‘Hercules’ Star Still Has A Soft Touch
Darn it, Kevin. We’re going to ruin you.
Call it interviewer’s remorse. Kevin Sorbo, star of the smash syndicated series “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,” is so willing, so agreeable that you feel gobs of guilt about lionizing him for an hour by phone, chatting away about sore feet and stunts gone wrong and creme brulee.
You worry that too much media fawning might turn this gentle giant from Mound, Minn., into a big-time celebrity creep.
But nah. Major heartthrobdom does seem inevitable for Sorbo, given the rise of “Hercules” to the top of the syndicated ratings charts in its second season this fall, given all the critical praise for the show’s cult campiness, given Sorbo’s looks. But Kevin just seems too sweet, too self-effacing to ever go Hollywood-sour.
You can tell that from the moment “Hello, you got Kevin here” rings good-naturedly across the line from Auckland, New Zealand, where “Hercules” is filmed 10 months a year.
Sorbo has a date with a real-estate agent as soon as our conversation is over - “Herc” is so successful that he’s eager to buy permanent Auckland digs - yet he’s too Midwestern neighborly not to settle in for a real good trans-Pacific chat, thank you, ma’am.
“I want three bedrooms, not huge,” he says. “I need a porch, a veranda, so I can sit and wave to the neighbors and strum my guitar. I mean, I grew up in a small town, and it’s just a Norman Rockwell, Saturday Evening Post kind of thing.”
Yep, Sorbo is a real down-home star who does things the old-fashioned way - for himself. No celebrity retinue down there in Kiwiland, no personal publicist, no groupies - actually “Hercules” doesn’t even air down there yet.
And Sorbo is single. He does the “Hercules” thing by day, all day, then works out, runs, and sits solo by night, guitarstrumming easy tunes a la hero James Taylor, watching Leno or Letterman on tape.
“Actually I just said ‘no’ to being on ‘The Tonight Show’ … and, oh my gosh, ‘The Tonight Show’ was always a real fantasy for me,” Sorbo, 37, says, almost bashful.
In fact Sorbo was on “The Tonight Show” briefly last fall but got quickly bumped into a back seat for “Brothers McMullen” filmmaker Ed Burns.
“I mean Jay Leno - he just seems like the nicest guy - but I just really want to take some vacation with my high school buddies,” Sorbo says. “Hey, they’re my three closest friends. I’ve known them for 30 years.”
That’s Sorbo - tenaciously loyal just like mythological hunk Hercules. Just like the superhumanly strong half-man, half-god who rescues whole villages from barbarian hordes one day, does yardwork uncomplainingly for his doting mother the next - on the tongue-in-cheek action show that mixes ancient Greek-style kung fu with bizarro monsters, tie-dyed togas and sly ‘90s mentions of bingo, self-actualization and “you are what you eat.”
“When the first movie came out, critics weren’t exactly getting what we were trying to do,” Sorbo says of Herc’s great Greek goof, spawned by the twisted minds of producers Sam Raimi (cult flicks “The Evil Dead,” “Darkman” and “The Quick and the Dead”) and Rob Tapert (new paranormal-spiked CBS series “American Gothic”).
“Herc,” the series, evolved from five syndicated “Action Pack” telefilms starring Sorbo, airing in 1994.
“Now I guess I’m Hercules for an entire generation of people under 20 who were never exposed to him before,” he says. “If you compare this Hercules to the old Hercules films (among them 1959 and 1960 Steve Reeves flexflicks “Hercules” and “Hercules Unchained”), this one’s more affable, more intelligent. He laughs, he stumbles. And he isn’t afraid to make fun of himself.”
Not that Sorbo sees himself as Forever Hercules.
“It’s a great launching pad for my career but I do want to grow beyond this,” says the guy who broke into the TV biz doing Budweiser, Jim Beam and BMW commercials and a couple of failed series pilots.
“Eventually I’d really like to do romantic comedy. My heroes are Harrison Ford and Kevin Kline. Now my manager keeps looking at me and saying ‘You look just like Jesus. You’re Jesus. You’re Jesus.”’
Long-locked Sorbo, of Norwegian lineage and Viking heritage, does look pretty biblical. And although it’s hard to imagine his big frame - 6-foot-3, 215 pounds - stepping lightly through comedic patter, he did just that in a guest stint on the hit CBS sitcom “Cybill” last spring.
But stunts are Sorbo’s biggest rush. They happen often, because someone’s always chasing Herc.
Sorbo does most of his own fight scenes, although “falling down five flights of stairs I leave to the stunt guys.”
Before “Herc’s” first season he studied martial arts with master Douglas Wong (“Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story”), who took him through an accelerated course of his white lotus system, a kind of sword and staff-embellished advanced kung fu.
You wouldn’t think it to watch the pumped-up action in “Hercules,” but Sorbo’s concern is making sure the show’s writers don’t turn Herc into a wimp.
“They’ll have me fighting just one guy one week, after I moved a 100-ton boulder or mowed down 40-50 guys the week before,” he says. “I tell the writers that doesn’t make any sense. I mean there’s got to be an element of danger.”
And how about that chest-baring chamois rag that serves as Hercules’ shirt - on every single episode? After all, former lover/ former enemy Xena (Lucy Lawless), who now has her own spinoff series “Xena: Warrior Princess,” gets a wardrobe brimming with assorted bits of leather, metal and silk.
“I’d love to have some other kind of outfit, but that’s my Superman cape,” Kevin says a bit regretfully. “I’ve got about 20 shirts, all the same, and six pair of woven leather pants.”
Wow. Woven leather trou.
And that deep, sleek, glowing Hercules tan?
“They paint us,” he says. “Actually, I used to be that tan.”
Speaking of former paramour Xena, who’s the strongest one of all?
Here some macho slips by.
“Oh Hercules is definitely stronger,” Sorbo says. “He is half-god, after all. Xena’s a very tough female, a female Bruce Lee - they gave her gymnastic speed - but she is still a mortal woman.”
xxxx PROGRAM TIME “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” airs Sundays at 3 p.m. on Spokane’s KREM-Channel 2.