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An Alien Among Us
Riding a career high as extraterrestrial teen Max Evans on the WB's Roswell, Midwesterner Jason Behr keeps his feet firmly planted on the
ground even as he reaches for the stars.
By Jeff Bell
Jason Behr has officially arrived. So sayeth eBay, the Digital Age arbiter of all things hot. Since his series Roswell debuted on the WB Network in
September, all manner of product containing the actor's darkly handsome visage and slender, athletic build-photos, magazine clippings, bootleg videotapes, window clings, keychains, magnets, even address
labels-is being offered up on the Internet auction site, with starstruck fans bidding on as many as 30 or 40 different items a day.
But don't ask the 26-year-old for his reaction to being a teen-idol
commodity. Or his thoughts on seeing his face on the Roswell promotional posters that blanket urban bus shelters and subway platforms. Or his take on the redesign of jasonbehr.com, his official website designed by a
pal two years ago and retooled for Roswell's launch.
"I can't answer that because, I don't know if you know, but..." Speaking by phone from his trailer on Roswell's Los Angeles set,
Behr's voice-an ingratiating blend of cordiality and quiet intensity-frays with fatigue. "The past couple of months have been...pretty crazy. I spend my day at work, I go home, and I sleep. I haven't
had a day off in quite a while. I don't even know what the date is today." Told it's the 27th of the month, he offers a robust "Thank you!" that suggests genuine gratitude.
Sixteen-hour
shoots, marathon script-memorizing sessions, sleep deprivation hazes-such is the life of the latest seismic spike in the great WB youthquake. Since the drama about alien teens debuted this fall, Roswell has
generated the same kind of critical and popular rumblings that greeted its lead-in show, Dawson's Creek, when it debuted two years ago. And at the epicenter of those tremors is Behr, as sensitive spaceboy Max
Evans. Only weeks into the 1999-2000 season, The New York Post declared him one of "TV's Five Freshest Faces," and TV Guide eyed him as one of its "10 to Watch."
But don't mistake
Behr's offhand remark about his taxing work schedule as evidence of dissatisfaction or restlessness. He may play a displaced E.T. on TV, but in real life, he embraces the Roswell set as his second home-for as
many hours each day as the job requires.
"I think it's important to spend that time to make the show right, to tell the story the best way possible, so I'm all for it," he says, his earnest
demeanor reasserting itself. "I don't mind spending the hours, because I enjoy everyone here so much."
Loosely based on Melinda Metz's Roswell High books, the series follows three teens
(Behr and relative unknowns Katherine Heigl and Brendan Fehr) who believe themselves to be the only surviving crew members of a 1947 spaceship crash near the desert town of Roswell, New Mexico. Adopted by
unsuspecting foster parents after decades of sleep in suspended animation pods, the three bond with a trio of terrestrial teens (including Shiri Appleby as the object of Max's increasing affection) as they
search for clues to their hidden past.
Since it debuted, Roswell has earned raves-and Nielsen ratings-for marrying adolescent angst with extraterrestrial intrigue without alienating fans of either the teen or
sci-fi genres. That such a delicate hybrid has been midwifed by Jason Katims (scripter of ABC's lauded coming-of-age drama My So-Called Life) and director David (The X-Files) Nutter has been a major factor in
the show's success, says Behr. "When I first read the script, I thought it had such a unique way of telling a story-this blend of metaphor and humor, and mystery and honesty. It struck a chord with me, and
with Jason Katims and David Nutter involved, it just seemed right. I felt I could trust these people with this kind of material, because it really has to be done well in order for it to be believable."
While the Max Evans character-a model of thoughtfulness and restraint-suggests an extension of Behr's own personality, his role is a 180-degree about-face from most of the parts he's tackled to date. Shortly
after arriving in Los Angeles at age 19 to pursue acting, the Minneapolis native was cast in Showtime's 1995-6 adult comedy Sherman Oaks as a cocky wannabe rapper obsessed with black culture. Following the
requisite string of resume-building guest shots (Step by Step, Jag, an Alien Nation TV-movie), Behr starred in ABC's 1998 Olympics-go-to-college sudser Push, as a steroid-abusing track star who slips laxatives
to his rivals. Back then, Behr's family, supportive of his decision to pursue his childhood dream, occasionally winced at his choice of roles.
