The Voice
January 30 - February 5, 2006

An everyman for our age
(interview contd)

"My mum and sister are making a range of suits, jeans and shirts for bigger men like myself," he explains. "What I find with some of the designer suits that I go after is that the jackets fit perfectly but the pants are whack! So with their help we're looking at them fitting more comfortably around the waistline and giving enough leg room in the trousers." Dourdan can now pick and choose the designer gear that fills his wardrobe but it could nearly have been so different. During his early years in New York, he went through a rough period, abusing drugs and alcohol and mixing with the wrong crowd. He admits his anger was fuelled by the unsolved murder of his older brother Daryl, in 1972 who was on holiday in Haiti and who he idolised as a six-year old.

TYPECAST

"The arts saved me. Just going to arts school, going to theatre programmes helped to clean up my act," he recalls. Today, Dourdan can look back with pride at a legacy that has helped to open the door for other black actors. He was one of the first to wear dreadlocks in Hollywood, making headlines and winning female fans in his big break as con artist Shazza Zulu in the sitcom A Different Workd in 1991. Although the parts flowed in - he starred in Alien: Resurrection (1997) and as Malcom X in the TV drama King of the World (2000) - they were not always the parts he wanted as he kept being typecast as a pimp or a drug dealer. So he cut his locks and looked for new openings.

It didn't pay off immediately. "Nobody in show business could recognise me any more or figure out where I fitted in and my work dried up," he recalls. "So, for the next nine months I indulged in my other passion: music." He is an accomplished musician playing guitar, bass, drums, piano and sax. His uncle played sax for Sister Sledge and his father was an agent for jazz musicians. Last year Dourdan played guitar on a hard-hitting hip-hop track for the new DMC album, which hits stores this March, Checks, Thugs and Rock n Roll.

"Just going to art school helped me
to clean up my act"

This year he's hoping to start work on a new biopic about the Thin Lizzy front man, Phil Lynott. The Irish hard-rock star, best known for his single The Boys are Back in Town, died in 1986 from drug-related problems. The film is expected to be released in 2007. Meanwhile he's set to star in the psychological thriller Perfect Stranger alongside Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, playing Cameron, Berry's on-off boyfriend. But his bread and butter is Warrick Brown in CSI and he says he's still developing the character which he plays as edgy and multi-layered. "It's no good trying to put him [Warrick] in a box because he's constantly changing. It's a wonderful role to play because Warrick's got depth and I'm still discovering him," he says.

APPEAL

"At the beginning I was really surprised at how they were developing my character," he continues. "Warrick has a gambling habit and, at first I thought some things were really gratuituous and I was concerned about the plot lines they planned for me as a black actor," he discloses. But he soon begun enjoying the scenes created for the savvy investigator and his role has become intrinsic to CSI's appeal and success. Even so, he's not complacent. As the only regular black face in CSI (the spinoffs, CSI Miami and CSI New York have introduced other Afircan-American actors) Dourdan says he's pretty vocal about the show featuring "non-traditional" faces.

FACT FILE

Born: Gary Durdin in Dec 11 1966

Graduated: from local performing arts school
Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

First Acting Role: Shazza Zulu in
A Different World (1991)

Career Highlights: Forensic Investigator
Warrick Brown in CSI Las Vegas