Interview SFGate

Actor Garret Dillahunt became known as a sitcom guy when he was starting out. He acted in so many pilots that he had trouble getting work in dramas. Then he became the drama guy, breaking through in such things as "Deadwood" (playing two very different dark characters in successive seasons), "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "Winter's Bone." Then he won the role of ditzy patriarch Burt Chance on the sitcom "Raising Hope" - and he's back to being that comedy guy again.

"People's memories are so short," Dillahunt, 48, says during a phone call. "I went in for a meeting recently and the director was like, 'I like him very much. Can he do anything besides comedy?' And you're like, '... OK, send him the tape.' It's just pointless to worry about it almost, and I sort of enjoy the challenge of it. 'Yeah, yeah, tell him I can do it.' "

The actor's latest, "Any Day Now," Travis Fine's award-winning indie drama, affords Dillahunt another opportunity to display his range. He plays Paul, a lawyer in the Los Angeles district attorney's office in the 1970s, a shy, gay man just beginning to edge his way out of the closet. It's love at first sight when he meets drag performer Rudy (Alan Cumming) in a West Hollywood bar, but the relationship is soon complicated when they take in Marco (newcomer Isaac Leyva), a teenager with Down syndrome. A tight family bond forms only to be challenged by a legal system that does not recognize the legitimacy of Paul and Rudy's partnership.

Arcane prejudice

"The whole notion of family needs to be examined," Dillahunt says. "For a child to lose out on the opportunity for a loving, cheerful home because of some arcane prejudice about who the parents are ... it just seems asinine. It just seems like it's time to consider something else, time to consider that maybe we're misinterpreting certain religious texts."

Dillahunt was not thinking about the story's political or social ramifications when he accepted the role. He simply liked Fine's script, which the filmmaker adapted from a screenplay by George Arthur Bloom that was inspired by actual events.

"I liked the script a lot," Dillahunt says. "It was very different from the last thing I had done. I thought some people might not believe I could do that, and I thought that was an exciting challenge. And I did want to work with Alan. I had never met him, but I've been a fan of his since 'Circle of Friends.' That's why I did it.

"Alan's a very joyful character and really easy to get along with and really good at what he does," he adds. "And Isaac was probably the best actor on set, completely genuine all the time. And we all believed in the message."

Dillahunt was born in Castro Valley, but raised in Washington state. The actor's life has brought him back to the Bay Area on more than one occasion.

'Angels in America'

He lived in San Francisco for more than a year during stints at American Conservatory Theater, where he portrayed Prior Walter in the 1994 production of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" and co-starred opposite James Cromwell in the 2000 U.S. premiere of Tom Stoppard's "The Invention of Love." Those plays and his other stage work point to comfort within an ensemble.

"I think it's just the way I've always worked. Coming from the theater, even a one-man show is an ensemble, because you've got to really be in sync with the lighting guy and the light board operator, the composer," he says. "It might be my failed-writer tendency, too, but story trumps all. I just feel like I'm in the business of telling a story, and every story is told better if everybody is on the same page."

Dillahunt describes himself as a "hotshot" reporter on his high school newspaper, leading him to major in journalism at the University of Washington, but he says, "I thought, 'Well, it's not very lucrative. I should have a backup plan. I should write plays, as well.' Part of the play-writing curriculum was taking an acting class. And I really enjoyed that class."

The class ignited a passion for the craft that still motivates Dillahunt. During "Raising Hope's" hiatus, he could just enjoy the time off. Instead, he works. In addition to "Any Day Now," this year he's appeared in "Looper," the indie film "Revenge for Jolly!" and Courteney Cox's telefilm "TalhotBlond," and he has an uncredited cameo in "Killing Them Softly." He also has three movies in post-production, including Steve McQueen's highly anticipated "Twelve Years a Slave."

'Designed to work'

"I do love to work," Dillahunt says. "I believe we're designed to work. I'm going to take the opportunities that come my way. I still get plenty of time off, more than most people get in a year. I love to work. I'm a workaholic.

"I'm still pretty much a goofy child, but I'm really pleased that things happened the way that they did," he adds. "I'm glad I had to work hard for what I have. I'm glad I had to take a job during college. I'm glad that I wasn't embarrassed about my uncool clothes and got up there. I'm just glad that, either through luck or naive instinct and naive enthusiasm or whatever, I didn't quit. It's so much fun."

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