"I got a call from my little sister after the first
episode of Push," Behr recalls. "She told me, 'I really like the show, Jason.' There's this loooong pause, and she says, 'Are you ever NOT gonna play a creep?' I mean, she knows me, but
it's like, 'Yeah, my brother plays a creep on TV.' I just smiled, laughed it off and said, 'Well, someday I promise I'll play a nice guy.'"
Although Push came to shove only weeks
after its debut, Behr's sister would have wait awhile before her big brother made good on his word. Following a bit part in the 1997 film Pleasantville ("If you blink in the first 10 minutes, you miss
me"), he became the WB's designated pinch hitter, landing guest shots on 7th Heaven as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where he played a terminally ill teen who betrays his classmates to vampires in
exchange for immortality. But Behr's biggest break came last year when he landed a recurring role as Michelle Williams' hard-drinking love interest on Dawson's Creek. The part may have been yet another
in a lengthening list of flawed young men, but Behr says he came away from the show's North Carolina set much richer for the experience.
"It seemed like a real family down there," he says.
"I can't say that I wasn't surprised, because you don't know exactly what to expect. They could have looked at me and said, 'Oh great, new kid-let him sit around for a couple of weeks and then
he'll go home.' It was exactly the opposite. They were very welcoming-'Hey, let's go out, let's go do this.'"
In addition to good vibes, Behr also enjoyed increased industry
exposure. Snagging the script for the Roswell pilot while shooting Dawson's, he vowed to win a permanent slot on a WB series-and play a character worthy of a little sister's approval. "I had not seen
him in anything else before," says David Nutter, "and we had been going through the casting process quite extensively to find this character. We never found that perfect person until he walked in the door
near the end of our casting process. Jason [Katims] and I looked at each other and said, 'That's the guy-he's the one.'
But it wasn't Behr's curiously elfin ears, which suggest a sexy
Spock for the Seventeen set, that sold Nutter on the actor. "He understands that [Max Evans] is a young man who's been holding onto a secret that none of us could hold on to that tightly for so long.
He's able to handle it with a sense of maturity, a sense of wisdom, [as] a real wise, old soul. That's very appealing."
Although well past the age of acne outbreaks and first-time heartaches,
Behr insists he had no trouble accessing the awkwardness and misplacement of his own high school years to play the ultimate adolescent misfit. "Honestly, I don't think people ever forget it," he says.
"I was a short guy, smaller than a lot of my friends. I just remember the first day, walking through those doors-I felt like I had gone to the wrong school! Guys had, like, beards or five o'clock shadows,
and their girlfriends were actually women!"
While the late bloomer eventually enjoyed induction into the six-footers club, Behr is more concerned these days with his professional growth. Even as
small-screen audiences began to embrace him this fall as an outsider from another world, Behr impressed film festival attendees as a young homosexual estranged from his troubled family in the indie thriller Rites of
Passage. "I never got the feeling from Jason that he was nervous or upset or afraid to play a gay character," says Rites director Victor Salva (Powder). "Not being gay himself, he wanted to jump in
with both feet and just make sure it was real, like any truly devoted actor. And I think he really pulled the part off with a great deal of authenticity, passion and compassion. I couldn't have asked for
anything better."
Nutter, who directed Behr's erstwhile Dawson castmate Katie Holmes in the 1998 film Disturbing Behavior, believes Behr could enjoy big success on the silver screen.
"Absolutely-this guy is a leading man, all the way," he gushes. "He really has the ability to shine. I love working with actors who so want to be better, and he's definitely one of those
people."
But Behr evinces little interest in placing movieplex iconography ahead of the television series that puts Tang on his breakfast table. "I'm not really thinking about all of that just
yet," he says. "If movies become an option and there's the right role out there, then yeah, I wouldn't mind spending time doing that during a hiatus. As of now, I'm just taking it one day at a
time and focusing all of my attention on Roswell."
It's a perfectly sensible, eminently commendable response, publicly offered by many bright new stars in the Young Hollywood firmament-even as they
lunge for a multi-picture deal. But something in Behr's voice makes you believe he's genuinely content to explore his particular corner of space for the time being. "It's, it's..." he
falters for a moment, dazzled by the light of his own good fortune. "I feel very lucky to be where I am right now."
Which, clearly, is on top of the world-or someplace slightly above it.
[Originally published in a January 2000 edition of The Times, a Chicago-area daily newspaper based in Indiana. Posted with the kind permission of the author.]
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