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Issue date: January 14, 2001
In this article:
What's
new for Luke?
Ohio
roots
Also this week:
Luke
Perry Photo Gallery
Don't box
me in
That's what actor
Luke Perry is asking his 90210 fans to do when they see his new
number -- as inmate #00C966 in the land of Oz.
By Jennifer Mendelsohn
If Luke Perry
is trying to get as far from Beverly Hills as possible, he's come
to the right spot. After securing his place in the teen-idol pantheon
playing the James Dean-esque heartthrob Dylan McKay on Beverly
Hills, 90210, he returns to series TV Sunday (HBO, 10 p.m. ET)
as the Rev. Jeremiah Cloutier, gray-clad inmate #00C966 on HBO's
critically acclaimed, gritty-as-can-be prison drama, Oz.
Don't expect to see Perry in Tiger Beat this time; the
Oz Web site has an "RIP" section just to keep track of all
the characters who haven't made it out alive. The extras who play
inmates, resplendent in full-body tattoos and black leather, look
as if they could have eaten the 90210 gang for breakfast.
But Perry looks around at the rough-and-tumble crowd and feels right
at home. "You look at these guys and you think you know their story.
And you don't," he says. "I know what it's like to have people assume
they know what I'm capable of and what I'm thinking." Indeed, Perry, 34, has learned a thing or two about preconceptions. The runaway
success of 90210 made him a household name but also may have
cemented him in the public eye as Dylan McKay, the world-weary playboy
with the perpetually furrowed brow -- an identification that was
underscored when Perry left the show in 1995, only to return three
years later with a résumé that had expanded only modestly.
Oz, with its reputation for high-quality writing and acting, its low profile and unmistakably grown-up subject matter (graphic violence, unflinching language and uncensored drug use and sex acts, to name a few), represents the
inverse of 90210: It's a show where substance clearly triumphs over
style. "This is an actor's gig. This isn't a publicity gig. This
isn't a money gig. It's something you do because you want to play
with really good people," says Oz casting director Alexa Fogel.
"I think it's probably important for me to show people I can go
a very far distance from Dylan," Perry says. The Grizzly Adams beard
and leonine locks he has grown to play Cloutier, a charismatic televangelist
imprisoned for embezzlement, render him essentially unrecognizable,
for starters. "But the only people I need to prove myself to are
the people I'm working with. The audience's expectations of you
vacillate so much. I hope they at least respect the fact that I'm
trying to do more difficult stuff." After Oz, Perry returns
to the big screen later this year in The Enemy, an espionage
thriller.
And while Perry is the first to admit quality was not the "No. 1 issue" on
90210, he's not ashamed of where he's been. "I'm real clear
on what the show was about and how good it was and wasn't. ... Whether
people liked it or not, we were able to keep that show a big hit
for 10 years, and it totally changed the face of television."
As for Oz, New York Daily News TV critic David Bianculli
says: "That's one hell of a cast. If he's getting thrown into that
as a sink-or-swim deal, I think he will swim."
"People have only seen a very small part of the work that hopefully I'm capable of doing," Perry says. "If I didn't believe that, I'd hang it up right now."
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The product of a decidedly blue-collar, small-town upbringing in
Fredericktown, Ohio (next-most-famous resident: the man who designed
the official Future Farmers of America jacket), the steelworker's
son felt the pull of show business early on. He lit out for L.A.
straight out of high school and got his big break on the ABC soap
Loving three years later. Even after moving up to the popular
Another World, he still had his share of lean times; the
day before being cast on 90210, he was making ends meet laying
asphalt. What would he be doing had he stayed in Ohio? "Five to
seven," he deadpans.
While his professional life is an open book -- or perhaps because of it -- Perry is fiercely guarded about his personal life. He's not interested in discussing his problems with the Barbara Walterses of the world or in "hearing actors waxing all philosophical like they're some important person. That year Richard Gere got up at the Oscars and started waxing on about Tibet, I was just like ... Shut uuuuuuup!"
Though likably straightforward and affable, Perry politely refuses to answer questions about his wife of seven years, Minnie Sharp, who stays home in Los Angeles with the couple's young son and daughter. Ask how parenthood has changed him and Perry diplomatically defers. "This is not a good area for me," he says quietly. "But I will say this: I feel like my life just started once my kids were born. I don't know what it was about before."
Go to top
Still, it's hard for some people to forget. Not long ago, a man
approached a bearded, long-haired Perry and commented on his resemblance
to Luke Perry from Beverly Hills, 90210. Perry smiles at
the retelling. "I told him, 'I've really got his mannerisms down.'
"
Photo by JULIE DENNIS BROTHERS for USA WEEKEND
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