Playboy Interview: Anthony Edwards

His knife makes a clean, bloodless incision. "Mmm. Yummy," says Anthony Edwards, slicing off a chunk of meat. "Want a bite?" America's most famous surgeon is as generous with kind words as he is with his lunchtime lamb chop. While discussing "ER," on which he stars as chief resident Dr. Mark Greene, Edwards can't stop praising his buddy George Clooney, one of the show's other stars. He credits creator Michael Crichton, executive producer John Wells, the writers and his co-stars for making "ER" number one in the ratings. Of course, they'll tell you it's Edwards who deserves the lion's share of the credit. "The captain of the ship," Clooney calls him. It all sounds too good to be true.

It was almost refreshing when "Newsweek" magazine called Edwards "chinless, almost nondescript." Predictably, the tight-knit "ER" cast immediately put forth a collective howl of protest.

Fortunately, Edwards is an actor with an edge. Lounging in a Hollywood restaurant in a T-shirt and leather jacket, with granny glasses and a two-day beard, he looks more JD than M.D.--still a nice guy, but with a prickly, snarly side, too. Plenty of things piss him off, and when he's pissed, Edwards looks less like the prime-time hero he plays on TV and more like the driven, occasionally fierce Hollywood pro he is.

His ambition has paid off. Last year he won the Screen Actors Guild award for best dramatic actor, and his newer work includes his scary portrayal of a killer in the CBS remake of "In Cold Blood." He recently signed a three-year film and TV production deal with Warner Bros.

Edwards grew up in Santa Barbara, California. His father was a commercial architect, his mother was a painter. Nighttime television was a no-no in their home. Anthony sang and danced in school plays but seldom got the lead. After a summer at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, he made an ignoble professional debut. Young Tony Edwards, all ultrabright teeth and shaggy blond hair, was a TV pitchkid for breakfast cereals. He was the grinning soccer sprite singing, "I get the eaties for my Wheaties."

Since directors kept calling, Edwards dropped out of acting school at the University of Southern California. In 1982 he played Sean Penn's sidekick in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." He won praise for his 1983 performance as Bonnie Bedelia's son in "Heart Like a Wheel." Next came a starring role in the surprise 1984 hit "Revenge of the Nerds" (the ever political Edwards liked the movie's tolerant pro-nerd message). Before long he was the boyish romantic lead in forgettable flicks: "Mr. North" with Anjelica Huston, "Miracle Mile" opposite Mare Winningham, "Gotcha!" with Linda Fiorentino, who called her co-star "superintelligent, funny, the warmest, most compassionate person ever. Why didn't I marry him?"

Also in the late Eighties came his only blockbuster. In 1986's "Top Gun" he played Goose, Tom Cruise's martyred buddy. Proximity to Cruise's star power made Edwards bankable. He was tabloid fodder, too: They couldn't, get enough of his affair with Meg Ryan, who played his wife in the movie. But soon he split with her. Edwards also failed to capitalize on the opportunity. All the attention followed his fellow Top Gunners Cruise and Val Kilmer, while his own fortune flagged.

Edwards was never sure he wanted to be a movie star. He never employed a publicist, never spent much time on party-going, schmoozing and other forms of fame maintenance. By 1992 he was reduced to playing a veterinarian munched by an undead dog. The film was "Pet Sematary II," and he didn't even get top billing. That went to Edward Furlong, a teen actor whose prospects were hotter. At 29 Edwards was still busy, but if his career wasn't headed for the morgue it was surely in intensive care.

Finally he wowed TV viewers--and executives--as the multiphobic "bubble man" on "Northern Exposure." Then he landed the role he will forever be known for: the worried, harried, romance-impaired Dr. Greene, captain of the good ship "ER." Each week almost 40 million viewers tune in to root for him.

As fans know, Greene suffered cardio-breakia when Dr. Susan Lewis dumped him last year. Co-star Sherry Stringfield's farewell episode was the top-rated TV show of 1996. After that, the shell-shocked chief resident needed "to get his balls back," as Edwards puts it. "He needed some good healthy sex." Indeed, Greene has spent much of this year fending off nurses and other potential sexual healers.

Edwards himself found love in a graveyard. He and Jeanine Lobell, a movie makeup artist, met on the set of "Pet Sematary II" and married. They recently had a daughter, Esme, who joins their three-year-old son, Bailey. "I could use more time at home," says Edwards, an amateur chef.

We had Contributing Editor Kevin Cook make an appointment with the doctor. His report:

"When I told friends I was interviewing the star of 'ER,' more than a few said, 'Wow, George Clooney!' Edwards is more of an acquired taste than is his bat pal. He's less dynamic than Clooney, though perhaps deeper, more a 'hmm' actor than a 'wow' guy.

"With the success of 'ER' and his recent star turn in 'In Cold Blood,' Edwards gets a peculiar reaction on the streets of Los Angeles. People notice him but take a moment to place him. Rather than being hounded for autographs, he leaves a trail of momentarily puzzled faces. By the time they place him, Edwards has ducked into the local health food store.

