Articles on Erik

Erik on The Priority (UK TV - thanks to Cein and Jenny for BOTH sending this in!)
Erik on This Morning (UK TV - Thanks to Cein)
From ER to Wings? ER docs fly high (Thanks to Jill)
the Celebrity TV show talks with Erik (Thanks to Rachael for transcribing the whole thing!)
In 2 Film Magazine (Thanks Sarah)
Us Weekly
Us Weekly (printed reply to Article)
Jane (Erik tests Street Flyers)
US TV Guide (Thanks Ashley)
In Style Magazine
Pop Entertainment

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Lisa Riley talks with Erik on Celebrity

In the studio Penny Smith: Now he’s a hunk and one of TV’s biggest heart-throbs, Erik Palladino of ER fame is definitely one of the dishiest doc’s around but who lights his fire? Lisa Riley jetted over to find out.

Cut to VT- Scene’s of Hollywood Short Intro. by Lisa Riley in which she breaks a nail and calls Dr Dave for help. Dr Dave invite her up to his hotel room.

LR knock’s on door
Erik Palladino from inside: Who is it?
LR: It’s Lisa
EP answers door looking very nice in black trousers & a cream sweater
EP: Hey, I’ve been thinking about what you probably need to remedy that
fingernail and I was thinking that a good buzz (holds up champagne bottle)
would probably get rid of that.
LR: Oooh thank you (steps into hotel room)
Clip of ER-7th season
LR: So Dr eh. Do you love playing Dr Dave?
EP: Uh huh, Do I love playing Dr Dave?
LR: Yeah
EP: Yeah I love playing Dr Dave
Clip plays.
LR: So what was it like when you first…
EP: I didn’t realise how big-( pauses to swallow properly)- of a show it
was.
LR: Yeah
EP: Cos I didn’t watch it that much to be honest with you
LR: Uh huh
EP: I wasn’t, Y’know, I didn’t watch it, and I knew that it was big, in the states, but, Y’know, cos my girlfriends English and, uh, so I called her up and I was like -‘Hey y’know, I got the show ER and I don’t know if you guys get it in England, do you get it?’ and she was like ‘YEAH’.
LR: We love it in England
Clip plays.
LR: So some people don’t like Dr Dave cos he’s a bit quirky.
EP:I think that if Dr Dave brought people back to his hotel room and fed them strawberries.
LR: Giggle - Can I work for Celebrity more often?!
EP: And Champagne (laugh). People wouldn’t say that about him would they? No.
LR: No
Clip plays.
LR: Now my real favourite thing about you is that you’ve got a really nice northern girlfriend.
EP: I have a northern girlfriend from er, Bradford, yes, Sarah-Jane Potts
LR: Sarah-Jane Potts, both of you living out here together must be a real dream come true for you.
EP: She really didn’t want to leave at first, y’know, it was kinda, she was apprehensive towards it just like I was when I first came out from New York but things have definitely worked out. Surprisingly well.
LR: One thing you won’t even know is that when I was 14 and your gorgeous Sarah-Jane was 14 we used to go to every single Northern part together, it was mental.
EP: I did not know that.
LR: Yeah every audition
EP: So you knew her?
LR: Yeah
EP: Was she nice?
LR: She’s gorgeous we loved her.
EP: I could give her a call. Wait a sec
Dials phone
EP: Sarah-Jane? Hi, I’m currently like, er, like shooting this thing for English television and Lisa here says she knows you, so I just - he he - let me put you on the phone with her.
Passes phone over
LR: Sarah-Jane? Hello, are you all right darlin’? Your boyfriends being an absolute diamond. Are you guy’s gonna get married? - Screams
EP: What did she say?
LR: She said ‘I think so’.
Erik bursts out laughing
LR: Aww that’s so nice- (to Erik) She say’s you’ve got to get down on one knee and ask her.
EP: Oh OK.
LR: In a real northern accent
EP: If I drink any more champagne I’ll get down on 2 knee’s and ask her.
Clip plays.
LR: That was lovely Erik, cheers it was really lovely
EP: OK, thank you

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From 'In 2 Film'

Reactions to the scene where Tyler ( McConaughey ) punches Mazzola ( Erik Palladino ) have changed dramatically. During one screening that we held, the audience cheered at that moment, whereas previously there was no cheer.

