TV: Friendly faces ease new hunk into role

ROBERT WARD talks to the nervous new doctor on the ER set.

Goran Visnjic doesn't quite get the George Clooney comparisons.

The new hunk in ER (TV2, 8.30 pm) comes from Croatia and says, "I have a big accent, I'm coming from Europe, I'm not even a paediatrician, so there's nothing similar."

Although he appeared in the Clooney film, The Peacemaker, that's not how he got the part in ER. Visnjic never met Clooney on the movie set. He worked only one day on The Peacemaker and had four lines in Russian.

"The producers thought that Croatian and Russian are the same language, so when I told them that I need a dialect coach for Russian because I don't have any idea how to speak Russian, they were very surprised."

Visnjic has a dialogue coach for ER to help him with English, "but it's not helping still," he says, laughing. His accent is a concern, but he doesn't want to lose it. "I just want it to become a little bit smaller."

Most of all he wants everybody to be able to understand him when he's talking about pericardiosynthesis and the other medical terms that have to tumble nonchalantly out of his mouth as Dr Luka Kovac. He says he can understand the terms without knowing the English translation because their base is Greek and Latin.

Visnjic started watching his new castmates in ER when he was still a student at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb.

"The show is a pretty big deal in Croatia. It's always like number one." His mother was ecstatic when she heard her son was going to be in the series.

As for Visnjic, he couldn't believe his good fortune. When his agent called him at home in Croatia, he had to ask, "We are talking about the same ER?"

The producers had been impressed by his work in Welcome to Sarajevo and Practical Magic, where he was the object of affection for Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, as well as The Peacemaker. When the ER producers met Visnjic, his presence and charisma convinced them that he was the one they wanted to play a doctor from another country, to bring a different perspective into ER.

Visnjic had also starred in three Croatian films and had won national best actor awards for his stage performances in his home country.

Once he scored the ER role, he and his wife Ivana moved to Los Angeles where the show is shot.

Ten days before his first day on the series, Visnjic was in a real hospital learning how to suture on artificial skin. He took 50 suturing kits home to practise with because he had to suture a child on his first day and he wanted to look as if he knew what he was doing.

With the medical procedures, the big terms, English dialogue and the daunting reality of starting on such a big show where he was going to be working with people he'd long admired, Visnjic says he "was shaking a couple of days before."

Director Jonathan Kaplan noticed his anxiety and told him, "Goran, we have plenty of time, plenty of tape. Just make mistakes, whatever. Just take your time."

Once Visnjic had that reassurance, he says, "it was a strange feeling like you've been here for a couple of years, because everybody's so friendly, everybody's trying to help you. It was really easy to come in."

He met Clooney when he came back to the set to visit his old cast mates.

Although the producers insist that Visnjic isn't Clooney's replacement on ER, Visnjic says, "George is a big deal here, did big things, and his spirit is here all day on the set, in every episode."