"We met three times, for lunch, coffee and a couple beers. He is a suburban guy in a pricey, sort of bohemian suburb, Los Feliz, where Madonna and other stars raise families. One afternoon our talk was interrupted by a howling child at the next table. I might have complained, but it was Tim Roth's kid. Edwards was gracious as usual, praising Roth so much as he introduced us that I was tempted to interview Roth instead.

"The offscreen Edwards is as thoughtful and as intense as Dr. Greene, but far less nervous. 'We're not much alike but we're exactly the same height,' Edwards likes to say. That should be good news to 'ER' watchers who suspect that Greene is often only one messy GSW short of going berserk on the job. I found him to be opinionated, tastily profane, almost comically devoted to wife and family--everything a guy should be.

"After our last talk, before driving home in his Chevy Suburban, he leaned out the window and shot me the peace sign."

[Q] Playboy: Were you surprised that ER was an instant hit?

[A] Edwards: A little. I remember the first time the cast saw a 20-minute teaser for the show. I looked at George Clooney, and we had a "Wow" moment. Wow, this is good. But you can't gauge public reaction very well when you're working 12 hours a day on stage 11 at Warner Bros. We knew things were going well when one day the network president came to our set. "Champagne for everybody," he said. "Not since Charlie's Angels has there been such a start in the ratings!" We thought, Great, but did he have to mention Charlie's Angels?

[Q] Playboy: Do you enjoy being one of the most watched actors in America?

[A] Edwards: It makes me feel like hiding under a rock. It helps that I like the show--I truly think we're famous because we are doing the best hour on television. But I'm not comfortable with fame. It's like having a hump: People smile and shake your hand and pretend it doesn't affect them, but it's all they can think about.

[Q] Playboy: Fame reminds you of a hump?

[A] Edwards: [Laughs] I'll try again. Fame is like being a pretty girl: People turn and look at you. But that's about all I've gotten out of it. I have found that it doesn't get you laid, and you don't get as much free stuff as you'd think.

[Q] Playboy: How free is ER with its famous medical detail? Do you take dramatic license with all your videopathies?

[A] Edwards: We try to keep it realistic. Sometimes we go to extremes. We'll even expand the terminology. For example, real doctors and nurses say "V-tack" for ventricular tachyrhythmia, but we say the whole thing. It sounds so cool.

[Q] Playboy: What makes ER special?

[A] Edwards: We try not to condescend. There is a myth that TV audiences want everything tied up neatly with a bow every week. Childish fairy tales. But people know "happily ever after" doesn't happen in the real world. Death works. Birth, death and pain--things real people deal with and talk about. I think ER proves that while audiences might expect and even desire a steady diet of lemon meringue, they're happier in the long run if you surprise them.

[A] We don't always succeed on ER. In fact I'd say we usually fail. Most of the time the show doesn't resonate the way it should, like a real drama instead of a soap opera. But once in a while we get to that higher place, and I'm proud of that.

[Q] Playboy: Countless women dream of some "Wow" moments with your co-star Clooney, yet ER's Julianna Margulies says you are "the sexy one" in the cast.

[A] Edwards: Actually, George and I pass that title back and forth. We have a jacket, the official Sexy Jacket. I'll let George wear it for a week or two, then he gives it back to me.

[Q] Playboy: What's Clooney like off camera?

[A] Edwards: George is a prankster. He is an elf who loves keeping things at a sixth-grade level. I'll put my hand in my pocket while we're filming a scene. Suddenly I have a handful of petroleum jelly. George did it. He loves playing pranks on us, and he takes advantage of shooting in a hospital full of lubricants. I never pick up a phone on the set without checking the earpiece first.

[Q] Playboy: Who wins your one-on-one basketball games?

[A] Edwards: George is a great athlete. He has a good outside shot, the works. So my approach is to go to the writers, ask them to write that I win. If not, big baby Edwards doesn't wanna play.

[Q] Playboy: On the show, Clooney's Dr. Doug Ross coaches you on your love life. You're friends offscreen too, aren't you?

[A] Edwards: We talk about everything, by phone if we're not on the set. It was George who told me I had to make the most of ER's popularity. We were flying to Chicago last winter, and I was complaining as usual about not getting offered better movie roles: "How come I'm not working for Bertolucci?" George said, "Tony, you've been scared." Scared to make the most of ER's success.

[Q] Playboy: What were you afraid of?

[A] Edwards: I was cynical. I didn't like many of the movies I had made, and for years I envied the brat packers. But maybe I knew I wasn't ready. I knew I wasn't the leading-man type, just a skinny character actor who happened to star in a few movies. Not in the Tom Cruise category, certainly. And uncomfortable with the whole idea of "success" if it meant I had to promote myself. But finally I got tired of hearing myself complain about how fucked show business is--that snobbish excuse--and listened to George. Maybe I needed at least a degree of Tom Cruisery.