The difference is that Erik Palladino is now on a TV show in the United States as a geeky character, and people are bringing that to the film. I said to him, 'Hey Erik you're getting a big cheer when Matthew punches you.' And he just looked so crushed. ' Come on man, I'm bringing my parents to the premiere. If they cheer when i get punched in the nose, my father ( he's from Brooklyn ) will stand up and start yelling at people."

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From 'Us Weekly'

"I like being naked," says Erik Palladino, 32, of his preferred mode of taking to water. "I like running around naked. I like the freedom of it." Palladino, who plays the equally self-confident Dr. Dave Malucci on NBC's ER and was in u-571, grew up in Yonkers, New York, the son of a heating contractor and a schoolteacher. Inspired by Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, he majored in theater at Marymount Manhattan College. A VJ gig on MTV and a load of TV roles came before ER called. This summer Palladino will be filming Finder's Fee with James Earl Jones in Vancouver. Back home in Hollywood, he has expanded his skinny-dipping opportunities with the purchase of a new house and pool. "My next-door neighbors can see [me] when they're on their upstairs patio," he says, "but I don't mind if they get a quick glimpse."

[note from Vanessa: the picture from this article can be seen in the gallary section]

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My printed letter to the Editor in 'Us Weekly'

When I saw Erik Palladnio on the set of his new movie he was very friendly and took the time to sign his picture in Us Weekly ["The Shore Things"]. Thank you for featuring such a truly down-to-earth -- not to mention fabulous looking -- celebrity in your pages.

Vanessa Miller

Vancouver, British Columbia

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From the September 2000 issue of 'Jane'

Athletic Guinea Pig - Erik Palladino of ER sucks at sneaker-skating.

I'm cautiously looking out of the window of the photographer's studio in New York City. I'm gonna test Street Flyers, a retractable-wheel in-line skate/street shoe combo on the busy streets below. Right now, I am wobbling back and forth indoors. I'm nervous because if I can't get a flow going in here, on the street there's gonna be way less flow. And I don't even have wrist guards. Something tells me I might fall and break my ass, and then I'd be out of a job. So I'm freaking.

As shoes, these are great. Noah Wyle, my ER pal, and I are always ripping on each other because he's 6 foot 1 and I'm 6 feet, but I think I'd have the height advantage on him in these because the soles are so big. I feel like Gene Simmons of KISS.

As skates, they give me okay momentum, but the tiny wheels seem awkward -- there are only two per shoe. The sole sometimes grinds on the ground when I turn to sharply. But maybe it's just 'cause I suck at it. They remind me of the strap-on metal skates you had as a kid, that when you pushed you didn't get very far. But they're comfortable. The coolest part is popping the wheels back into the shoe. It takes two seconds. After a while, I start to draw a crowd, but not because I'm wowing anyone. A bike messanger stops and says, "Who came up with that idea, Inspector Gadget?"

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From TV Guide (US Edition)

(Thank you to Ashley to transcribing the article and sending it me.)

 "Tough Stuff"

 Erik Palladino had a reputation for scene making long before he was wreaking havoc as Dr. Dave Malucci on ER (NBC, Thursdays, 10 P.M./ET). One of his more infamous moments occurred in this funky Hollywood restaurant, which he had selected for lunch.

"I had a table right there, in that section," Palladino says, pointing toward a corner. The actor was 28 at the time and new to Los Angeles, having just moved from New York to take a part in the 1996 Fox comedy Love and Marriage. "There was this guy standing in the way," he says, his face stretching into a deep-dimpled grin. "I went to get past him, and he said, 'Say excuse me' And I went, 'OK, excuse me.' And he said, 'Now go back and do it again, model boy.'"

Model boy? The man may as well have pulled the pin on a hand grenade. Palladino, now 32, is a self-described "hothead" of Italian and American descent. He laughs. "This poor guy. The next minute I had him on top of the register," he recalls. "I was just pounding him on top of his head. I felt like I did mankind a service. I swear to God, that's how I felt."

