screenwriter John Briley (''Ghandi'').

It is Wyle's second feature starring role, after the fall film ``The Myth of Fingerprints,'' and he will shoot the $20 million film in Germany and Austria in May during his next ''ER'' hiatus.

Briley's script is based on ``Hitler: The Missing Years,'' a memoir by Ernst Hanfstaegl, a onetime college buddy of Franklin Roosevelt who became a key player in Hitler's inner circle.

The memoir documents firsthand how Hitler, with no small help from the author, rose above the ruins of post-World War I Germany to wrest power and enforce a reign of destruction.

INSIDE STORY

Hanfstaegl's story gives Kotcheff an inroad to explore the formative years of Hitler and how a charismatic zealot could persuade an entire nation to follow his twisted agenda.

Directors such as Paul Verhoeven have toyed with the idea of a film on the young Hitler, though many view a film that gives any level of a sympathetic characterization of Hitler as a potential critical disaster and box office poison.

Makers of ``The Populist'' believe focusing on the seduction of the Harvard-educated Hanfstaegl and the lifelong guilt he bore for his role in the Third Reich is a commercially viable way to show how a grimy little politician with a bad mustache got so far.

``Hanfstaegl was part of the inner ring, and felt tremendous guilt for being seduced by a monster and becoming chief promoter of the viper,'' said Kotcheff.

``Hitler was a shabby corporal when they met, and Ernst took him into circles he never would have been able to crack, which got him the money he needed. Ernst honestly felt after hearing him speak that Hitler was the answer to the manifold problems Germany faced, and that only Hitler's charisma could keep it together. He never showed his true colors until much later.''

Hanfstaegl was a German-American who was a classmate and buddy of Roosevelt at Harvard. He married a wealthy socialite and brought her to Germany after World War I.

After helping Hitler rise to power, Hanfstaegl convinced himself he was the sole voice of moderation between Hitler and hard-line advisers, but he was eventually forced to flee SS troops with his young son in 1938.

He was placed under arrest in England, but brought back to the U.S., where he lived under house arrest in Virginia while serving as FDR's chief adviser on Hitler during World War II.

LIFELONG GUILT

Even though he helped the effort against Hitler, he still felt complicit and tormented, particularly after details emerged of the concentration camps and Hitler's ``final solution,'' said Kotcheff.

With most roles for actors his age limited to angst-ridden youngsters, history buff Wyle committed to the script right after reading it.

``Not many people know about Hitler's press rep, this Harvard kid who grew up with people like Mark Twain visiting his home, but who chose to live in poverty in Germany,'' said Wyle. ``He was thrown a bone by an American army officer to hear Hitler speak and report back on who was there. He was enthralled by what he heard, by this man who was a terrific speaker but totally unpolished.''