[Q] Playboy: You worked with Cruise in Top Gun. Tell us about him.

[A] Edwards: When I met him he was 18, fresh from Kentucky, driving his first used Mercedes and driven. Tom was charming, kind and incredibly adept at the politics of making movies. It's no accident he's a big movie star. He has certain stuff that can't be acted, something movie starry that a few people have that makes you stop and look at them.

[Q] Playboy: Today 40 million people look at you every week. Some critics attribute ER's success to its gritty real-world style----

[A] Edwards: Survival style. It's a "How the fuck can we get through this?" style. Fourteen-hour days with technical medical dialogue and long oners [the show's trademark one-shot takes]. Blow one of those and it takes forever to reset and try again. That pressure keeps the anxiety level high. That's probably what bonded the cast in the first place and makes ER the happiest set I know of. We don't have time to freak about which actor's chair is closer to the camera, who has the most lines--all that actorly pettiness that comes from boredom and idle minds.

[Q] Playboy: Yet Sherry Stringfield fled the show. Why?

[A] Edwards: Sherry was burned out. It wasn't that she wanted a big movie career. She didn't want more money. Most people would have stayed on just for the money, and they would be miserable and make everyone around them miserable. That happens all the time in television. Sherry is a shocking exception, really--she's someone who left for the right reason.

[Q] Playboy: Her decision was the subplot of the year.

[A] Edwards: It was news in the same way "who shot J.R." was news. The day I flew to Chicago to shoot Sherry's last episode, every 20 steps at O'Hare Airport somebody said, "Are you getting married? Are you two breaking up?" At least it was better than what we usually heard. Sometimes we would be shooting outdoors in Chicago when a carload of guys would drive by and ruin the take by yelling, "ER sucks!"

[Q] Playboy: Do viewers confuse ER with reality?

[A] Edwards: The classic was last year when Dr. Mark Greene wouldn't go to Hawaii with Dr. Susan Lewis. Women kept coming up to me in the supermarket, saying, "You pussy. What's wrong with you?" Like it was my fault. I'd say, "Hey, I just want to buy some avocados."

[Q] Playboy: How did you keep the secret of Stringfield's decision?

[A] Edwards: For six months I knew she was leaving, but I was the only one. We couldn't let the story leak. Sherry and I had the only scripts with our last scene in them. The rest of the scripts on the set were dummies, with a fake ending: We're at the train station when Dr. Greene says, "I love you." She says, "I love you, too. I'm coming back." And we get her stuff off the train. I still miss working with Sherry. It was fun last year, keeping our secret from the world.

[Q] Playboy: Dr. Lewis got a farewell party. Did the cast throw one for Sherry?

[A] Edwards: No. It was a sad moment. But we are retiring her number. I'm listed as number one on the daily call sheet, George is number two, Eriq LaSalle's number three and Sherry was number four. We're going to make a big number four and hang it on the soundstage, and nobody can ever be number four on the call sheet again.

[Q] Playboy: What about the family atmosphere on the set? Did that affect her decision?

[A] Edwards: Absolutely. Sherry and I talked about that. She didn't want to be the one who complained all the time. We all feel that sort of behavior is inexcusable. What's worse than some wealthy actor whining and throwing hissy fits? That kind of actor sucks all the energy to himself and insults others, including the crew, and the crew works harder than anybody. Sherry didn't want to do that. But she was scared to leave, too, because in a sense her decision was against everything we're all there for. It was like saying, '"You're all part of something I don't want to be in." She struggled with that.

[Q] Playboy: How did you resolve it?

[A] Edwards: We understood. Sherry didn't have to worry. We just wanted her to be happy and to get on with her life.

[Q] Playboy: How will the show evolve?

[A] Edwards: Every television series has a beginning, a middle and an end. You want to keep the beginning going as long as you can. Then stretch the middle and hope for a very quick end, because in TV that end phase gets awful. ER isn't a cheap imitation of its former self yet. But one day it will be, because that happens to even the best television. Eventually it gets stupid. I just hope I'm gone before it happens to us.

[Q] Playboy: Is Lewis' departure the end of ER's beginning?

[A] Edwards: No, I think we're still hanging around the beginning stage. We're telling good stories. People still love the show. But I think the middle will start sometime this year. After that we might be in trouble.

[Q] Playboy: How much of Greene is really you?

[A] Edwards: I hope I'm not as socially inadequate as he is. Greene is jammed up--incredibly bottled up emotionally. I'm happily married. He is lost in his world of medicine and the ER, addicted to it.

[Q] Playboy: Would you say that he's clinically addicted?

[A] Edwards: Yes. He is an ER junkie. Some emergency-room doctors live for the rush they get at work. They want that adrenaline rush so much they'll let it destroy the rest of their lives.

[Q] Playboy: For all his professional skills, Greene is one of the schmuckier TV heroes ever. Do you feel sorry for him?

