John Cho flashes forward

The actor had "sworn off TV" until reading a script for his new sci-fi series.

By Brian Truitt

There are a bunch of things conspiring against John Cho, keeping him from strumming his guitar just for fun. For one, he has been acting non-stop for several years. "Star Trek" was one of the biggest movie hits of this past summer, and his new ABC show, "FlashForward," has all sorts of buzz around it.

There's also his 16-month-old son, his first child with actress Kerri Higuchi. "My wife and I were saying, it's no wonder the body allows you to have children at such a young age," Cho, 37, says. "It's because you need the energy, the strength and the stamina to run after the kid."

Best known for starring in the "Harold & Kumar" comedies with Kal Penn, Cho admits that J.J. Abrams' big-screen reboot of "Star Trek" (in which he plays Sulu, a younger version of the role made famous by George Takei) gave him a jump-start both professionally and mentally when it came to acting. And after having been burned a few times by canceled series and pilots that went nowhere, Cho had sworn off television.

"FlashForward" has changed his thinking on all that, though. In the series, which premieres Thursday, an occurrence causes people all over the world to black out for two minutes and 17 seconds, and during that time, most have mysterious visions of their future. (Cho's character, however, is one of the few who doesn't see anything.) While the concept is cool, Cho says, "it's the little things and the relationships that'll keep bringing people back."

When he's not acting and being a dad, Cho plays in the L.A.-based band Viva La Union and is a die-hard Lakers fan. Cho, who was born in South Korea and moved to America when he was 6, admits that he does better watching than playing basketball: "I'm the guy with the beer in the armchair complaining about the referee."

He doesn't need to be a weekend athletic warrior to keep in shape. That's what his son is for, Cho says with a laugh. "I hesitate to rave about fatherhood," he says. "It seems like something that only our generation does, which is to talk in public about how great our children are. It is probably the most ordinary thing on Earth to have children, but it is the zenith of my existence."