Grant Show maneuvers his way through the streets of New York like a native. He may look like an L.A. guy - the tan, the suave way of wearing sunglasses and holding a cell phone - but in reality, he seems like the kind of New Yorker who's never even had a driver's license. He's desperate for Indian food ("I haven't had any since I came back"), and from the Union Square Theatre, he sets a brisk, specific course for 6th Street. We end up at Rose of India, a hideous eatery cluttered with Christmas lights and garish garlands of all shapes and colors. "I love it!" he exclaims.
     Show, 37, known for playing one of the most memorable himbos of all time, Jake Hanson, on Melrose Place, has relocated to New York, where he lived during the '80s. For the next six months, he replaces Alec Phoenix as Dr. Jason Posner in Margaret Edson's remarkable Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit. It's not such a stretch: his acting roots are in theater, not television. And there's a distict possibility that the only thing he'll miss about L.A. is the golf. "I started playing golf so I could have something to do with my father," Show admits. "Now I'm addicted." A dismal expression washes over his face. "I played on Sunday in Jersey - I had to rent a car. I could have played at Pebble Beach for what it cost."
Time Out New York: How did this role come about? Had you seen the play before?
Grant Show: No. I left Melrose Place a couple of years ago and had been looking for work. I haven't been supersuccessful out in L.A. They really try - they meaning the machine - to make it easy for me to do the same kind of thing I was doing before. So I had been talking to my agents about coming out here for the last six to eight months. Finally, I just got tired of it; I told my agents I that I wanted to start doing theater again. Coincidentally, they were casting replacements for Wit. I heard about the play on NPR; I auditioned, stayed for about five days, and by the time I'd left, they offered it to me.
TONY: What kinds of roles were coming to you?
GS: [Winces] There was some movie about snakes invading a subdivision. You know, I don't want to do that. It's not interesting. I made enough money; I don't need to make money again for a long time.
TONY: How will your approach to the Dr. Posner role in Wit be different from Alec Phoenix's? Not to be so earnest?
GS: He is very earnest. I don't suspect that I'll have that. At first, I thought I was going to be a lot kinder and gentler, but now, having worked on it, I think I might be a little bit harder. There's a sincerity that Alec has, which in my personality is more like single-mindedness.
TONY: How did the play affect you?
GS: It is an intelligent play. That's kind of what really jazzed me about it. It's really fucking smart. The paradoxes [Edson] throws out, using Donne as an allegory for life, keep piling up. It's almost more complicated than I want to wrap my brain around. And Jason Posner doesn't wrap his brain around it either; that's part of his single-mindedness. He's a health care professional who doesn't really care about health.
TONY: Do you think this will help people to take you more seriously as an actor?
GS: [Cynically] Come on...
TONY: But will it lead to more theater?
GS: Oh, easily - and yes, that is what I want. I don't think anybody in Hollywood is going to give a rat's ass about me doing this play.
TONY: Why have you been keeping such a low profile since Melrose Place?
GS: Because there hasn't been anything I wanted to do. I left the show to do different kinds of work, which didn't present itself to me. You really do have to say no to your bait, because there's a lot of it there. [Laughs] In Los Angeles, it's very easy to become a commodity. They think I'm an apple - and they know how to sell apples - but they don't want to have to sell applesauce now.
TONY: Most people probably don't know that you went to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
GS: [Dryly] They probably don't.
TONY: When did you know you wanted to become an actor? Where were you living?
GS: In San Jose. I was probably 19 or 20, and the truth is I couldn't figure out anything else I wanted to do. All the other real options available to me at the time... The thought of doing them for 30 years, I know I would have killed myself. Somebody asked me to do a play in a community theater, and I thought, if somebody would pay me for this, how awesome. I went to UCLA to study theater arts and got a job in New York. I was on Ryan's Hope for three years. As soon as I was done with my contract, I studied at the Royal Academy for a year. Then I went out to Los Angeles. I was there for maybe two years, and I got Melrose Place. For a job like that, you can't say no. At the time, I was broke! I had bought a house and then went 18 months without working.
TONY: So when Aaron Spelling calls, you're like, Sure.
GS: [Grimaces] Yeah. Pretty much.
TONY: Were you embarassed to be on Beverly Hills 90210?
GS: That's not a very fair question. [Smiles] Yeah, there was a little bit of that, sure. But it paid me real well.
TONY: When you left Melrose Place, could you tell it was the beginning of the end for the series?
GS: I didn't really care.
TONY: Was it just that you were finished with your contract?
GS: Yeah. My life there was done, and I was happy to get out.
TONY: Did you watch it after you left?
GS: I hadn't seen it for two years before I left. It really didn't interest me.
TONY: What was your childhood like? Did you see much theater?
GS: No. I lived in a trailer park in San Jose. I was in a play before I'd ever seen a play. The first play I ever saw that really, really affected me was Lyle Kessler's Orphans. God, I bawled liek a baby. I was on a date with a girl I really had a crush on. I was sitting there, fighting back and fighting back, and this guys behind me goes [Sobs], and I just let loose. She liked it, so it didn't matter. Thought I was a sensitive guy.
TONY: Were you relieved that Aaron Spelling didn't let you out of your Melrose Place contract to do the film Just In Time with Marisa Tomei? It wasn't exactly a hit.
GS: [Confused] Oh! It was called Him when I was cast. [Laughs] There was a worse one than that. I was cast in Thelma and Louise in - oh, what the hell is his name? - I was cast in Brad Pitt's role, and I couldn't do it, because I had a conflict. But Stephen Baldwin, apparently, turned it down before I was cast. It was like Stephen Baldwin, then me, then Brad.
TONY: Did you have a problem with fame? Did it change your personality?
GS: [Nods head] I don't know if a can really say now. It puts a lot of stress on you; it sneaks up on you. I said to myself, don't let any of this shit get to you - and it still does. My friends, good friends that they are, said, "You've gone through this and seem so unchanged," and they were very supportive. Maybe to them I did seem unchanged, but to myself, I didn't. But that said, I think I did go through it very healthily. I don't walk around in fear of fans. There's a way of conducting your behavior - if you just sort of slip in and out, nobody sees you. So that's just kind of the way I do it.