[A] Edwards: Greene has his worries. I sort of like them. Before you feel sorry for him, remember that he is happy in his work. He's good at it. He is doing what he wants. If he had really wanted to save his marriage he probably could have done it, but he let it go. That tells you something. Of course, that was before he knew Sherry Stringfield would leave!

[Q] Playboy: How did you research the role?

[A] Edwards: I hung around an ER. It's an alien world. One thing you notice is that when doctors and nurses reach for things, they do it without looking. They know exactly where everything is; that's how comfortable they are in their space. And every doctor is different. Surgeons want their own music when they work. Some of them want to have physical contact with patients, but some have an aversion to touching people.

[A] It's tough to be around pain and nasty stuff all the time. Sick homeless people don't go to the nice wing at Cedars-Sinai, you know. They're all at the ER. For me, though, the worst surprise was the sound of the place. You can separate yourself from visual things; I saw a guy with his arm lying open, all the bones showing, and felt technical about it. Curious. But sounds are more like music. They go straight to the emotions. To hear groaning, people who've been shot, children in pain--that stays with you.

[Q] Playboy: You've called ER a soap opera. What's coming up for Greene?

[A] Edwards: I've complained about his sex life. That's why I was pleased this year that I got a good sexual relationship with one of the nurses, a beautiful nurse played by Laura Cerón. There had been enough of Greene doing his virgin act, "God, I wonder what sex is like."

[Q] Playboy: There has been a sexual charge in your work at least as far back as Top Gun. You and Cruise played bantering buddies, macho fighter pilots who called each other "dear" and "darling" in the locker room.

[A] Edwards: The usual coarse machismo never appealed to me. Maybe it's because I grew up doing high school plays and taking dance classes, but my sensibility has always been closer to homosexual than macho male eroticism. Even today, if I go into a room and there's one bunch of guys talking about pussy and another group discussing music, I'll go stand with the gay guys.

[A] My best friend is gay. He came out to me--trusted me with that--and it may have been the finest moment of friendship I've ever had. I used to be a pretty boy and was always getting hit on by gay men. If anything, those experiences made me stronger in my identity as a straight man. I never had that common insecure fear--sitting in the locker room thinking, Oh God, what if I'm attracted to a football player?

[Q] Playboy: Were you flattered to be hit on?

[A] Edwards: It was annoying. It made me think, This is what women have to put up with all the fucking time.

[Q] Playboy: You're strong enough to block unwanted advances, though.

[A] Edwards: I'm 6'1" now, but I didn't start growing until I was 17. At 16 I looked 12. My first driver's license read 5'8", 125 pounds because that was my goal. I was really 5'5", 105.

[Q] Playboy: What were you like during your high school days?

[A] Edwards: I drove around playing show tunes and James Taylor tapes in my Honda Civic. I had a terribly elevated Broadway sort of vision of what love might be. I would go out with a girl, we'd make out for hours and then finally I would say, "We can't have sex. I'm not sure that I'm in love with you." This went on until I was 18 and finally did have sex, and I wondered why I had waited so long.

[A] She was 24 or 25. She worked with my manager and flirted with a group of young actors, Eric Stoltz and me and a few others. In our eyes she was a sexy older woman. I was going to Europe for the summer to study and see plays. She cooked me a bon voyage dinner. We went to a Clint Eastwood movie and ended up at her house, having a beer. She kept leaving the room and coming back with less and less clothing on. I was terrified. We had sex and it was very quick, as a lot of us probably remember. I sneaked out at five in the morning.

[Q] Playboy: Did you go on your summer voyage?

[A] Edwards: Hitchhiked around Europe, saw plays in Greece and London. Here I was, straight out of high school, seeing Paul Scofield in Amadeus in the West End. And Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson doing Twelfth Night and As You Like It. They were my age. It got me fired up as an actor.

[Q] Playboy: You studied at the Royal Academy in London, then came home to your first acting jobs

[A] Edwards: Commercials. I would drive down from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles to audition. I got to do commercials--McDonald's, Wheaties and Country Time lemonade.

[Q] Playboy: You knew Shakespeare but delivered lines such as "I get the eaties for my Wheaties."

[A] Edwards: But if a national commercial plays a lot, the checks keep hitting your mailbox. I made $20,000 that year. It paid for college.

[Q] Playboy: You studied acting at USC.

[A] Edwards: I did all the acting school exercises. The animal squawk--taking the rhythms and images of animals for your characters. Somebody like Dick Hickock, the character I play in In Cold Blood, might be a fox or a snake.

[Q] Playboy: How about Greene?

[A] Edwards: An owl. He thinks too much. But he's also capable of attack. He could lash out like a bird of prey.

[Q] Playboy: You were a teenager when you made Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the film that launched the careers of Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh and other young actors.

