GARY DOURDAN seems in a real strop as I arrive at the Motion Bar at Embankment, central London, for my interview. He's letting rip at this fashion stylist, demanding to know why she's dressed him in a designer suit that's too tight around the waist and too short on the sleeves. For a moment there's an air of tense embarrassment as the organiser of the publicity shoot blushes and begins to stumble out her words of apology. But within seconds she's laughing as she sees Dourdan has a huge grin on his face and his hissy fit is nothing more than a joke. It immediately puts to rest any preconceptions that this six-foot, two-inches star of Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) Las Vegas has an inflated ego. For this, says Dourdan, is typical of the way he behaves in rehearsals on the set of the hit US cop show in which he plays investigator Warrick Brown.
I'm the practical joker on the set. I crack jokes all the time," he says with a mischievous glint in his stunning green eyes. "If someone has a close-up I make sure I'm the one to crack them up. The directors get mad as hell but I always try to have fun. You can't go to work for five or six years in the same job and not have fun, life is too short." Indeed, it only seems like yesterday that CSI launched its unique brand of crime fiction through a hard-hitting TV drama, and Dourdan stepped out as the street-smart, headstrong forensic detective with smouldering good looks. But it's a remarkable six years since the popular crime show (which begins a new series tomorrow) began showing on Channel Five.
REVELATION
As he settles into the nightclub's padded seats for our chat, the 39 year-old actor, who grew up in Philadelphia and moved to New York in his teens, gives me the bad news. He's married. Yes, in the spur of the moment thing, he's tied the knot with a nurse at a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas. The shock revelation is likely to break the hearts of many of his female fans. But dry those tears quickly ladies, as Dourdan's maritial status is only an on-screen liaison - thankfully he's still footloose and fancy free. "When I got the script and they told me 'you're married now', I said 'whoa... great' as it came as big surprise," he says recalling the moment. "I wasn't even sure how to figure out playing the part of a husband at first but then I quickly grew into it." The startling twist in the plot is all part of the fall out from last year's shocking CSI finale in which investigator Nick Stokes (George Eads) was kidnapped and nearly killed. Warrick's way of coping with the attack on his co-worker is to seize the moment, or the girl, as the case may be.
His lucky bride is Tina (Meta Golding) a Las Vegas nurse who he met at the end of the last series. "Being married was something of an art to play," Dourdan admits. "I had never done a romantic scene on the show before because our personal on-screen lives are normally kept in the background. The crew were all stuffed into the room watching the filming to see what I was going to do, because I'm usually seen as the tough guy in the show and they've never seen me being romantic. I had to step to it and play it."
EMBARRASSED
According to Golding, an upcoming actress for Washington DC, Dourdan was 'a little embarrassed' at first but soon got into his stride. "We have this powerful connection," she says. "Since we got married after a short time, our scenes are about the process of getting to know each other." Dourdan's own real-life marriage to model Roshumba Williams ended after four years in 1994. In 2003, he hit the headlines when he started dating Lisa Snowden (George Clooney's erstwhile ex-girlfriend). He says it was a relationship fraught with problems: "In this business it's difficult to have a strong, dedicated relationship with people who are very ambitious and who are moving so fast. It's just good to try to remain friends, and plus she was in one country and I was in another."
"When I'm with a woman full time, I want
to treat her well": Dourdan
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Right now Dourdan says a heavy work schedule - he's on set up to 16 hours a day- means he doesn't have time for a 'lock down relationship'. "When I'm with a woman full time, I want to treat her well, take her out on dates and cook for her," says the heart-throb who used ot be a chef before taking up acting. He has a seven-year old daughter Nyla and three-year-old son Lyric from previous relationships. They are the unconditional loves of his life, he says, along with his mother and four sisters who he proudly boasts of being very close to. So close, in fact, that his mum Sandy, a fashion designer, is making some of his clothes for him as part of a new clothing line: Drive It Like It's Stolen.
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