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‘When I'm with a woman full time, I want to treat her well’: Dourdan

CSI lead, recording musician, ladies’ dream… meet Gary Dourdan

Gary Dourdan seems in a real strop as I arrive at the Motion Bar at Embankment, central London, for my interview.

He's letting rip at his fashion stylist, demanding to know why she's dressed him in a designer suit that's too tight around the waist and too short on the sleeves.

For a moment there's an air of tense embarrassment as the organiser of the publicity shoot blushes and begins to stumble out her words of apology.

But within seconds she's laughing as she sees Dourdan has a huge grin on his face and his hissy fit is nothing more than a joke. It immediately puts to rest any preconceptions that this six-foot, two-inches star of Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) Las Vegas has an inflated ego.

For this, says Dourdan, is typical of the way he behaves in rehearsals on the set of the hit US cop show in which he plays investigator Warwick Brown.

“I'm the practical joker on the set. I crack jokes all the time," he says with a mischievous glint in his stunning green eyes.

“If someone has a close-up I make sure I'm the one to crack them up. The directors get mad as hell but I always try to have fun. You can't go to work for five or six years in the same job and not have fun, life is too short."

Indeed, it only seems like yesterday that CSI launched its unique brand of crime fiction through a hard-hitting TV drama, and Dourdan stepped out as the street-smart, headstrong forensic detective with smouldering good looks.

But it’s a remarkable six years since the popular crime show (which begins a new series tomorrow) began showing on Channel Five.

REVELATION

As he settles into the nightclub's padded seats for our chat, the 39-year-old actor, who grew up in Philadelphia and moved to New York in his teens, gives me the bad news.

He's married. Yes, in the spur of the moment thing, he's tied the knot with a nurse at a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas. The shock revelation is likely to break the hearts of many of his female fans. But dry those tears quickly ladies, as Dourdan's marital status is only an on-screen liaison – thankfully he's still footloose and fancy free.

“When I got the script and they told me ‘you're married now', I said ‘whoa... great' as it came as a big surprise," he says recalling the moment.

“I wasn't even sure how to figure out playing the part of a husband at first but then I quickly grew into it."

The startling twist in the plot is all part of the fall out from last year's shocking CSI finale in which investigator Nick Stokes (George Eads) was kidnapped and nearly killed. Warwick's way of coping with the attack on his co-worker is to seize the moment, or the girl, as the case may be.

His lucky bride is Tina (Meta Golding) a Las Vegas nurse who he met at the end of the last series.

“Being married was something of an art to play," Dourdan admits. “I had never done a romantic scene on the show before because our personal on-screen lives are normally kept in the background. The crew were all stuffed into the room watching the filming to see what I was going to do, because I'm usually seen as the tough guy in the show and they've never seen me being romantic. I had to step to it and play it."

EMBARRASSED

According to Golding, an upcoming actress from Washington DC, Dourdan was “a little embarrassed' at first but soon got into his stride.

“We have this powerful connection," she says. “Since we got married after a short time, our scenes are about the process of getting to know each other."

Dourdan's own real-life marriage to model Roshumba Williams ended after four years in 1994. In 2003 he hit the headlines when he started dating Lisa Snowden (George Clooney’s erstwhile ex-girlfriend).

He says it was a relationship fraught with problems: “In this business it's difficult to have a strong, dedicated relationship with people who are very ambitious and who are moving so fast. It's just good to try to remain friends, and plus she was in one country and I was in another."

Right now Dourdan says a heavy work schedule – he's on set up to 16 hours a day – means he doesn't have time for a ‘lock down relationship'.

“When I'm with a woman full time, I want to treat her well, take her out on dates and cook for her," says the heart-throb who used to be a chef before taking up acting.

He has a seven-year-old daughter Nyla and three-year-old son Lyric from previous relationships. They are the unconditional loves of his life, he says, along with his mother and four sisters who he proudly boasts of being very close to. So close, in fact, that his mum Sandy, a fashion designer, is making some of his clothes for him as part of a new clothing line: Drive It Like It's Stolen.

