Alan Dale may play the gruff,
uncompromising Newport Beach real-estate developer Caleb Nichol
on the hit Fox Thursday-night drama ''The O.C.,'' but in real life,
he's an affable Kiwi from Dunedin, New Zealand.
Oddly enough, the last time he
played a man named Caleb was in the 1999 TV movie ''First Daughter,''
which shot in Australia (and also starred Dominic Purcell, who went
on to star in Fox's ''John Doe'').
'I made that in Sydney,''
Dale recalls, ''and that's the thing that launched me here
(in America). It premiered here, and they brought me across
for the launch.''
Before long, the 6-foot-2 Dale was playing
authority figures all over the place, from a Cabinet member
on NBC's ''The West Wing'' to the vice president on ''24.''
''I did stage a coup on '24,''' Dale says. ''I was president
for a couple of hours.''
Caleb Nichol is the
grandfather of Newport teen Seth Cohen (Adam Brody), who shares
his home with mom Kirsten (Kelly Rowan), Caleb's daughter and business
partner, and dad Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher), an idealistic lawyer.
Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), whom Sandy pulled out of juvie and lives
in the Cohens' pool house, is like a brother to Seth. Off and on,
Ryan dates Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton), whose mother, Julie (Melinda
Clarke), just married Caleb. Got it?
''The thing that's lovely about this character,''
Dale says, ''is that there's so much to do with him. His relationships
are so complicated, and once the marriage happened, everyone was
related in the show. That means he's got all these people to relate
to, and he relates so badly with everyone. There's so much food
for the writers.''
Caleb's shady business dealings
have gotten him in legal hot water, which forges an unlikely (and
uneasy) alliance between him and Sandy. It's an open question, though,
just how far Caleb would go. We know he's not above bribery and
coercion, but what about murder?
''Is
that what you want?'' Dale says. ''I'll tell them. I'll speak to Josh
(series creator Josh Schwartz). I'll say, 'We need to plumb the depths
of this character, and we're thinking of killing someone and burying
them in a shallow grave.' There are insinuations of that type of thing,
but it remains to be seen whether it comes up or not.
''We
don't know that he's killed anybody yet. That's probably a line he
hasn't crossed. But I don't know that he hasn't crossed it, either,
because it hasn't come up or because he wouldn't cross it. There's
a chance he hasn't gotten to the stage when he needed to.''
Dale
sees a psychological link between Caleb and hard-knock Ryan, who left
behind a potential life of crime in Chino to take up residence at
the beach with his lawyer's family.
''Caleb's just hard,'' Dale says. ''I actually think,
and this is just me talking, I think he started off much like Ryan.
It took him a lot of being pretty tough to get here, so that's the
way he stays.''
Asked what he's like to see in Caleb's future, Dale
says, ''I'd just like him to continue to be deeply involved with
everyone's lives, causing trouble, because it makes it fun. I don't
want him to go too far, though, because I don't want him to leave
the show. If he kills somebody... that's the problem. We've already
got Ryan's brother in jail, so we probably don't need more people
in jail.
''Although, it looks like I might be going to jail
over the... um, I don't know if it's come out yet. I might be telling
you something I shouldn't tell you. He gets into a bit of trouble
with the company and things... that's why I was saying that, then
I realized I shouldn't be saying it. I shouldn't tell you any more,
because you'll print it, and I'll get in trouble, and the boss will
come over.''
