One of the great dangers of being too good in your first big TV role is that the only offers you tend to get after it are from people who want you to play another version of the same character.
That's what happened with Andre Braugher after NBC's "Homicide: Life on the Street," the acclaimed Baltimore-based police drama that featured him as Detective Frank Pembleton from 1993 to 1998.
Pembleton, the über-cop, went well beyond simply solving murder cases in a fictional Charm City. He became a kind of avenging fury who seemed about to explode with all the forces of race, rage, righteousness, arrogance and hyper-morality burning in his soul.
"That was me in 'Homicide,' the hyper-vigilant detective," Braugher says today. "And that was the kind of role I kept getting offered after 'Homicide,' the hyper-vigilant, hyper-kind of character. … That's why this show [ "Men of a Certain Age"] is a such a departure for me — such a major departure. But it took quite a while to find a role like this."
Braugher returns Monday night with the start of the second season of "Men of a Certain Age" in the role of Owen Thoreau Jr., a middle-age Chevrolet salesman and father of three working for his father's auto dealership in California. He is one of three middle-age men at the heart of the TNT comedy, and there is nothing hyper, super or remarkable about any of them.
Their lives are intertwined, and they meet regularly at a Bob's Big Boy type of diner for fast food and the kind of off-beat conversation among guys that Barry Levinson made famous in "Diner." The other two stars of the series are Ray Romano as owner of a store that sells party supplies and Scott Bakula as a mostly out-of-work actor. Romano's character is about to turn 50 and has his eye on a professional golf career on the seniors circuit. Bakula's character is single and seldom at a loss for a woman friend. This season, he takes a job selling cars at the dealership with Braugher's character.
Braugher, the winner of an Emmy for best dramatic actor for his work on "Homicide," earned a nomination as best supporting actor last year for his performance as an underachieving salesman working for an over-achieving father. The relationship was played more for poignancy and understanding smiles than any kind of Freudian struggle — though that was certainly there as subtext in the dramedy.
Braugher's lighter touch and ease with comic dialogue surprised Romano, a sitcom veteran of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and executive producer of the TNT series. So did Braugher's desire to play the role — and the way the 48-year-old performer had physically changed since his days in the Baltimore crime series.
"I think the biggest thing for me was casting Andre as this character, because he never entered our mind," Romano says, explaining the origin of Owen Thoreau. "We pictured a kind of beaten-down, frumpy, middle-aged guy who's underneath his father's shadow and a little bit unsure of himself. And somebody pitched Andre to us, and at first, we didn't want to even meet him, because we thought of 'Homicide,' and we thought this guy commands this presence when he walks in a room and he's so sure of himself."
But they met anyway, and Romano says he and co-creator Mike Royce were struck by Braugher being "so game to play" the role.
"And not that this mattered, but he wasn't physically the same way that he was on 'Homicide,'" Romano says. "Middle age had caught up to him a little bit in that respect."
"Middle age" is a nice way of saying that Braugher had put on some weight since his "Homicide" days. It was, after all, more than decade between the end of Braugher's career on "Homicide" in 1998 and the start of production on the first season on "Men."
Braugher, who says he weighed about 255 pounds last season, skillfully used his size to help define the character as an overweight, diabetic and not-especially-athletic son of a still-vigorous father who had once played for the Los Angeles Lakers and had parlayed his pro career into the car dealership.
Braugher had always been an outstanding physical actor, but last year he used his body in a new way. Instead of using his physical presence to dominate scenes the way he had on "Homicide," last season he played the inverse role, literally seeming to shrink before our eyes as he entered the same space as his domineering father. That remarkable aspect of his performance alone made him Emmy-worthy.
One of the first things that regular viewers of the series will notice Monday night is a slimmer Braugher.
"I did lose some weight," Braugher says, sounding very comfortable discussing the issue. "It was not some big transformational thing. It's being 48 years old, and my wife telling me she wants me to live to watch the kids grow up. Last year, I was about 250 or 255, and now I'm 220."
Braugher, a Stanford University graduate, and his wife, actress Ami Brabson, have been married 19 years and have three children, ages 18, 13 and 8. Brabson, who played Pembleton's wife on "Homicide," is also well-known to area audiences for her work at Center Stage during the five years when the couple lived and worked here.
"She just finished performing in the play 'The Old Settler' at the Luna Stage," Braugher says talking enthusiastically about his wife's performance and the theater company in the couple's hometown of West Orange, N.J. The troupe is run by Frankie Faison, another actor with Baltimore connections, who played police Commissioner Ervin Burrell in "The Wire." .
Both Brabson and Braugher are classically trained stage actors. In addition to his bachelor's degree from Stanford, he holds a master's from the Juilliard School. In 1989, he moved from doing Shakespeare in Berkeley, Calif., to the world of Hollywood feature films as a soldier in the celebrated Civil War drama "Glory." The Chicago native followed his 1998 Emmy for "Homicide" with another in 2006 for best lead actor in a movie or mini-series for his performance in the FX cable drama "Thief."
Beyond the weight loss, viewers will also see considerable change in Braugher's Owen Thoreau. In the six weeks of episodes made available to critics, Owen emerges as a more active, mature and powerful presence as he takes over more and more at the dealership.
"This year, it's a matter of maturing," Braugher says of the way his character evolves. "Last year, he was more passive and lacking in energy. Being the boss just entails the next important step — with a kind of maturity and gumption that Owen is discovering in himself. To be the boss, you have to make decisions and not care what people will think. Sometimes, the people who work for you aren't going to like it. A lot of this is personal challenge. Owen is also discovering that his relationship with Terry [Bakula] is beginning to change as well with their new roles" at Thoreau Chevrolet.
If that sounds heavy, it rarely plays that way. Braugher seems to savor the lighter moments in the first few episodes — whether they involve Owen bringing some of his "old school" R&B and jazz into the dealership and forcing his employees to listen, or joining his two pals as they turn colonoscopies into a Palm Springs spa and casino weekend.
"Times change," Braugher says, trying to explain why the role is right for him at this point in his life and career. "It's just a byproduct of maturing — you have a different viewpoint in life. I'm sure if I went back and played 'Homicide' today, I'd play it differently. Everything changes."
On TV
"Men of a Certain Age" returns for a second season at 10 p.m. Monday on TNT