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TV Guide
March 1-7, 2003 The Eyes Have It Those piercing baby blues are only part of the reason that Neal McDonough is the most arresting actor on Boomtown Back in 1990, everyone in the Cape Cod town of Hyannis, Massachusetts, knew that hometown boy Neal McDonough would be making his feature film debut in the thriller, "Darkman". The mighty McDonough publicity machine - OK, Neal's older brother, Bob - had been banging the drum for weeks. On Bob's van a sign read: 'DARKMAN' STARRING NEAL MCDONOUGH AS DOCKWORKER #2. What Bob's mini-billboard didn't mention was that Dockworker #2 utters a single line and then gets sprayed by bullets about 30 seconds into the movie. "About 50 of us got up right after I got killed and went to the local pub," McDonough says. "It was great!" These days, the Neal McDonough Fan Club's meetings must take place Sunday evenings. As Deputy District Attorney David McNorris on NBC's innovative cop drama Boomtown, McDonough dominates every scene he's in. By turns, McNorris is a brainy lawyer, a ruthless schemer, a philandering drunk and a man of the people. Judging from the episode McDonough is rehearsing this day on the Boomtown set, McNorris must again be flirting with disaster. Confronted by Det. Joel Stevens (Donnie Wahlberg) about a forgotten court date, McNorris goes nose to nose with him, so drunk that he wants to settle their differences with a fistfight. "Neal's a competitive actor, but he's not malicious," Wahlberg says of his costar's theatrical style. "His mind-set is that everyone is fighting to get that flag and there's only room for one of us." McDonough has a knack for portraying men who share his game-on mentality: Tom Cruise's crime-fighting sidekick in "Minority Report" or Buck in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. Still, Boomtown creator Graham Yost (Band of Brothers) didn't envision McDonough as the deputy D.A., a role he had originally written with Benjamin Bratt in mind. But McDonough, 37, landed the part with a bravura audition for NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker. Says Yost: "Neal just came in, did the scene, then walked out. Jeff just looked at us and said, 'Start shooting'." Once the character was rewritten, McDonough added his own touches, like the Billy Idol hair. But the sci-fi eyes - opaque azure beams - are the real thing. "We always say our mother was part husky," says the youngest of Frank and the late Kitty McDonough's six children. Band of Brothers brought McDonough more than just the connection to Yost. After his first day on location, the 6-foot-tall actor was at a London pub when he spotted 6-foot-3 Ruve Robertson, a personal assistant from South Africa. His pickup line? "I said, 'You're tall.' And my buddies said, 'You are such a loser.' But it's three years later, and now she's going to marry me." Does Robertson mind that her tough guy is playing one of TV's flashiest heels? "She'll say, 'Can't you just be Mel Bigson in "Braveheart"?' " McDonough admits. His reply: "Honey, I'd love to be Mel Gibson, but I have to do a few more Boomtowns to get to "Braveheart".' " 
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