It`s not hard to imagine the exhilaration-and anxiety-one must feel at the launch of a network series. Especially if you`re a young actor with a starring role in the show.
Take the case of Johnny Galecki, 16. He portrays adolescent con man David Springer in the midseason replacement series ”Billy,” which debuts at 8:30 p.m. Friday on ABC-Ch. 7.
Galecki, who started acting in community theater in the Chicago area at age 7, now lives in Los Angeles. He recently returned to Oak Park to visit family and friends, and to do a little publicity work for the show.
Casually dressed in leather jacket and jeans for an interview, the curly- haired Galecki seems to be bracing for a letdown when he`s asked his opinion of the show.
”I`m excited about it-but I don`t want to get too excited,” Galecki answers hesitantly. ”The success of a show has a lot to do with timeslot and this and that and other business aspects that I like to stay away from.
”It`s not like the theater. When you`re on stage, there`s nobody editing you or throwing in flashbacks. You know, it`s yours. You make it up. But it seems like television goes through all these processes.”
”Billy” is a spinoff of the recently canceled ”Head of the Class” and follows Fillmore High history teacher Billy MacGregor (played by Scottish comedian Billy Connolly) to Berkeley, Calif., where he teaches poetry at a community college. Its storyline resembles the plot from the feature film
”Green Card.”
Billy is an illegal immigrant, Galecki explains. ”My mother, who`s divorced, takes his night class,” he says. ”Billy needs an apartment and a green card. My mom desperately needs money.
”She builds an illegal apartment in the basement and they make a deal:
If he rents the apartment, they`ll get married so he can get his green card.” On the show, Galecki plays the 14-year-old bad-boy brother of two young sisters, played by Clara Bryant and Natanya Ross. Marie Marshall portrays his mother.
”I love the character that I play,” Galecki says. ”We have a good time on the set. Everyone gets along, and the scripts and my character really started to evolve by the time we stopped taping. We`ve done 13 episodes.
”My character is a con artist who`s not very good at his art,” Galecki adds. ”Always caught. Always grounded. Always screaming, yelling, lying. At the end of the episodes that we taped, there was a little more meat on the character. He showed a little bit of sensitivity, and the relationship between him and Billy moved on to something deeper than my character just trying to
(get) money out of Billy.”
Although still a teen, Galecki comes to ”Billy” an acting veteran.
Besides his work in community theater, he has performed on stage with Brian Dennehy in Goodman Theatre`s production of ”Galileo”; had parts in the feature films ”A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon,” ”Prancer” and
”National Lampoon`s Christmas Vacation”; starred in the TV movie ”Murder Ordained” with Keith Carradine and the mini-series ”Blind Faith” with Robert Urich; and guest-starred on ”Roseanne.”
He also was cast with Urich in ”American Dreamer,” a short-lived NBC series that received kudos from critics but failed to gain viewer attention.
Galecki`s experience with the axing of ”Dreamer” may account for his reluctance to raise his hopes for ”Billy.”
”I was really disappointed when it was canceled,” he says. ”I really liked the show, and after it was all over I told (executive producer) Gary Goldberg that I`d always be proud of it.”
Galecki, who lives with various relatives while working in Los Angeles, says he spends as much time as possible in Oak Park, but is happy that he made the decision for a career in acting at such a young age.
”I`ve made a lot of sacrifices to do it, but I don`t regret anything,”
he says. ”But I miss Chicago. I was just outside wandering around for about 10 minutes. It`s very, very different-a whole different feeling than Los Angeles.”
Galecki says he wants his acting career to last a long time but has no desire for superstardom. When asked about his recognition factor in these early stages of his career, Galecki`s face brightens and he breaks into a laugh.
”When I`m in L.A., my friends sometimes say that they see it on people`s faces-that they recognize me. But when I feel like someone`s looking at me, I usually assume it`s because I`m doing something wrong: Did I drool on myself? Do I have food on me?
”When I`m home it`s different because Oak Park is only 2 by 4 miles. I know a lot of people here. I feel close to pretty much everyone because it`s such a small place. So in Oak Park, I`m kind of recognized more often.
”I`ve been in L.A. for just a few years. I`ve been working here since I was 7.”