So Gandhi he's not. But at least Palladino is flexing his muscles in a more productive way these days. Not only is he on television's top-rated show, he also stars with That '70s Show's Danny Masterson as a heavy-metal fan-more specifically, of the band AC/DC-trapped at a disco in Strange Frequency, VH1's new anthology TV-movie. Last summer he filmed "Finder's Fee," a feature about a man who finds a wallet containing a winning lottery ticket. (Written and directed by Survivor host Jeff Probst, the film is currently in postproduction.)

Palladino did not seem destined for this kind of success. The youngest child of Queenie, a junior high school teacher, and Peter, a heating contractor, Palladino grew up in Yonkers, New York, and says he preferred girls to books. "I was the worst student in my family," he says. "My grades sucked." His brother Todd, 37, who works with their dad, agrees that Palladino was more social that scholarly. "In the neighborhood, everybody knew Erik. He was always a personality," he says.

The word trouble became attached to that personality. Says Todd. "He went through a tough period where he got into a lot of fights." At 17, he was arrested after a fight and sentenced to a year's probation. Says Palladino: "It was a wake-up call as far as I had to channel my energy more. I liked getting into fights. It was exciting. It was exciting because it was another form of theater. And I didn't mind getting hit. It was weird." During his teenage years, Palladino saw Robert De Niro play boxing champ Jake La Motta in the 1980 Martin Scorsese film "Raging Bull"and was so inspired, he joined the Children's Repertory Company in New Rochelle at age 14.

But Palladino also wanted to become a performer to meet girls. In 1986, graduating from the all-boy Catholic Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York, he enrolled in the almost all-female Marymount Manhattan College (the theater departments was coed). "The first year, the girls broke me down," he says. "They so blew me off. 'Who is this guy in tight jeans and long hair?' The first year was rough but the second, third and fourth were the best of my life. The biggest reason I did very well there [with girls] was my availability."

Palladino earned a bachelor's degree in theater in 1991. He then switched gears, singing with his brother Chris's Band, No Happy Faces. "If there band had stayed together, we would have gotten signed," he says. He pursued acting full-time when the band broke up, but nothing clicked. Love and Marriage lasted only two episodes. He quit UPN's DiResta (1998-99) before the first season ended. "I was on the lowest-rated sitcom in the history of television, and then my career flipped," he says.

In the summer of 1999, Palldino landed a meaty part as a sailor in the feature film "U-571," about a World War II submarine mission. During a break in the film's production in Italy, he attended a film festival in Sweden and met British actress Sarah-Jane Potts. Potts, who appears on Felicity in a recurring role as the heroine's new roommate, says she spied Palladino in a bar "wearing this beautiful long Prada coat and looking all suave and sophisticated." But she was too shy to approach him: "I got within two inches and lost my cool. So I pretended to bump into him to get his attention."

That night led to a long-distance romance. In December of '99, Potts moved to L.A. to be with Palladino. The couple bought a house in the Hollywood Hills. "I came to be with Erik to see if we have a future together," Potts says.

It seems that they do. "I want to get married," Palladino says, though he has yet to pop the question. Palladino's good friend Anthony Dension (who played his father on Love and Marriage) says he isn't surprised that Palladino is looking to settle down. "Erik has a lot of traditional values. He comes from a food family," Dension says.

And while viewers don't know what kind of family ER's Dr. Dave comes from, his sensibility does seem a bit skewed. This season, he picked up a plastic bag containing a patient's hand and said, "Hope that wasn't your shootin' hand, bro." Last season, he called a head trauma victim a "veggie burger." Palladino says he worries that viewers won't like him because of Dr. Dave: "He's sarcastic but not mean-spirited," he says. He would like Dr. Dave to become more sensitive. And he has pledged to soften up in real life, too. When asked if he is still a brawler (his most recent fight was in a bar in Malta while making "U-571"), he shrugs. "What do I have to be mad about?" he says. Indeed.

