Peter Krause no member of Celebrity-land

He is an actor. And in his case that's more than just a trumped-up way of saying that he's a celebrity who works for a living. He was in Dallas last week to promote his new film, Civic Duty, but in an hourlong interview, the movie is literally the last thing he talks about.

As it turns out, and this gets at one of the big differences between Mr. Krause and members of the Paris School of Celebrities, he is quite capable of thoughtfully conversing on all kinds of topics current events, human nature, his love of Edie Brickell. But since he is a celebrity, even if he does swim in the deep end of that gene pool, those topics do have a way of rounding back to showbiz and Mr.

Krause's place in it.
So first topic is his new TV series, Dirty Sexy Money, which premieres June 1 on ABC. It's a weekly drama with a great cast Donald Sutherland, Jill Clayburgh in which Mr.

Krause plays a lawyer representing a wealthy family in matters both legal and illegal. And it marks his return to network television, which brings up his last network series, the late, loved Sports Night, also on ABC for two glorious, awards-filled seasons starting in 1998
As Yogi Berra said, d j vu all over again.
Yeah, back on ABC, another really well-written show with an impressive cast, so we'll see.

I am anticipating a similar journey. I know there will be times when being on a network will play into the creative aspects of the show. There will be a few battles along the way.

Thinking along these lines reminds him of those Sports Night days when he was one of the leads in an edgy show creating a different kind of comedy on network TV. It was the first series from Aaron Sorkin, who would go on to create West Wing.
It was a fascinating time for me in television because I got a chance to watch things happen, the interpolitics between artists and the network.

Aaron Sorkin and the other producers had to fight very hard to get rid of the laugh track and the studio audience.
Then Who Wants to Be a Millionaire came on the scene. And since Disney's (which owns ABC) No.

1 priority was to make money, rather than foster Sports Night, which was doing OK at the time, they put Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on five night a week.
The worst experience I had with that was being in New York, doing After the Fall, the revival of this Arthur Miller play, and I come out in an overcoat and I sit down on this bench. And the lights are down and as the light comes up, you can see that it's me.

And there are some women sitting in the front row on the stage-left side, and one of them says 'Hey, it's Nate.' Now, if there's something that's going to break my concentration and pull me out of character, it's going be having another character that I've played summoned. 'Hey, it's Nate.

'
The thought leads to a brief consideration of his ambivalence about fame, especially that concern among conscientious, anti-Paris celebrities, of suddenly having way too much of it.
I've been able to maintain a really healthy career and play the kind of roles I want without getting too famous is that something I can say seriously? I like what I do, but the whole fame thing, some of it is OK but a lot of it isn't.

I like to watch people, and that gets more and more difficult when more and more people are watching you.
But finally the time has come in the interview to get down to work, which means talking up the movie he is in town to promote. Civic Duty is a Rear Window-style thriller in which Mr.

Krause plays an unemployed accountant who becomes convinced that his neighbor is a terrorist.
Talk of the film leads to talk of post-9-11 America and a media-fed culture of paranoia and the way fear has been commodified, turned into a product being sold just about everywhere you turn or tune in.
I know we're selling fear in this movie, too, but hopefully it's not to desensitize people, it's to re-sensitize them to the precious nature of human life and not to waste all our time being afraid.

I hope it'll make people want to get out of the theater, out of the dark and go out into the world and enjoy being there. I think it's a wonderful film, but, you know, it kind of makes you sick. And that makes it art, that feeling of .

.. argh, I don't want to live in that world.

Something to think about, along with figuring out a better word for a different kind of celebrity.

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