BlackBook Magazine

On ABC's hit drama "Brothers & Sisters," the Walkers run around like a Robert Altman skit in double-time. For this interview, Dave Annable slows pace to discuss sex, drugs, and Sally Field.

By Ariel Vered

Dave Annable isn’t a drug addict, he just plays one on TV. He’s never been in the service either. Still, he’s done an incredible job this season of convincing viewers that he is both as Justin Walker on ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters.” It’s all pretty heavy stuff for a self-proclaimed clown (and one of People magazine’s “Sexiest Men Alive"). Even on the phone, we had an overwhelming urge to wear taffeta and get stood up by our prom date. Different story. Below, we talk to Annable about the Walkers, letting himself go, and living the dream.

BLACKBOOK: So, I was trying to think of a compliment that I could give you to break the ice. This is what I came up with: you made me cry.

Dave Annable: I made you cry?

BB: I was watching this past episode, the intervention one. [Justin’s family holds an intervention because he’s taking drugs again.]

DA: Yeah, that was a heavy episode. It was written really well and, you know, anytime you put those actors in a room together, it’s pretty great. So it was fun and it came out great, but the only problem is I fell asleep watching it.

BB: I watched it twice. Once as a viewer, and once for research.

DA: Well, there you go. Chalk it up as research. Every time I went to a bar, that’s what I was doing. I was chalking it up as research.

BB: Has this troubled role been daunting for you?

DA: It’s not like I’m in acting class and I’m playing drunk and high and stuff. The first time I’m playing it, I’m playing it across from Sally Field. It’s a little intimidating.

BB: It’s a great cast. Pretty major league.

DA: All of a sudden, I’m playing for the Yankees. Sally Field’s in it? Calista Flockhart? Rachel Griffiths? You go down the list and you’re like, Jesus, it’s an all-star team.

BB: And you’re like, “How did I get here?”

DA: Like that hasn’t hit me more than a million times. Like, “What the fuck am I doing here? Couldn’t they have gotten James Franco to play the guy?” I’ve been given this golden ticket. I want to stake my claim.

BB: You’re showing that war vets aren’t just old guys.

DA: I hear vets, I think old people. I think World War II. I think Vietnam vets. I don’t think of 19- and 20-year-old kids who have done two tours. That’s why I take it as such a responsibility to play Justin, to tell this story of what it’s like for these guys when they do come home. It wasn’t necessarily so much about what happened over there, but how the relationships with their families were affected. And that’s what our show is about.

BB: The show is a good mix of serious plotlines, peppered with lighthearted moments.

DA: You don’t want to just sit there and just see Debbie Downer stuff the entire time. You want to be able to laugh with these characters and watch them enjoy themselves and have fun. We’ve found our groove in terms of using both.

BB: I saw you and your co-star Balthazar Getty on “The View” once. You definitely have your comedy shtick down.

DA: Our comedy shtick is they pick on me and I cry like a little girl. More or less I’m the target of all the jokes, but at least I can laugh at myself.

BB: I was looking at some pictures of you online—

DA: Oh god.

BB: —from 2005, around when you were on “Reunion.” You looked so clean-cut back then.

DA: There are some pictures floating around that are just horrifying. I prefer a little scruff because I don’t want to look, you know, nine. As much as it can, it makes me feel manlier. My character has got a little darkness. He’s got something going on. And I guess it’s in the beard.

BB: Having grown up on the East Coast, how are you dealing with Hollywood?

DA: The glare of Hollywood is very interesting. I grew up in a small town in upstate New York and coming out here and the parties and being at a bar and seeing Paris Hilton right next to you, it’s bizarre. I have to pinch myself often just to be like, “Where am I?”

BB: Any great star encounters?

DA: I was on a plane with Bo Derek and John Corbett, and Bo came up and was like, “I love you on the show.” And I was like, “No fucking way this is happening.”

BB: Do you prefer TV work, or are you working towards the big screen?

DA: I wouldn’t trade this for the world. Until the show ends, whenever that may be, this is my priority. I’d love to do movies on my breaks and eventually do some good work in film, but I don’t like to look too far ahead. I’m sort of living in the now, and the now kind of rocks. We always say, LTD: Living The Dream. I always say, I don’t know what I did in my last life, but it must’ve been terrible for me to deserve this.