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Livin' At the Love Shack

His outragousness on ER may cause mild cardiac arrest among the politically correct crowd, but at home with actress Sarah-Jane Potts, Erik Palladino's own heart beats steady and true

What's the point of bungee-jumping or parachuting if you're not just a little bit afraid of losing your life? "If I'm really afraid of something, I have to do it," says Erik Palladino, 32, who has tried both of these stomach-clenching activities, despite mild acrophobia, and who's currently nursing a "messed-up tailbone" from a snowboarding accident on New Year's Day. "I got carted off the mountain on a backboard -- great way to start the new year, huh?" he asks, his buff 6-foot frame sprawled out on his living room sofa. "I definitly dig some thing that gets a blood rush going. I'm an adrenaline junkie."

These days the guy who plays hotheaded Dr. Dave Mallucci [In Style, has incorrectly spelled Malucci here so their mistake not mine -V.] the "bad boy of ER," as he puts it, is mainly experiancing a different kind of rush: Two years ago, while on break from filming U-571, Palladino met British actress Sarah-Jane Potts at a Swedish film festival. They clicked instantly, which the die-hard ladies man admits was "not what I wanted -- I wasn't looking for a girlfriend." After a long distance romance that included a weekend trip to Taormina, Sicily, says Palladino, "I knew I was in love. Sarah-Jane brings out things in me I never knew existed." In December 1999 Potts set aside her burgeoning British TV and film career to move from London into Palladino's L.A. apartment. "Sometimes," says Erik, "we'll be lying down and I'll look over at her, and I'll just think, God, I love her so much."

Last spring the two moved into a two-story, four-bedroom house that Palladino, who comes from a middle-class family in Yonkers, N.Y. had diligently saved for. They're redoing the 1924 stucco home themselves, filling it with antique Persian rugs and an array of Spanish-, Asian- and Indian-inspired reproductions. "We didn't have some Hollywood person come in and help," Palladino says proudly. So pleased is he with the results, says Potts, that "sometimes he'll just stand at the top of the stairs and yell out, 'I love this house!' " In keeping with it's owner's natural exuberance, the place is a free-for-all of color, painted in muted sea green, yellow, baby blue and lavender -- and a rich burgundy in the TV room, where Erik cranks his surround-sound system up to 10 for his weekly pizza night with friends. Explains Potts, "We wanted every room to have a different vibe," from the Mission-style dining room with its gigantic tresle table to the "Tunisian-esque" downstairs guest bedroom with its mirror-encrusted bedspreads and "chill-out" throw pillows. Also scattered about the house are unabashedly romantic collages that Potts, 24, now a regular on Felicity, has contructed out of photos, tissue paper, and beads. One in the kitchen reads: "I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart."

As the object of her affection gently rubs her leg, Potts takes a seat next to the baby grand piano she surprised him with last Christmas -- "the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me," Palladino says. Though he has long played by ear, Palladino has just begun taking lessons. "Sarah-Jane loves Judy Garland," he says, "and she made me promise to learn 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' for her." Sarah-Jane then tells a secret he might prefer left unsaid. "He's the kindest man, with the biggest heart," she says, sneaking a peck on Erik's cheek.

When he was younger, Palladino was more of a fighter than a lover. The third of three sons of an Armenian-American schoolteacher, he confesses to having been a "horrible student" at his Catholic boys school, where his main interests were John Belushi, Chevy Chase - and street fighting. "I did very well," he says, not without a little pride. "This Armenian survival insinct came out when I had this edge over anybody I fought, like I knew I was not gonna lose. That edge took me over to acting." (Today, when not being "a lazy bastard" he channels his agressions into boxing workouts and weekly softball games.)

Palladion got the acting bug when, at 13, his parents took him to see Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. "I saw the light," he says. "I'd never seen anything so raw and real." He became obsessed with acting, secretly joining a children's repertory company in New Rochelle at 13 and eventually enrolling in New York's Marymount Manhattan College to hone his theatrical skills. ("The all-girls thing was an incentive too," he says, laughing.) AFter graduating he landed gigs on Comedy Central's Short Attention Span Theatre and as an MTV veejay. He thought his band, Mute [This is the first time I've heard Erik's old band been called anything other than 'No Happy Faces' so I don't know what that's all about. -V.] --always a breath away from a record deal would be the thing that really launched his career. But in 1996 he gave up his rock-star dream and cut his shoulder-length hair-- and Hollywood noticed. He quickly landed stints on Murphey Brown and the short-lived sitcom DiResta and a roll opposite Matthew McConaughey in U-571 before hitting the jackpot last season, when TV's top drama snagged him to play the no-holds-barred Mallucci [again, spelled wrong by the magazine, not me. -V.] (a character so tactless he once called a comotose patient a "veggie burger").