[A] Edwards: I was lost. Jennifer and Sean had worked before and were known within our young-actor world. Sean's father was a director, so Sean obviously knew what he was doing. Even at that age he was a film actor. Part of his preparation for the Spicoli character, as a lot of people know, was that he took his own apartment and stayed in character almost all the time. What flattered me is that he took me along. He let me see him out of character. We went to the desert and target-shot and got lost there, wandering the desert. I wound up following Sean wherever he went.

[Q] Playboy: Did he give you advice?

[A] Edwards: He told me something I use to this day: "Your best friend is the camera operator." Because in film, if you're trying to express something, a detail about your character, you need feedback. Unless you're going to be bad and obvious about it, you need someone watching closely to see if your effort is getting across. Somebody to double-check your work. The director probably can't do it. He's 30 feet away looking at a monitor. The other actors have their own work to think about. The one guy who really sees you is the cameraman. So develop an honest relationship with him. As long as he isn't afraid to criticize Mr. Big Actor, he'll tell you if you're coming across.

[A] Sean told me that on Fast Times. Twenty movies later I still think it's important.

[Q] Playboy: How many of your 20 films are good?

[A] Edwards: Three or four. Miracle Mile, Mr. North, Gotcha! Most of the others didn't turn out the way I had hoped.

[Q] Playboy: Even Top Gun?

[A] Edwards: Especially Top Gun. People love that big, romantic, wonderful movie about planes and flying and all that crap. I thought it was jingoistic. I have nothing against fighter pilots. They fly beautifully. I guess I'm just an old peacenik, but I don't believe in killing people. I'm wary of simple black-and-white answers because that's the way to fascism, and I don't believe in war. Everything I do creatively these days should be a shot at what the military stands for.

[Q] Playboy: Yet you wanted the part.

[A] Edwards: Look, Top Gun was everything everyone wanted. It was obvious Tony Scott was making a huge movie. The studio was going to produce and promote the shit out of it. Tom Cruise was going to be Tom Cruise: huge.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have any worries about being outshone by his star power?

[A] Edwards: I knew it was possible. But my role was important--the sidekick everyone likes. It helps if the lead in a movie has friends who represent good things. My character was married with a kid, and his friendship made Cruise's character seem OK--this driven guy who had to be number one at any cost. My problem with Top Gun is that it's really about rationalizing bad behavior. Macho one-upmanship. And the movie uses my nice-guy stuff to help sell it.

[A] Top Gun was everything I was terrified it would be, and everything I wanted. It gave me the chance to make Miracle Mile, a film that I love.

[Q] Playboy: With Top Gun your career was heating up.

[A] Edwards: You know what broke my heart? People came up to me and said, "Our son joined the Navy because he saw you in that movie." I wanted to say, "Tell him to get out!" But that wouldn't have changed their minds. Still, it's disturbing to think I may have encouraged people to join the Navy. What if one of them signed up because he wanted to be Goose, and got killed in the Persian Gulf? It's possible that happened. That's a scary way to intersect with the culture.

[Q] Playboy: Your affair with Meg Ryan, who played your wife in Top Gun, became pop-culture news.

[A] Edwards: The only interesting thing was that we were both actors.

[Q] Playboy: Why are actors always jumping into bed with their co-stars?

[A] Edwards: You should see what happens with the crew. Movie locations are like corporate retreats to Hawaii. Everybody's away from home. You get tunnel vision. Before I met my wife I experienced that road-show aspect of the job. It's easy for actors to become obsessed with the movie and the characters, and everyone's fighting one enemy, time. It all makes a location an easy place for seduction. Actors always look for intimacy anyway. When acting works, isn't the communication between two people just as sensitive and passionate as making love? It should be. If not, you're faking it.

[Q] Playboy: You directed a recent ER, fighting time from the other side of the camera. What did you get out of that?

[A] Edwards: Cappuccino. The camera department on ER is very exclusive with its cappuccino machine. No actors allowed. As director I had cappuccino privileges.

[Q] Playboy: Which actors were difficult?

[A] Edwards: Day players. They have small roles and they're trying to win an Emmy in 15 seconds. The director has to calm them down.

[Q] Playboy: Quentin Tarantino directed an ER episode last year. How calm was that?

[A] Edwards: He's been described as Barney Rubble on speed. One thing about acting for Quentin: You don't have to rehearse much. He acts it out for everyone. He does all the characters at once. "OK, you're on the gurney going Aaagh! in pain, and you are the doctor over here: 'Oh, what do I do?' " Another fun thing about that week was the way Quentin makes everything physical. Bam! He's shooting scenes as fast as you can act them. And he's visual. That show has a bigger-than-life Tarantino look to it. There's a basketball scene with George and me--Quentin captured the motion of it. There is something endearing about Tarantino. The guy has no hidden agendas, and he's passionate about everything.

[A] I like that episode, but his style isn't mine. I usually try to be smaller than life.

[Q] Playboy: Beyond cappuccino, have you raked in any celebrity perks?

