TV: The latest in a long line of vanishing acts

By LOUISA CLEAVE

The last thing an actor usually wants is to disappear from the screen, but Vincent Ventresca finds doing just that has boosted his career.

The American actor vanishes regularly in the latest incarnation of a familiar television character and movie, The Invisible Man.

The new series starts tonight with a movie-length pilot (TV3, 7.30) and it takes a sci-fi - and perhaps more scientifically convincing - approach to the old disappearing act.

Ventresca's character, Darien Fawkes, is implanted with an experimental gland which allows him to release a substance called quicksilver all over his body. This reflects the light, making him invisible.

But when it starts making him violent, he makes a pact with the Government to become their secret crimefighting weapon in exchange for an antidote to control his personality.

The creators wanted to pay homage to those superhuman shows like The Bionic Woman and The Bionic Man and wrap them up with other classics from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

For instance, when Fawkes' eyes turn red in a Jekyll and Hyde reaction to the gland, it is reminiscent of scenes in The Incredible Hulk.

"A lot of people had a lot of resistance to the invisible man ... already seen it, you know," Ventresca says on the phone from Los Angeles.

"But as I read the script, it had a little more depth to it than I thought it was going to have. There are so many levels to the show. It somehow manages to be sort of funny, sort of goofy and sort of smart at the same time."

Indiana-native Ventresca had staked his place in television playing good-time guy Fun Bobby on Friends.

His two appearances on the hit show made an impression and it was his best-known role until his appearance - and disappearance - in The Invisible Man.

"You learn a lot when you work on those great shows," says Ventresca. "It looks really easy when we see it on television but those actors are really hard workers and they try to make the show great."

So, from an insider, is the Friends cast as close as they say they are?

"They were very tight-knit. They were very sweet and open to me but I was kind of intimidated. They're such big stars. I just stayed in my dressing room and waited for people to call me."

Ventresca says moving from fourth or fifth lead in television shows to playing the leading man has been a boost.

"When you're playing the title character people listen to your opinion a bit more and that's nice. I've never trusted my opinion about anything until this show."

Ventresca, a former high-school athlete, credits his sporting background for succeeding in acting.

"There are so many actors in LA you don't feel quite as special because you realise you're with a bunch of people pursuing the same thing. Either you respond to that environment or you don't. I liked it. I think ultimately a lot of actors dig the competition and ultimately it's survival of the fittest. It's Darwinism at its best."

Ventresca, working on episode 17 of the series, has pondered the "what if I really was invisible" question. "Some of it's sort of corny and some of it's kind of goofy and some of it's kind of dark.

"I was a sportsman in high school and [if you were invisible] you could ensure that your team was going to win. If they were playing basketball you could sit on the opposing team's basketball hoop and keep knocking the ball away.

"There's also darker things, like greed. I think I'd go to Vegas and win a bunch of money. Then there are darker inhibitions that would be freed, sexuality and stuff, which the pilot alludes to."