Television finally is letting Scott Wolf act his age. After six seasons pretending to be almost a full decade younger as earnest Bailey Salinger on “Party of Five,” the 35-year-old actor plays a single parent in his new TV movie. Airing at 7 p.m. Sunday, the ABC Family romantic comedy “Picking Up and Dropping Off” stars Wolf as a divorced father who keeps running into a soon-to-be-single mother (Amanda Detmer, “A.U.S.A.”) at the airport as their respective children shuttle between parents. Co-produced by Lisa Kudrow (“Friends”), the TV movie serves Wolf’s desire to return to television and films after focusing on theater work.
“I’ve been proactively looking for great stuff to do for the first time in a couple of years.” he says. “Lots of things are floating around, but the fact that Lisa was one of the producers of this was one of the first things that got me excited about it.”
Wolf also was attracted by the opportunity to do some new things, including playing a character closer to his own age.
“I’ve always looked a lot younger than I am,” he says. “I mean, I started the part of Bailey when I was 24, playing a 16-year-old. I also loved the idea of exploring a father-son relationship, plus this was my first opportunity to do a romantic comedy. .”
Though “Picking Up and Dropping Off” is Wolf’s first starring TV project since “Party of Five” ended, he doesn’t necessarily deem it a comeback.
“When you’re living your life, you don’t feel like you’re out of the picture,” he says. “In the three years since ‘Party of Five’ has been off the air, I moved back to New York for a while and did quite a bit of stage work. I also did a couple of film projects, but when you’re on a series, you’re thrust upon folks–so it was a pretty big shift of presence.”
It also gave Wolf a taste of “The Real World:” He’s engaged to Kelley Limp, from the New Orleans season of the MTV series.
As he and Limp plan their spring wedding, Wolf isn’t sure what his next professional move will be, but he’s eager to entertain whatever comes his way. He says that after six years on one show, “You want to restart yourself.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