Like his TV alter ego, "Erik is a jokester," says his co-star and friend Goran Visnjic. "He's always got that crazy smile, that chain of white teeth going. Sometimes you're like, 'Can you just calm down for a second?' " Visnjic and Palladino have been terrorizing the ER set with Razor scooters, but the horseplay stops when the camera rolls. "He prepares for a scene 150 percent," says Visnjic. For his part, Palladino who just completed a role opposite James Earl Jones in the psychological drama Finder's Fee, says, "I know how fortunate I am to be where I am today." But they guy Visnjic calls "restless" would like to write and direct one day and wishes his television role had "more dimensions sometimes." To that end, he says, "I'll stay with the show as long as I'm creativly content. But I have no trouble at all throwing away anything if I'm not happy."

At this sunny, carefree moment, that is hardly a concern. "Man, I don't need t o get any richer 'cause this is all I need," says Palladino. He's plunked down in the backyard watching his mutts, Daisy and Weed, wrestle; nearby are the Jacuzzi and the swimming pool that the frugal actor was sure he wouldn't be able to afford but into which he now loves to cannonball --nude! "I've got my own backyard now and I can tan my butt if I want to!" he declares. For the onetime punk, it's all that heaven allows. "I've always loved being an underdog" he notes with a wry grin, "but how much of an underdog can I be with all this?

 

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From ER to Wings? ER docs fly high [thanks to Jill for sending this, gem]

Question: What's more fun than a defibrillator and just as effective?

Answer: A fighter plane hurtling 400 mph--upside down.Taking a break from double shifts at County General Hospital, ER's resident hunks Goran Visnjic (Dr. Luka Kovac) and Erik Palladino (Dr. David Malucci) flew heart-pounding missions on Feb. 24 with the Navy's elite flight-demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels, to help boost recruitment. After undergoing cursory physical exams and listening to a safety brief, Visnjic and Palladino--riding with seasoned pilots--found themselves strapped in the cockpits of F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets during respective hour-long exhibiton flights. The experience, including hairpin turns and busting through G-forces, "was one of the best things I did in my life," raves Visnjic, 28, a former para-trooper in the Croatian army. "If they have a list for the space shuttle, I'll be the first one."

Palladino's flight was a bit more turbulent. "I got knocked out!" says the actor, 32, who briefly lost consciousness during a jolting G-force hit. "My character is supposed to be tough--I can't be the fighter plane wuss!"

 

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Erik on This Morning (a UK TV show)

 Following is a transcription of Erik Palladino's appearance on 'This Morning' presented by Richard & Judy. (I missed a few bits where all three were talking at once, but not much.)

Richard "A live interview coming up with the funky, feisty Dr. Dave Malucci. But here's a great clip from his first series showing that as a doctor, he really does know how to use his head."

(Showed the clip from 'Witch Hunt' where Dave is confronting the father of a patient and ends up head-butting him. And then goes back to the studio where Erik has joined Richard and Judy on the couch - he's wearing a light blue, short sleeved shirt, half unbuttoned, and a pair of beige trousers)

R. "Erik Palladino. That's an interesting name, Erik, which is kind of Norse, and Palladino."

E. "I think my Mom was very specific in regards to making sure her sons didn't have clichéd Italian first names, because we already had the last name 'Palladino'."

R. "You didn't want 'Beppe'."

E. "My brother's names, Christian and Todd. She didn't want to go with 'Vinnie Palladino, or 'Joey Palladino'."

R. "Was that to get you off to a good start in the States?"

E. "I don't know why she did it. I'm half Armenian...and half Italian."

J. "We love ER, and so many people in this country do love it. It's something that our own home grown medical series have never quite gotten there."