[A] Edwards: There was a big perk last year. George and I got to take our dads to the Super Bowl. NBC flew us in on a private jet. We choppered to the stadium and had a blast. My dad's eyes were as big as saucers.

[Q] Playboy: Are you comfortable as a celeb?

[A] Edwards: It still surprises me the way people intrude. They'll say, "I don't want to intrude, but...." I want to hold up my hands and say, "Wait. You could stop right there." But why piss people off? Anyway, it's whiny--complaining about having your dinner interrupted when there are people being shot in South Central Los Angeles, four miles from where you're sitting. When there are kids growing up in a horrific reality of guns, gangs, drugs and broken families, my life is not worth whining about.

[Q] Playboy: You're a frequent talk show guest. Who's less intimidating, Leno or Letterman?

[A] Edwards: Jay's a little easier. There's less tension, it's more like hanging out. The Letterman show can be a cold, tense place, literally cold. He figures comedy works better cold. So you know it's going to be 58, maybe 60 degrees. Take a sweater. I'm doing Letterman again soon. I'm nervous already. A few years ago I quit smoking on his show. My next time on, when he asked how it was going, I said, "Nobody likes a quitter." That got a laugh. We did a birth on ER and substituted an alien baby--I showed the clip on Letterman. Got a big laugh. I must be doing all right, since they keep asking me back. Still, there's something about being an actor who does talk shows that makes me want to be a carpenter instead. Trying to capsulize funny anecdotes--career stuff, things I've been doing with my wife--makes my brain freeze up. Now, George is a natural at that. He's funny, a great storyteller, a guy people crowd around. I'm more of a watcher. So for me, talk shows are an acting job: Go play the role of comfortable actor. And I don't feel great about my performances. I worry for weeks beforehand. Doing The Tonight Show or Letterman is really the only thing in my career that gives me performance anxiety.

[Q] Playboy: Do they compete for your time?

[A] Edwards: There's a story I could tell, but I probably shouldn't.

[Q] Playboy: Aw, go ahead.

[A] Edwards: I wish my wife were here. She'd know what I should say. OK ... I was in the middle of a fight between The Tonight Show and Letterman. I had committed to Tonight, but suddenly there I was in Chicago shooting Sherry's last episode. Letterman was there that week, so I had to do his show, because I had a CBS film to promote, In Cold Blood. So I pulled out of The Tonight Show, causing a huge rift.

[Q] Playboy: Maybe Leno's people expected fealty because ER and Tonight are on NBC. You're still steamed, aren't you?

[A] Edwards: Because they made it personal, dragging me into their war and talking about my ethics. I mean, please. I apologized for pulling out. I gave them two weeks' notice. And I've shown up every other time--been very faithful to The Tonight Show. If I were Arnold Schwarzenegger they would be asking, "When would you like to appear?" But they bring up my ethics, treat me like I'm fucking them over because I have some alliance with Letterman! My response to that is, "Guys, you'd better stop hassling me."

[Q] Playboy: What can you do? Would the star of ER boycott Tonight?

[A] Edwards: I could stop showing up.

[Q] Playboy:Tonight's late producer, Helen Kushnick, was notorious for strong-arming guests, but those tactics supposedly ended years ago. When did all this happen?

[A] Edwards: This month.

[Q] Playboy: Leno's people shouted at you?

[A] Edwards: Yes, and it made me really angry. I'm busting my ass for NBC--ER is the number one show for three years running, making hundreds of millions of dollars for the network and helping The Tonight Show do great every Thursday--and they turn a talk show appearance into something personal, like I want to screw them over. And you know what? I think they did it because I seem to be a nice guy. "Oh, he's responsible, so let's go after him on responsibility." It made me wonder: Am I really perceived as that much of a wimp?

[Q] Playboy: You could tell them you're not really a nice guy, that you only play one on TV.

[A] Edwards: Pissed me off.

[Q] Playboy: Let's move to other irritants. You quit smoking on Letterman, then started again. Are you still lighting up?

[A] Edwards: No. I used patches and quit. But not until after In Cold Blood. I smoked during that movie because the character smoked. That was a great reason to do the movie: I got to smoke at work. There was another bonus on In Cold Blood: I got to wear a little wig.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about your famously thinning hair. Does balding bother you?

[A] Edwards: Why is there such vanity about hair? People talk about my hair as if I'd just gotten my chemo report. But does my head get cold in the winter? Will I be ostracized, banned from outdoor activities? Probably not. Here's my view on all that: I worry if I shit myself. I am vain to that degree. I make a point to bathe. I worry about boogers in my nose and I ask the makeup artist to cover up my pimples, but beyond that I try not to be too vain.

[Q] Playboy: The hair topic's not taboo. There was a subplot on ER in which a (continued on page 171)Anthony Edwards(continued from page 62) sexy pharmaceuticals sales rep wanted Greene to endorse Rogaine.

[A] Edwards: Who says I'm not using it? I might be.

[Q] Playboy: If so, the company might not want the endorsement.