“My mum and sister are making a range of suits, jeans and shirts for bigger men like myself," he explains.

“What I find with some of the designer suits that I go after is that the jackets fit perfectly but the pants are whack! So with their help we're looking at them fitting more comfortably around the waistline and giving enough leg room in the trousers."

Dourdan can now pick and choose the designer gear that fills his wardrobe but it could nearly have been so different.

During his early years in New York, he went through a rough period, abusing drugs and alcohol and mixing with the wrong crowd. He admits his anger was fuelled by the unsolved murder of his older brother, Daryl, in 1972 who was on holiday in Haiti and who he idolised as a six-year-old.

TYPECAST

“The arts saved me. Just going to arts school, going to theatre programmes helped to clean up my act," he recalls.

Today, Dourdan can look back with pride at a legacy that has helped to open the door for other black actors. He was one of the first to wear dreadlocks in Hollywood, making headlines and winning female fans in his big break as con artist Shazza Zulu in the sitcom A Different World in 1991. Although the parts flowed in – he starred in Alien: Resurrection (1997) and as Malcolm X in the TV drama King Of The World (2000) – they were not always the parts he wanted as he kept being typecast as a pimp or drug dealer. So he cut his locks and looked for new openings.

It didn't pay off immediately. “Nobody in show business could recognise me any more or figure out where I fitted in and my work dried up," he recalls. “So, for the next nine months I indulged in my other passion: music."

He is an accomplished musician playing guitar, bass, drums, piano and sax. His uncle played sax for Sister Sledge and his father was an agent for jazz musicians. Last year Dourdan played guitar on a hard-hitting hip-hop track for the new DMC album, which hits stores this March, Checks, Thugs and Rock n Roll.

This year he's hoping to start work on a new biopic about the Thin Lizzy front man, Phil Lynott. The Irish hard-rock star, best known for his single The Boys Are Back In Town, died in 1986 from drug-related problems. The film is expected to be released in 2007.

Meanwhile he's set to star in the psychological thriller Perfect Stranger alongside Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, playing Cameron, Berry's on-off boyfriend.

But his bread and butter is Warwick Brown in CSI and he says he's still developing the character which he plays as edgy and multi-layered. “It's no good trying to put him [Warwick] in a box because he's constantly changing. It's a wonderful role to play because Warwick's got depth and I'm still discovering him," he says.

APPEAL

“At the beginning I was really surprised at how they were developing my character," he continues.

“Warwick has a gambling habit and, at first I thought some things were really gratuitous and I was concerned about the plot lines they planned for me as a black actor," he discloses.

But he soon begun enjoying the scenes created for the savvy investigator and his role has become intrinsic to CSI's appeal and success.

Even so, he's not complacent. As the only regular black face in CSI (the spinoffs, CSI Miami and CSI New York have introduced other African-American actors) Dourdan says he's pretty vocal about the show featuring “non-traditional” faces.

“This is constantly an issue and I make it my duty to talk to the directors and writers to influence their perceptions and interpretations," he reveals.

“They've been quite good at having a range of different faces and nationalities playing guest parts in the show, but it's definitely time we started to address this multi-national look. We are representing America and this should be reflected in the television show."

From this, it's evident Dourdan remains a conscious black man, despite international fame, and sees his success as a gateway for others.

His life philosophy, he says, is to set a high standard. “Throughout it all I try to be the best I can, to set a good example at what I do so it makes it easier for others coming up behind me."

FACT FILE

Born: Gary Durdin in Dec 11 1966

Graduated: from local performing arts school Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

First Acting Role: Shazza Zulu in A Different World (1991)

Career Highlights: Forensic investigator Warwick Brown in CSI Las Vegas

Published: 01 February 2006
Issue: 1203

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