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Eddie McClintock stars in 'Warehouse 13'; show debuts Tuesday on Syfy
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
Published on Sunday, Jul 05, 2009
North Canton's Eddie McClintock could have settled for the life of a TV sidekick. He held out for leading-man status, and now he has it.
The actor is one of the two leads in Warehouse 13, which has a two-hour premiere at 9 p.m. Tuesday on the Sci Fi channel. (That same day, the network changes its name to Syfy. Really.)
He plays Secret Service agent Pete Lattimer, who is transferred to the mysterious Warehouse 13, a repository of odd, eerily powerful and sometimes unpredictable objects.
With his partner, Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly), Lattimer is sent to investigate reports of weird phenomena, collect objects for the warehouse and prevent supernatural disasters. And they get to use some of the goodies in the warehouse for their efforts.
Think of it as a variation on Men in Black, or one of the deliberately funny episodes of
The X-Files. The premiere is somewhat slow at first, as it establishes the characters and story, but finds an amusing groove later in the telecast.
McClintock likes the light touch.
''With so many heavy procedural shows on the air, and the state of the union is not real great, it's good to have something where people can put the popcorn on and turn the lights down and watch as a family,'' he said in a telephone interview.
Family has been much on the mind of the 42-year-old actor, who with wife Lynn has two young sons, Jack and Max. He wasn't sure whether that affected his choice of roles but he did say, ''As they get older, I want to work on shows they can watch.''
And he worried about the effect of his career decision on his family.
McClintock has been part of some impressive ensembles, even if the shows didn't last long: with Tony Shalhoub and Neil Patrick Harris in Stark Raving Mad; with Jane Curtin, Fred Savage and William Devane in Crumbs; and in recurring roles on Desperate Housewives and Bones.
But, much the way he feared early in his career that he was being typecast as a dumb guy, he thought more recently that he wasn't getting many chances to step center stage.
At best, people would mistake him for leading men like Craig Sheffer or Bones' David Boreanaz. McClintock said that when he met Boreanaz, expecting to be told they resembled each other, Boreanaz said he looked like Sheffer.
But he held out for more.
''I had, like, a year and a half where there was nothing,'' he said, although part of that included the writers' strike, which shut down Hollywood in early 2008. ''For the first time in 10 years, I wasn't in a pilot. I could have taken an old job, an old sidekick job, but I didn't want to do that. I stuck to my guns.''
It was scary, especially with a family to support. But acting is often scary. Asked what he has lined up while waiting to see what happens with Warehouse 13, he said, ''Nothing! I'm angst-ridden every night.''
Warehouse 13 has been a good working experience. He said that he and Kelly clicked during auditions.
''She's kind of a guy's girl,'' he said. ''Cool and laid-back. It was like we'd known each other forever. . . . She botched a line and I started to make fun of her, and we started to make fun of each other . . . And [Sci Fi executive] Mark Stern said, 'That's the show.' ''
He is also happy to be working with Saul Rubinek, a character actor with a ton of credits, who plays the man in charge of Warehouse 13.
''I didn't get to do as much with him as we hoped,'' McClintock said. ''But I did get to work with him a little bit in every episode. . . . He's my acting sensei. I am constantly trying to snatch the pebble from his hand.''
And the buildup for the show fills him with optimism. Sci Fi, or Syfy, is giving it a big push. McClintock has proudly displayed pictures of billboards for the show — his first billboard appearance.
The show even gave him a local flourish: Like McClintock, Lattimer is a North Canton native, and the community will figure in a Warehouse 13 episode.
Of course, he would probably have found a way to get his hometown on the air anyway. Crumbs was set in New England, but McClintock still wore one of his North Canton Hoover High School wrestling shirts in the pilot.
''If I see any sign of weakness from [the costume department], I'll start muscling in my own wardrobe,'' he said at the time.
But it's not just on costume issues that he's determined.
Twenty years ago, he was working in insurance in California when his boss — who was also his uncle — fired him and suggested he become an actor. Early in that effort, he once recalled, ''my first commercial audition, I had to dance in a room by myself with imaginary women and eat fish seductively.'' Acting, he realized, was not just one thing.
''When you reach one level, you realize there are so many other levels,'' he said. And he's still trying for higher levels.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal, in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com and on Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
North Canton's Eddie McClintock could have settled for the life of a TV sidekick. He held out for leading-man status, and now he has it.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Akron, OH
Posted 08:24 AM, 07/05/2009
An accompanying photograph would have been nice.
Hooterville, Oh
Posted 10:03 AM, 07/05/2009
No kidding, and it's SiFi not SyFy. You know for Science Fiction. Idiots
Akron, OH
Posted 02:06 PM, 07/05/2009
@shehateme: No, smart-a, it's SYFY, they changed the name. Google it.
