Another shot at making a name

Early in his career, actor Gary Cole auditioned for a lead role in “Miami Vice.” At the time it looked like it could have been his big break, but as he sees it now, the competition wasn’t even close. Don Johnson was nowhere near the waiting room where he sat with the other Sonny Crockett types. “I think we were all decoys,” he said.

Cole, a stage-trained actor and veteran of Chicago’s renowned Steppenwolf troupe, went on to win what he’d hoped would be breakthrough roles (he’s probably best known for film roles in “Office Space” and “The Brady Bunch Movie”), but he remains stubbornly at the “aren’t-you-that-guy” level.

Now 48, he’s landed the lead in a new big-city cop show, TNT’s “Wanted,” a high-style Aaron Spelling crime drama in which an elite but ragtag band of cops and agents runs through Los Angeles chasing a different nasty criminal every week. As fast-paced, violent cop shows go, it’s more of a lite version of “The Shield” -- its cops are basically moral, to the point of debating fine points of the Bible.

The show airs at 10 p.m. Sundays starting next week.

Maybe it will be big. Maybe not. At this point, Cole takes practically every job in stride. “Any time you land something that is ongoing, it becomes larger in your life simply because you’re working on it for a longer period of time,” he said, awaiting his scene in the dim trailer he calls “home,” currently parked in a North Hollywood parking lot. The “Wanted” cops were tracking Russian mobsters trying to horn in on the video pornography trade.

“You don’t know,” he said. “It could be four months and you’re done. Then we get the good phone call, or no phone call, which is the bad phone call.”

Still waiting for his on-camera call, Cole moved outside to a spot where picnic tables were filled with soft drinks, water bottles and technical equipment. His wife, Teddi, arrived and greeted and hugged the cast and crew.

Lanky and droll, Cole brings a pleasant world-weariness to his character, Lt. Conrad Rose, an ex-SWAT team member who tries to hold the competitive cops together as they struggle to balance justice with the law and with their inner angels and demons.

“Connie,” as his character’s known, is also the noncustodial father of two; he’s in the midst of a divorce, which Cole says makes him more “irritable” than usual.

The show tested high in all areas, but did surprisingly well with women, producers said. Cole plays the part expectedly rough, but also smart, funny and sentimental. For a TV cop, he has a subtle and unusually strong rapport with children.

One reason is that Cole brings his experience with fatherhood to the part. He and Teddi have one child, Mary, 12, who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at age 18 months. They are active in autism support groups, including Cure Autism Now among others. “We were lucky,” Cole said. Mary attends public school, and most people would need to pay careful attention to distinguish her from other kids in a group.

Still, he said he and Teddi had to work to comprehend how Mary experienced the world in order to know how to help her. What he’s been through with Mary comes to mind whenever he works with child actors, as he does in “Wanted.”

In particular, Cole said he always feels a special connection to scenes in which he’s trying to communicate with a child. “It’s not something I take lightly,” he said.

Most of his acting, though, is “all about the writing,” he said. The way he sees it, his job is to try to figure out how to get the reaction the writer wants. “You have to make the right decisions and the right choices.”

Unlike the entourage-consumed Hollywood actors who have trouble with eye contact, Cole is “humble, professional, kind, considerate, completely selfless with other actors,” said “Wanted” creator Jorge Zamacona. He said Cole wanted to read for the role twice, even though his body of work could easily have spoken for itself. “He’s my new favorite actor.”

Plus, with Cole, he said, “there are miles under the hood, which legitimizes the character.”

Cole grew up in a suburb of Chicago, watching TV shows such as “Andy Griffith” and “Bob Newhart.” He said he still TiVos “Dick Van Dyke.” “It’s even better than people think it is,” he said. “The writing is smart, it’s a great depiction of a marriage that’s funny and touching and real.”

He didn’t start working in front of cameras until he was in his mid-20s, but established a career with television roles including Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald in NBC’s “Fatal Vision” (1984); Gen. George Custer in ABC’s “Son of the Morning Star” (1991); a cop turned night radio talk-show host in “Midnight Caller” (1988 to ‘91); and a sinister sheriff in CBS’ acclaimed-but-canceled “American Gothic” (1995 to ’96.)

He didn’t appear in a feature film until he was 33, which he said makes it that much more difficult to be recognized. He won fleeting celebrity with his comic Robert Reed imitation in “The Brady Bunch Movie” and as the unctuous (“Did you get the memo?”) boss in the cult favorite “Office Space” (1999). He also appears on “The West Wing” as the vice president, Bob Russell.

Most people know they know him from someplace, but don’t know if it’s from the stage or screen. “Did you go out with my cousin?” “Are you the guy who sold me insurance?” If they do realize he’s an actor, he said, many people still confuse him with Gary Coleman. “We are up for a lot of the same roles,” he said, in total deadpan.

Cable television calls

With the explosion of expensive film production and the growth of cable, he said much of Hollywood’s creative energy is turning back to TV. “Studio movies look like too many people are in charge of it,” he said. “You can’t tell stories that way. You’ve got to have one storyteller. That’s happening more in television, specifically cable television. Whenever new networks get off the ground, it’s a struggle to get something on. Sometimes people are left alone, and sometimes that’s the best thing.”

Another advantage of cable is that those shows need to produce less than half the number of shows in a season than the broadcast networks. That leaves more room for quality, he said.

Cole said he still has a craving for theater, but prefers to work near home, to stay close with his family.

With “Wanted,” he’s not only in Los Angeles, but in neighborhoods he’s never seen before. The experience is something like a traveling circus, he said. The crew rarely stays in one location for more than a day. “It’s really shot off the truck in the street. It shows in the show. If you watch the show, you know you’re not on a set, on a stage.”

The squad’s headquarters, in San Pedro in the pilot, had to be changed to Wilmington because the original building was torn down.

It’s intense, five-days-a-week work, but he fits in still more -- notably animated voice work in the late-night cartoon “Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law,” “Kim Possible” and “The Family Guy.”

He loves doing voice work, he said. “You don’t even have to look good” and can audition over the phone. And if they’re looking for a “self-righteous, pompous, clueless baritone,” he’s in.

Doing voices may not make him more visible, but it is work, and he’s glad to have it.

“Only a handful of people in Hollywood are known commodities,” he said. “The rest of us just try to elbow our way to the finish line.”