J. "It is the most intensive experience to watch. It must be even more intensive to make."

E. "It's a real intensive shoot. It's unlike any other acting job I'd ever had before. When we shoot six page scenes in one take, you know. It's more along the lines of theatre almost, you know. Cause they do these one-er's, we call'em one-er's where the camera just follows you the whole time.

J. "The pressure on you must be fantastic."

E. (grins) "Especially if you're at the end."

J. "And everyone else has got it right."

E. "And if you've got like one line at the end...and you screw it up a bit. You're going like 'uh-oh."

R. (mock sarcasm) "Whoppee, thanks Erik."

E. "Exactly. Everyone kinda gives you the dirtiest looks."

R. "Tell us about that scene there. You were saying that there was a lot more going on there than we might know."

E. "Yeah, that scene itself, it was interesting. We had to shoot it so many different angles to get the head butt perfectly. And um, the thing about it that was really rough on me, was that actor that I was working with...his breath was soooo bad."

(laughter from all three)

E. "And it was just pissing me off, more and more. Cause not only was his breath bad, but every time he grabbed me, he like grabbed my skin. And I was just getting just aggro on him, by the end of it I was 'alright man, I'm really gonna head butt this guy'."

J. "I hope he's in the States and not watching this."

E. "I hope so too. I went up to the make-up artist in between takes, and went like 'offer us a breath mint...offer *all* of us a communal breath mint'. She comes up to us and she goes 'you want a breath mint Erik?' and I'm like 'oh yeah, I'll have one'." (very innocent looking expression on his face.)

E. "I have to do this, can I do this? I have to do a shout out. To everyone I know in the UK, can I do it?"

R. & J. "Yeah, fine, okay."

E. "I wanna do my UK connections. I want to say hello to my lovely girlfriend who's from Bradford, Sarah-Jane."

E. "And her parents in Bradford, Allan and Sarah, hey." (Waves to the camera.)

(aside) "God I'm gonna be so in with the parents."

(back to the camera) "And one of the best young actors in England, up and coming, Angelique Potts." (then he called out a whole list of names)

J. "And they're all here?"

E. "Well not all *here*, but in the UK."

R. "So, your girlfriend in Bradford? How did that happen?

E. "We met in Gothenburg, Sweden at a film festival when I was doing the film U-571 in Rome. And I went to Sweden, I had a film playing there, and she went to Sweden, she had a film playing there."

J. "Oh, she's an actress, like you."

E. "She's an actress. And uh, we fell in love and subsequently, like three months later, we just talked on the phone for about two to three months. She flew to Malta to visit me, and then we went to Scicily."

R. "How romantic."

E. "We fell in love."R. "So how long have you been an item for?"

E. "Two years now. She lives with me in Los Angeles. She was on a show called Felicity. She came to America and got a show called Felicity."

R. "I can't believe you've flown America and the Atlantic just to be sitting here. What are you actually doing here in England?"

E. "Well actually, visiting her family and friends."

R. "Oh, a social visit as well?"

E. "And I said I'd do like one or two shows while I was here...the best ones."

R. "The best ones obviously. Dr. Greene was on the last time he was here, funnily enough."

E. "Was he a good interview?"

R. "Well, he actually was quite polite and he didn't actually hog the camera and talk about all his friends who were watching. He didn't do that."

E. "Yeah, well he's more of a gentleman."

R. "Well that's what I was thinking, but I wouldn't have said that obviously."

J. "Let's see another clip, because the guy with the bad breath..."

R. "He's now history."

J. "He's now history, but you are treating his son."

E. "Yes."

J. "The one he says he likes to um..."

E. "He's kind of...the father is kind of abusive towards his son. And the son, actually in this clip that you're probably about to see is, he is afraid that his father is going to find out that he's been doing this illegal wrestling thing."

R. "Well actually that's not what we see in this clip."

E. "Oh no?"

R. "What we see is actually why he's in hospital."

E. "Really?"

(The show the clip from 'Witch Hunt' where Dave is stitching up the 'wrestler kid' who cut himself. Ending with Dave's 'Frankenstein' comment.)

