Starter Wife's David Alan Basche

Taking over playing Kenny Kagan because Peter Jacobson is now on the show House was a challenge for me. He was great in the mini-series last year, so the pressure was on me to rise to his level. I was lucky that Debra and the rest of the cast embraced me, and that the writers immediately started writing fun stuff for me-that was an opportunity to make Kenny different than before, and I jumped at that. It was tough, but I've had fun and hope I've made Kenny just as fun to watch as Peter did. And maybe I've been able to make people wonder a bit more about the future for Molly and Kenny...

I was working on Lipstick Jungle playing Mike Harnass, Kim Raver’s nasty boss. I got asked back for the second season, but they said they wouldn’t need me as much as before. So all of a sudden, I became a little available. I got a call from my agent who said, 'This is great because I got an interesting call for this show called The Starter Wife, and I told them you weren’t available. That was last week, and this week you are available.' They said, 'We want a David Alan Basche type.' You are doing ok when you are the prototype to play the asshole.

She’s a delight. It’s really pretty incredible. I’ve had quite a lucky time of it. She’s the consummate professional and ultimate comedian. I think she’s the second coming of Lucille Ball. So incredibly talented as a comedian but so accessible still. So likable and relatable. The whole cast we’ve all sort of gotten to be friends, which is great. We were all in New York for the premiere in early October, so we had the premiere at my house. USA Networks sent over a bunch of food. Since then we’ve been watching with the whole cast at somebody’s house which is really fun. We’ve all gotten really close.

We all love these fantasy sequences. Basic Instinct was my favorite with Debra Messing imitating Sharon Stone. Debra is a bit of a practical jokester. She caught us all by surprise. At one point, she uncrossed her legs, we are all trying to maintain our composure and look her in the eye. And then she uncrosses them really, really wide and we released it said, “Say Please!” We all tried to keep it together but I lost it.

Oh, God, yes. I love it. And it’s not me which is even better. I talk to a lot of the young actors who are getting out of college, and they say, 'I want to do that role, but I don’t want to get typecast.' I want to be typecast all the way to the bank. Somehow, I’ve been typecast as the asshole, the guy who seems like Mr. Right, but who’s actually Mr. Wrong. I’ve been divorced by a couple of wonderful people and given engagement rings back [on TV and in the movies]. I'm totally fine with that. It’s a little weird since I’ve been happily married to a spectacular woman for years. I try to be a decent guy and a family man. I just keep getting cast as the exact opposite.

I couldn’t happier. Maybe I’m just a guy, and I like to be around beautiful women. Would I want to do a submarine movie? Yes! A western? Yes. A boxing movie and baseball film? I do. In the meantime, I can’t think of a better way to make a living acting opposite some of the most beautiful and powerful women in the business.

It was one of the most hear-wrenching and challenging acting and human experiences I’ve ever had. On the one hand, it was obviously a very difficult story to tell, very difficult scenes to act. I felt such a huge responsibility, not just to Todd Beamer [the man who said, “Let’s roll” on Flight 93], but to everyone involved, and in some ways, to the whole country. Anything related to that day takes on a great sense of history. The cast had a great sense of seriousness, and we were also making art with the brilliant director Paul Greengrass. He does what he does because he wants to tell stories worth telling. Meeting Todd’s parents was a great honor for me. These experiences with great film-making come along just a few times in an actor’s life.