John Corbett needs a break from playing nice

[Mr. Television]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30035106/

John Corbett needs a break from playing nice
‘It’s fun to break it up a little bit,’ says the ‘United States of Tara’ actor

Access Hollywood
updated 4:54 p.m. ET, Fri., April. 3, 2009

John Corbett is known for bringing to life sensitive, lovable, laid-back and intuitive male characters in series like “Sex and The City,” “Northern Exposure” and films such as “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

Last week, however, his latest character, Max, on Showtime’s “United States of Tara” broke from the trend when the family patriarch momentarily gave up on his dissociative identity disorder-suffering wife on the show, Tara, played by Toni Collette.

The fact that it took so long for Max to finally crack, after a season filled with Tara and her multiple personalities (at least four), his teen son’s first gay crush and a troubled 15-year-old daughter with a penchant for bad and slightly disturbed older boys, wasn’t a surprise to the actor.


“They’re gotta have some kind of grounding,” Corbett told AccessHollywood.com of why Max has kept such a level head during the chaos on the breakout drama. “The kids (have) got their own stuff going on and Tara has her world that she’s in. I think they needed some kind of rock in there to latch on to. If I’m breaking up, too, I don’t know what kind of show that’s gonna be.”

Having made up with Tara on last week’s episode, the season finale of the Diablo Cody-created, Steven Spielberg-produced “United States of Tara,” which airs this Sunday at 10 p.m., sees Max back with a vengeance to his supportive ways, as his wife finally confronts a man that may be at the root of her disorder.

“Yeah, it’s fun to break it up a little bit,” Corbett said of Max’s manly gusto, which flares up in Sunday’s episode. “And, you know, I hope next season — because we got picked up for a second season — I hope I get to break (it) up a little more because it’s fun.

“I did a movie last year with Keanu Reeves and Forrest Whittaker called ‘Street Kings’ — it’s a violent sort of East L.A. cop story and I got to have some physical action in that,” Corbett continued. “We had a big fight in a car and that’s always much more fun than just sort of standing around yakking.”

Corbett will return to the Overland Park, Kansas, set where “United States of Tara” is shot this August when season two commences filming and the actor told Access he is looking forward to reconnecting with the cast.

“I’m in love with every one of them. I just sent an e-mail to my TV son, Keir Gilchrist, and told him how proud I was of him,” Corbett recounted. “Brie Larson plays my daughter and they’re two great kids. Toni (Collette) is one is one my favorite people on the planet now. You never know if you’re gonna like your co-stars, let alone love ’em, and I’ve really fallen in love with her and her family.”

In the run up to returning to the Showtime show, however, Corbett is heading north with his former “Sex and The City” co-star, Bridget Moynahan, whom he admits to having not seen since in almost a decade, for children’s film “Ramona and Beezus,” alongside Selena Gomez and Ginnifer Goodwin.

“I’m leaving in two days,” he said of his journey north. “It’s a big studio movie, which I don’t really ever get to do because I do a lot of independent movies and it’s just a cute little family movie.”

[Marvo301]

To me, John Corbett was at his best on "Northern Exposure".