R. "He's a great character, isn't he?"

J. "He's quite like you. The character seems like you. Like the way that you come over."

E. "He's got that energy, I would think that...the only thing about him...he's a little bit more insensitive in certain situations."

R. "Towards other people."

E. "I think he's more 'detatched' than I am."

R. "Well, what a break for you and you really made it your own as well and many congratulations."

E. "Thank you."

R. "You're a very important part of something that's made people so happy. I mean they're all mad for you...I mean absolutely mad for you."

J. "And you're staying with the next series, when it starts filming?"

E. "I am yeah."

(the scream of delight at this point comes from Ceindreadh and all the other Dave fans watching )

J. "Good. Look forward to it."

E. "It was very nice meeting you both." (Shakes hands with both Richard and Judy)

R. "Great to meet you."

E. "Hope we'll do it next year."

R. "I'm not going to say how old Erik is, but he looks a lot younger than he is."

E. "Yeah, my birthday's next week."

R. "Is it?"

E. "May tenth."

R. "Happy Birthday."

E. "Thanks."

J. "May tenth, you're a Taurus."

R. "Mine's three days after yours."

E. "Yeah, I'm a Taurus."

J. "Like us."

E. "Yeah? What are you?"

J. "May sixteenth."

R. "May thirteenth."

E. "Really? All of us, really?"

R. "Yeah."

E. "I wondered why it worked so well." (laughs)

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Ruby Comer speaks with Erik Palladino

My locks need to be trimmed so I swing to my neighborhood salon, Shorty’s Barber Shop, because the first Wednesday of each month they donate their day’s salary to one of my favorite AIDS organizations, LA Shanti. As my hair is foiled in bleach and baked under the dryer, I feel this tap on my shoulder. It’s Erik Palladino, the actor who plays Dr. Dave Malucci on the super hit TV series, ER.

This handsome devil came into my line of sight when he was a vee-jay on MTV. Since then, his puss has graced the small screen on such shows as Murphy Brown, DiResta, Party of Five, and the features Can’t Hardly Wait and U-571. For years Erik maintained long hair ("down to my nipples!") and sang in the alternative rock band No Happy Faces along with his brother. Today however, he is getting a 70s shag cut. We chew the fat at the blow dryers.

Didn’t I read that you recently attended an AIDS benefit?

Yes. I’ve gone to many charity events – not just AIDS ones.

And I think I read that you’ve lost someone from AIDS?

Michael Jamison, my acting coach in college, died in ’89. I was very close to him.

What are your thoughts on death?

I have a strong faith that there is a God and an afterlife. I truly believe that when people die they go to a place that is better than here. When death comes, it is a beautiful thing.

Nice thought, Erik.

(He glances off) Having a belief system in a higher power is important. YOU are a higher power but a belief in something a little bigger than self.

Do you use condoms?

I’ve lived with the same girl for a year and a half so...

Can I mention her name?

Sure. Her name is Sarah Jane Potts. She played Molly on TV’s Felicity.

So do you still use condoms in a relationship?

We try to -- but sometimes we don’t. We both have had AIDS test, and get tested regularly.

Do you think there should be condom distribution in schools?

Yeah, why not? Teens are going to have sex anyway, so let’s try to protect them. Education is so important.

That’s a mouthful you just said. Yes, education.

AIDS needs to be discussed. And it seems like we’ve fallen into a little bit of a lull. The AIDS epidemic still needs to be on the front burner. And it seems like the numbers are getting higher. Are they?

Sadly they are, Erik. The myth now that we have cocktails is that AIDS is over.

The sooner that we get AIDS back out there -- like discussions on shows Politically Incorrect and Nightline -- the more attention will be brought to it. And the more attention that is brought to it, the more educated people will be.

Nicely put. Now, Erik, I read where you like being naked. Are you a nudist, an exhibitionist or both?

A pu pu platter of both.

Oh, I see. And where can I catch you in the buff?

I like being nude in my backyard in the pool.

I wish I was your neighbor!

Come on over for a dip.

You name the night. Can I bring anything?

Just your smile, Ruby.

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