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Television

Quite an undertaking

In HBO's hit series "Six Feet Under", Peter Krause deals with death on a daily basis. But as a new dad, he's more focused on life.

By Jeffrey Zaslow

Peter Krause has his earthly farewell planned out in his head. When he dies, he doesn't want to be embalmed and placed in an expensive box. He doesn't want weepy loved ones gathering in a funeral home for some stuffy service. Instead, he'll be cremated, after which his children will receive a stack of airline tickets and hotel reservations.

"They'll get to go to some places in the world that were meaningful to me, and they can scatter my ashes," he says. "It'll be sort of a Dead Dad Tour."

Although Krause (KROW-zuh) is just 36 and his only child is not yet 4 months old, it's understandable he's given some thought to his last goodbye. As a star of HBO's "Six Feet Under" (Sundays, 9 p.m. ET), the acclaimed drama series about a family of undertakers, Krause spends his days on set re-creating all the ways people face their own mortality.

"The theme of our show is, you've got this one life and that's it. It makes people think about their place in the world." -- Photo: Art Streiber, HBO

The show, which began its second season this month, revolves around two brothers running a funeral home after their father's death. Michael C. Hall plays the responsible brother who is conflicted about his homosexuality. Krause's character is a well-meaning but impetuous free spirit struggling with his profession and the life-and-death issues it raises.

"Peter is someone who wrestles with the philosophical and existential issues in his own life," says series creator Alan Ball, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "American Beauty". "He's completely unafraid to plumb those depths within himself when he's in front of the camera."

A Minnesota native, Krause began his career writing and performing in a traveling puppet show in St. Paul. It was a job he almost lost after he crashed the puppet wagon. "When the cops came, there were decapitated puppets all over the road," he says. "They looked like casualties."

He later moved to Los Angeles, where he got his first break in 1991 as a regular on Carol Burnett's sketch comedy show "Carol & Company". She became a mentor. "She's the best example of professionalism," he says. "Everyone pales by comparison." Last November, the day after his son was born, he ran into Burnett in the hospital elevator. She was there to see her daughter, who later died of cancer. Krause was struck by the moment: He was at the hospital to welcome a new life, while Burnett was there to be with a dying loved one.

Krause spent the '90s acting on shows such as "Beverly Hills 90210", "Seinfeld" and then "Cybill", where Ball was a writer. "We got to know each other as people working on a show neither of us was satisfied doing," Krause says.

A better experience for him was his role as a hunky anchorman on "Sports Night", an Aaron Sorkin comedy. He'd first met Sorkin, now the force behind The "West Wing," when they were bartenders together in New York. ""Sports Night" was fun, but it was very language-driven," Krause says. "I'm more interested in human behavior, which is what "Six Feet Under" is all about."

The show adds a measure of thoughtfulness to our times, the actor says. "After Sept. 11, a lot of people who do TV went back to work and thought, 'Oh, jeez. This is meaningless.' But our show is now as meaningful as ever. The basic theme of our show is, you've got this one singular life and that's it," he says. "It makes people think about themselves and their place in the world."

On Sept. 11, Krause was at surf camp in San Diego. "Having a child made me think about skills I could pass on to him. Growing up in Minnesota, there weren't any great waves, so I decided to learn to surf." The surfing students heard about the terrorist attacks on the radio. "We listened for a while, and then we decided to surf. It was almost like we thought we should surf for those who can't." They raised an American flag on their truck, then headed into the water. "It was actually kind of beautiful. We were surfing under the sun, just human beings in the waves. In some ways it was defiant, a way of saying life does go on."

He says that even as a child he felt a sense of serenity on the subject of death. He was in eighth grade when his grandmother died. "I remember my older sister was bereft. And she was very upset with me because I had this attitude that our grandmother was OK, that she had moved on to whatever was next."

Krause and live-in girlfriend Christine King don't plan to marry yet, but they have discussed their lives and deaths in terms of their son. "It's not so much that I'm afraid of dying," Krause says. "If anything, I feel an anxiety about the things I'll miss. Now that I have a child, I want to watch him grow up. I really don't want to miss the show."

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