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Keep the lights
on for Rankin's TV career
By Greg Hernandez, Staff Writer
It would be completely understandable
if Kevin Rankin woke up in the morning and didn't
know where he was or who he was.
The Los Angeles-based actor has found himself
juggling regular roles on the NBC dramas "Friday
Night Lights" - filmed in Austin, Texas,
- and the Vancouver-based "Bionic Woman."
"For 2 1/2 months at the beginning of the
season, I wasn't home for more than a day every
two weeks," Kevin said recently.
The writers strike has temporarily put a stop
to the scheduling madness, with production on
both shows halted for now. But the 31-year-old
actor will guest-star on the second episode of
NBC's "Law & Order," which returns
with new episodes in early January.
On "Lights," Kevin stars as quadriplegic
"Herc," who meets an injured high school
football player in rehab and becomes his mentor.
"I basically show him how to live life all
over again and that life is not over," he
explained. "Right when I got to Austin, they
put me in a wheelchair and sent me to rehab. For
a month straight, I was in a wheelchair on and
off set, really trying to live the life. It just
brought more of the attitude that these guys carry."
"Lights" received some backlash early
in its second season with a murder story line
that many fans didn't feel was true to the show.
"I think some of the story lines might have
been sort of an answer to the networks,"
Kevin said with typical candor. "It got sexed
up a little bit - some say jump the shark. There
was a murder. But the way that the characters
handle these situations is what 'Friday Night
Lights' is all about. Initially, when they had
marketing, they touted it as a football show.
People tuned in and saw that football was really
a background character. It's a hard show to market.
It's sort of a sweeping soap opera on the Texas
landscape."
So with a good role on "Lights," how
did Kevin end up on "Bionic" as well?
"At the beginning of the season, they did
a lot of retooling. They fired some of the producers
and writers. The guy they brought on to fix the
show was Jason Katims. He was the show-runner
for `Friday Night Lights.' Within a week, he called
me up and invited me and offered me the part.
He said come up and try and instill some humor,
and ground it in reality a little bit. I became
Nathan, the bionics guy, I work with computers.
I'm going out on missions and learning how to
fight."
While "Lights" is on firm footing,
the future of "Bionic" is less certain,
with ratings suffering a steep decline after a
promising start.
"The show was getting its feet under it
before the strike happened, but I'm not sure if
it's coming back," he admitted. "I just
don't think it got a fair shake. I'd love to see
it come back."
Kevin's first regular television role came on
NBC's short-lived but well-remembered comedy "Undeclared,"
in which he played the resident adviser in a college
dorm. He knew he was a part of something special
because the show was created by writer/director
Judd Apatow, who is responsible for such movie
hits as "Knocked Up" and "The 40-Year-Old
Virgin."
"That took me to a different level,"
he said of "Undeclared."
"Little did I know that a couple of years
later, (Apatow) would be the biggest thing in
town."
Copyright ©2007
Los Angeles Newspaper Group
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