Tony Soprano, he’s not.
Jonah Malloy, bespectacled head of the Richmond, Va., mob in ABC’s new Tuesday drama, “Line of Fire,” looks and sounds like a nebbishy accountant. That’s cool with David Paymer.
“It’s an unusual casting choice,” says Paymer, 49, a veteran film actor and Oscar nominee (1992’s “Mr. Saturday Night”). Creator Rod Lurie “likes to cast against type. It stirs things up. In Malloy’s case, it’s that much more shocking.”
“Fire” flashes between vicious wise guys and the tenacious-yet-flawed FBI agents pursuing them. It’s in a six-episode tryout in “NYPD Blue’s” 10 p.m. slot. Last week’s debut delivered just 9.4 million viewers.
Leslie Hope (Jack Bauer’s ill-fated wife on Fox’s “24”) plays the uber-intense FBI agent in charge of the Richmond bureau. Brian Goodman is Malloy’s short-fused lieutenant.
Despite Malloy’s bland appearance, he ruthlessly kills at least one person himself in the first three episodes.
“I’ve played intellectual bad guys before,” says Paymer, referring to the corrupt TV producer in Robert Redford’s “Quiz Show” (1994) and nasty movie producer in 2000’s “State and Main.” “I usually don’t play the visceral bad guy.
“Rod Lurie puts me in situations I had never been in before: whacking people with crowbars, kidnapping children, soliciting prostitutes. In a way, it’s freeing. I don’t think of myself as very physical, imposing or threatening.”
“Fire” is Paymer’s first gig as a series regular since ABC’s short-lived 1986 cop drama, “Downtown.” He had a recurring role as police commissioner on CBS’s 1982-88 “Cagney & Lacey.”
Paymer returned to TV “because the roles available in feature films are not quite as scintillating as they were 10 years ago. I’m not going to play second fiddle to a meteor, dinosaur or tidal wave.”
Jonah Malloy “has the business sense of a CEO of a major corporation, but he does a lot of nasty things. There’s a textured duality there that’s fun to play.”
Comparisons to HBO’s “The Sopranos” are inevitable, Paymer concedes, but Malloy “is almost the antithesis of Tony Soprano. He’s not as imposing, physically, and more intellectual.”
Given ABC’s dismal track record with new dramas this season – “Karen Sisco,” “Threat Matrix” and “10-8” have all been Nielsen disappointments – will it show patience with “Fire”?
“I’ve been doing this too long to worry about it,” says Paymer. “It’s a tough, competitive game. One of the good things about being a character actor is that I can go from role to role.
“I don’t think of myself as the lead. It’s not like the show is called “Malloy’ and I go around with a lollipop.” (See Savalas, Telly in “Kojak.”)
At home, Paymer is hardly the tough guy with his children, Emily, 9, and Julia, 3. “They are Malloy,” he laughs. “They order me around and whack me on the head with plastic stuff.”
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“Empire,” an eight-episode project about the Roman Empire after Julius Caesar, will air on ABC in the fall. HBO’s similar “Rome” debuts in ’05. Christopher Darden, ex-O.J. Simpson prosecutor, on Monday joined CNN as a legal analyst for six months to focus mainly on the Michael Jackson case.
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AP-NY-12-08-03 1915EST
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