[A] Edwards: I guess I have a reverse sort of vanity. My vanity is not doing anything about losing my hair. Cool enough with myself not to care. I'm sure that losing hair has cost me some work. But I haven't exactly been hurting for work, have I? And now there's a new, extra-weird development. I get compliments. People say, "Isn't it cool how Anthony Edwards doesn't worry about his hair?"

[Q] Playboy: We've always wondered about ER blood. It looks too real to be ketchup.

[A] Edwards: It's stage makeup. It's sticky-sweet like imitation maple syrup. And it tastes minty.

[Q] Playboy: The show's creator, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and other boffo stuff, attended Harvard Medical School. How does he see ER?

[A] Edwards: In conversations I've had with him he has seemed happy with the show. He thought doctors had gotten a bad name as golf-playing, money-grubbing rich guys. The truth is, doctors coming out of med school live miserable lives. They make less money than garbage-men. That was the idea ER began with. And we surprised him. He told me it's rare when something he creates gets deeper and better than it was at the start. Most of the movies of his books have disappointed him, but we surprised him.

[Q] Playboy: What else do you like on TV?

[A] Edwards:The X-Files. And Larry Sanders. I'd love to be on with Larry, but they haven't asked me.

[Q] Playboy: Were you a TV kid?

[A] Edwards: No, my parents were antitelevision. We weren't allowed to watch TV at night. My memories are of afternoon reruns: The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family and The Wild Wild West.

[Q] Playboy: Movie heroes?

[A] Edwards: Peter O'Toole. To be so outlandishly committed to a performance--that was something I dreamed of. And Gene Kelly, I worshiped him. In high school I was dying to be a song-and-dance man. It's still my secret fantasy.

[Q] Playboy: What was your problem with girls back then?

[A] Edwards: I didn't want to objectify and power-trip over them. Although, like Jimmy Carter said, I feel that desire. Maybe it's sexist to say so, but I think men are genetically driven to dominate. I'll tell you something about women, too. Women are strong. I saw my wife give birth. And I would be more terrified by an army of women than by an army of men. The women would be united, strong. We'd be fighting among ourselves over the wrong things, like who gets to wear the biggest hat.

[Q] Playboy: You're a feminist.

[A] Edwards: After a lot of dating I figured something out. Most of my relationships were controlling. They were about fixing the other person. The trouble with that is, once you achieve control and fix the other person--once you solve her problems--she resents you. That might be the usual sort of marriage for people in their 20s, neurotically compatible. One of them controls and fixes the other, who resents it, and they end up splitting or shooting each other.

[Q] Playboy: What saved you?

[A] Edwards: My wife.

[Q] Playboy: You met Jeanine Lobell on location for Pet Sematary II, in which you played a veterinarian bitten by zombie pets. She was a makeup artist. Did you fall in love on location?

[A] Edwards: The timing of our meeting, her friendship, her unbelievable ability to make me laugh--it was clear to me somehow that this was the person I was going to be with and have a family with. Maybe I was ready. I'd wanted to be 30 since I was 22. And now I wasn't pursuing someone to fit into what I wanted. The feeling that we were going to be together hit so hard it was undeniable.

[Q] Playboy: And now?

[A] Edwards: For one thing, she's audience. She'll corner John Wells [ER's executive producer] when we go to dinner and tell him what should happen on the show. Like a lot of viewers, she enjoys being swept up in the story. As a viewer Jeanine wanted Lewis to stay, even though she's great friends with Sherry String-field and wants her to go on and have a happy life.

[A] It's not that my wife thinks the show is real. It's just fun to follow the stories. We provide diversionary fun, and I don't think the audience takes us nearly as seriously as network executives think. People in our business might be a little too much like Hershey executives in Hershey, Pennsylvania, who think the world revolves around chocolate.

[Q] Playboy: Does your wife critique your acting?

[A] Edwards: She wants me to ham it up. "Maybe you didn't get the fucking Emmy last year because you didn't ham it up enough," she says. But I'm not sure that I know how. Even if I could I wouldn't want to give one of those movie-star performances.

[Q] Playboy: Meaning what?

[A] Edwards: Meaning ... acting alone. The way I work is to feed off other people, to act and react with other actors. I can't do that big-movie-star-alone-with-the-cam-era thing. Can't do it as an actor or appreciate it as an audience.

[Q] Playboy: Stardom as fascism. You're a bit of a hippie, aren't you?

[A] Edwards: I am very liberal. I'm against the death penalty. I am for socialized health care. I want gun control. The fact that we tolerate millions of handguns on our streets is a childish joke. People blame drugs and anything else they can think of, but it's OK for us all to happily carry handguns. That's horseshit. Show me one city police force that doesn't want gun control.

[Q] Playboy: Why do Hollywood types champion so many liberal causes?

[A] Edwards: Charlton Heston, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kevin Costner don't. Anyway, I think the way we use definitions in this country is destructive. It's divisive. We should try to agree on some things. We need more of something I call the Wink.

