Nothing to hide

Dorchester native Donnie Wahlberg, a former member of boy band New Kids on the Block, is still finding his way as a Hollywood actor. He had a starring role in the teen movie ``Saw II" last year and a controversial part in the heavily publicized ABC miniseries ``The Path to 9/11" last month. Now he's on the CW network in ``Runaway," a drama about Paul Rader, an innocent man on the run from the law who must prove that he is not a murderer. Hiding with him are his wife and three children, who face danger from the real killer.

SUZANNE C. RYAN

Q: What sold you on the series? This sounds a lot like ``The Fugitive."

A: You do think initially ``The Fugitive," and that can get old pretty quickly. The fact that he has a family makes it really interesting. Now drama can come from the 10-year-old boy saying his real name in school rather than his alias name. My character isn't just trying to hide. He has to hide his family, clear his name, and protect his kids emotionally from the obvious destruction that's going to come.

Q: This is a mature role for you. Have you ever played a television father before?

A: In [the 2002-2003 NBC drama] ``Boomtown" I had a son, but he was rarely addressed . . . I thought about the fact that I'm going to be 40 soon. I'm only 36, but I'm evolving. . . . If I'm going to keep acting, these are the kinds of roles I'm going to get. It's a good chance to prove that I can do it.

Q: Is it a stretch to play the father of a 16-year-old?

A: It is when the actor [Dustin Milligan] is 21 in real life. We've had a beer together. At home, I have a 5-year-old and a 13-year-old.

Q: In the pilot episode, we discover that Paul Rader wasn't the best dad in the past. How do you relate?

A: Every time I get on a plane to shoot something on location and I'm leaving my kids behind, it's like, ``What am I doing? What damage am I doing to them by not being there? God forbid, what if something happens while I'm not there?" I've sat on an airplane getting ready to take off and cried many times because I'm leaving my boys behind. That emotion is the least that I can lend to this character.

Q: How do you feel about appearing on the CW, a new network aimed at the young?

A: I was a little scared to be on a network that I consider to be for teenagers. I'm thinking back to my New Kids days. I worked really hard as an actor to build up a body of work that speaks for itself. That's a work in progress that you can destroy at any time by making a really bad turn. . . . At the end of the day, one line kept coming up: ``Hey, if it's good enough for Chris Rock, it's good enough for me."

Mel Gibson's DUI arrest was a ``big wake-up call" for Robin Williams, the comedian tells the syndicated TV show ``Access Hollywood" in an interview scheduled to air today . ``If you're violating your standards faster than you can lower them, time to go away," he said. Williams, 55, announced that he was seeking treatment for alcoholism less than two weeks after Gibson's high-profile arrest in late July. ``Well, if [rehab] was good enough for him, I'll go," Williams said. ``I just think it was kind of like, well, he's in, let's go now." Williams said he had been sober for 20 years when he started drinking again. His latest film, ``Man of the Year," hits theaters Oct. 13.

``Studio 60" star Amanda Peet got married over the weekend to screenwriter David Benioff in New York, and evidently she loved their rings so much she wanted all her guests to see them. ``They passed the rings around so every single person could touch them," a friend of Peet's told Us Weekly, ``which was unusual, but nice." The bride and groom exchanged vows in a ceremony at the actress's alma mater, Friends Seminary, a Quaker school founded in 1786, according to People magazine. A black-tie soiree following the ceremony took place at the Chelsea Art Museum. In a Sept. 27 appearance on the ``Late Show Wth David Letterman," Peet said she was four months pregnant. The marriage is the first for the New York City natives.

It was Ashton Kutcher's weekend to dominate at the box office. The animated family film ``Open Season" -- featuring the voices of Kutcher and comic Martin Lawrence -- debuted as the top film in North American theaters over the weekend, taking in an estimated $23 million in ticket sales. The Coast Guard adventure ``The Guardian," starring Kutcher as a National Guard recruit forced to cope with an unorthodox instructor played by Kevin Costner, debuted in second place with $17.7 million. Last week's top movie, the Johnny Knoxville stunts-and-gags comedy ``Jackass: Number Two," fell to third place with $14 million. And the comedy ``School for Scoundrels," starring Jon Heder and Billy Bob Thornton, opened in fourth place with $9.1 million. The martial-arts film ``Jet Li's Fearless" slid to fifth place from second last week with $4.7 million.

Think again
"We thought we'd have the concert and the government would change things."
Singer John Mellencamp at a Farm Aid concert in Camden, N.J., noting that the original performers thought such a gathering wouldn't be needed 21years later

FROM WIRE REPORTS