[A] Now, I work for Warner Bros, and NBC, two huge corporations. Along with everyone else on ER, I help create stories so the moneymen can sell advertising time. We all wink back and forth as if to say, "We'll do our artistic thing and you can sell it. Just don't get in our way." They wink back and say, "Tell your stories. We'll play along as long as it sells." And that's how things get done.

[Q] Playboy: You're not co-opting your art? Would any true hippie wink and shake hands with Warner Bros.?

[A] Edwards: I'm still a hippie. If being a hippie means caring about other people as much as you care about yourself, sign me up. Fucking a, let's bring that spirit back.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about your surfing.

[A] Edwards: Growing up in Santa Barbara I surfed and sailed. I loved the beach. One of our family traditions was walking the beach on Christmas Day.

[A] I used to bodysurf when I was a kid. Sometimes at night. There was a kind of plankton that was phosphorescent; it made the water glow this pale blue color, a faint electric blue. And if you peed in the water it got even better. It made the blue really bright. As a kid you cannot be more empowered than to see your pee turn the ocean bright colors.

[A] I was never a great surfer. I don't do big waves--maybe up to eight or ten feet. But on something head-high I kind of know what I'm doing. Surfing is a little like acting: It's persistence. You keep trying and finally one day a light goes on. You understand a little more and maybe surf a little better. Then there's the pure experience. There's something private and beautiful about being in the water at dawn when it's glassy. There's a big wave coming in and a school of dolphins outside it. That's a good moment.

[Q] Playboy: You said that it was like acting.

[A] Edwards: Part of surfing is letting go, freeing up your instincts to simply react to the wave. That's one of the things we try to create in acting. And I've discovered, in surfing and acting, that you don't remember it when it's good. If you don't remember it afterward, you probably did a good job because you were there when it happened.

[Q] Playboy: How does fatherhood suit you? You and Jeanine have a three-year-old son, Bailey, and a new daughter, Esme.

[A] Edwards: Bailey and I dance all the time. I hold him and we spin until he's dizzy. I barbecue a lot. I'm proud of my salmon marinade with mustard, garlic and ginger. I think I'd be a good housewife.

[Q] Playboy: Were you in the delivery room when Bailey was born?

[A] Edwards: Absolutely. We went through the classes to prepare, but they don't really prepare you. I was in awe. It was like pulling up to the Grand Canyon. I basically just held my wife's hand as she gave birth. I almost thought, Goddamn, why can't I be more a part of this? A man can be jealous of that pure bond between mother and child. It's something you can never quite match. But I wasn't thinking of that when my wife was giving birth. That's the time you learn what focus really means. The world goes away until it's over and even then you're standing there in wonder, looking around, thinking how amazing it is that we were all born.

[Q] Playboy: How has Bailey surprised you?

[A] Edwards: Things are clear-cut when you're two or three. I noticed this when Bailey had a cold and we went to the doctor. He knew immediately that this wasn't playtime on daddy's set at work. He always wears my stethoscope on the set, but this was different. This was real. It occurred to me that he knew all this in an instinctual, almost animalistic way because he doesn't process things the way I do. For him everything boils down to one thing: Is he safe or not safe?

[Q] Playboy: Does he know you're a TV star?

[A] Edwards: He knows daddy is on TV. Those other people on TV with daddy are our friends. Bailey loves Big Noah, Noah Wyle. And he loved seeing posters for One Fine Day because he thought Michelle Pfeiffer was Sherry. To him that movie poster was a scene from our show: cousin Sherry and goofy George.

[Q] Playboy: What about daddy's star status?

[A] Edwards: When Bailey sees a balding guy on TV he says, "There's Daddy!"

[Q] Playboy: Has he had any celeb perks of his own?

[A] Edwards: Bailey thinks it's cool that daddy works with Batman. He got to go to the Batman set with me. But he was scared when Batman suddenly became three-dimensional and came right up to him. I was holding him when George came over to us; I felt Bailey tighten up. The message was, "Daddy, I like this, but don't let go of me." He was relieved when George took the armor off. Of course it takes three men to take that outfit off.

[A] George gave Bailey a Batman doll. Bailey didn't really process that. He was still a little worried; he knew he didn't want to touch that scary armor. But he loved seeing goofy George. When he woke up the next morning the first thing he said was, "Where's my Batman?"

[Q] Playboy: Has ER helped you as a parent?

[A] Edwards: I think it did when Bailey dislocated his elbow. He was just walking down the stairs and it popped out. It's a common condition.

[Q] Playboy: What's the term for it?

[A] Edwards: Nursemaid's elbow. It happens to one out of eight kids. Anyway, we took him to the local ER. There were dozens of people waiting, but they took one look at me and we had a doctor in about 24 seconds. Some actors get good seats in restaurants; I get great emergency care.

We don't always succeed on "ER" In fact I'd say we usually fail. Most of the time the show doesn't resonate.