Cosmo (1997)

Everyone in the restaurant is staring. And smiling. This is more than an "Omigod, there's a celebrity sitting over there" moment. This is the look people give an old friend. On America's number one television show, ER, Noah Wyle plays Dr. John Carter, a surgical resident with a soul, who has shown us that he can be smart, vulnerable, and sexy. We have watched Carter wrestle with his demons (Should he turn in another resident for lying?), seduce his boss's boss (the intelligent and much older Abby Keaton), and even turn his back on a friend at the worst possible moment (intern Dennis Gant, who dejectedly left the hospital and committed suicide). None of it made us love Carter even a tiny bit less.

In the drama The Myth of Fingerprints, in theaters this month, Wyle plays Warren, who could be Dr. Carter's longlost brother. Thoughthe 27-year-old actor describes his character as "emotionally stunted because he's never dealt with his demanding and cold father," he's also caring and sweet. As one of four adult children who returns home for a tense Thanksgiving weekend, Warren has an experience that changes his life.

WYLE AT HEART
Wyle will always have a special place in his heart for Fingerprints because that's where he met his girlfriend, makeup artist Tracy Warbin, who includes Sling Blade among her credits. The first day on location in Maine last summer, Wyle saw a woman "across the room" and was literally swept away. "It was one of those moments when you're conscious of having your breath just taken away," he says, his face getting a little red. "It probably only happens to you a couple of times in your life ... if you're lucky. I saw her, and just like a teenage girl, I ran over to the director and asked, `Who's that?' She had to do my makeup that day, so I was sitting in her chair, talking and getting to know her. Within the first couple of hours, we discovered we had a tremendous amount in common: She has a 1964 Pontiac that is very similar to my 1960 Oldsmobile -- they're both boats. We have the same taste in music, and we're both big Bob Dylan fans. The similarities started racking up. I met her on a Monday, and the following Friday I had to fly back to Chicago to shoot -- ironically enough -- my breakup scene with Christine Elise (who played intern Harper Tracy on ER). It was the Thursday night before I left when I kissed Tracy for the first time."

Wyle and Warbin have been living together in his Mediterranean house in Los Angeles ever since. They share a love of travel (they just got back from a two-week trip to Bora Bora), horseback riding (his grandfather owns a ranch near Yosemite, and they often go up there to ride), and animals (they have four cats, two mutts, and some fish). Wyle says that his family and friends adore Warbin and that he can see them being together for a long, long time.

"She's perfect for me," he says, staring lovingly at a silver ring, a recent present from his beloved. "We know how to make each other happy."

Although they have no plans yet to have children, Wyle can imagine that too. "I don't know if anyone is ever really ready," he says. "I know a lot of people who plan for years to get to a certain place when they can start their family. I hope that it happens when we're in a good place, but if it happened tomorrow, it would be okay."

MY SON, THE DOCTOR
Wyle himself has an extended family. Born in Los Angeles to an engineer father and orthopedic-nurse mother, he has an older sister and a younger brother. His parents divorced when he was very young. His mother is remarried restorer who has three children of his own. His father also remarried and another child. As Wyle says, "I've shared a bathroom with them all at one point in my life; in my mind, that makes you family."

Wyle has been interested in acting since he was 14 years old, when he went away to boarding school in Ojai, California, about an hour and a half north of Los Angeles. Although the school ran the gamut from "sucky to fabulous," the theater department was pretty much left to its own devices. "That meant lots of freedom for us."

Wyle halfheartedly applied to college but never went, choosing to return to Los Angeles and begin working. He did theater and had small parts in the films A Few Good Men (1992) and Swing Kids (1993) before landing his careermaking role on ER. His family, of course, seems thrilled by his success, although his 12-year-old sister "can't figure out why her friends and their parents act so goofy around me."

THE DOCTOR IS IN
For the last three years, the ER set has been Wyle's second home. He's there 14 hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year. Not surprisingly, he's bonded with his castmates and considers some of them his closest friends. "I visit Tony [Anthony Edwards, who plays Dr. Mark Greene] and his wife when I need a dose of what parenting is like. [The Edwards hive two young children.] Their house is a blast. Me and Eriq [La Salle, who plays Dr. Benton] shoot pool together and are as thick as thieves. I think he's so talented. And George, [Clooney, who plays Dr. Ross, as well as the new Batman] and I shoot hoops at the studio and at his house. He's like an old-time movie star - like Cary Grant or Spencer Tracy."
Clooney and Wyle bonded during the show's first season. "We were out one night, a warm night, and George had a Porsche convertible: a beautiful car, a limited-edition Speedster. It's a two-seater, and we were driving around, and I said, `You know how lucky you are to have a convertible in this weather? I've always wanted a convertible.' I was just shooting my mouth off. The next day, he didn't have to work, and I did. He shows up on the set and says, `I got a present for you, buddy.' And he dangles these keys in front of me. He takes me outside, and there's this two-tone 1960 Oldsmobile convertible: powder blue on the bottom and white on top. He says, `I bought this car 10 years ago when I was your age and doing a sitcom. It's been nothing but lucky for me, and it's only fitting that you should have it.' I still have that car. I love it!"

LIVE AID
This year, the season premiere of ER will be shot live - something that has never been done before in a medical drama. The idea came about when the cast was sitting around talking about the classic Requiem for a Heavyweight, which had originally been shot live for television's Playhouse 90 in 1956. "George thought it would be cool to do ER live," Wyle recalls. "And it just grew from there. It's going to test all of us. Some parts of the show are filmed on the back lot at Warner Brothers, others are shot on the set halfway across the lot. I guess they'll be shuttling us around in golf carts to get us back in time. It's going to be a wild night, but I think we'll all be fine. We've been playing these characters for three years now, and we know them inside out. Plus, lots of us come from theater backgrounds, so we know how to cover if we screw up. But trust me on this -- it will not be me who screws up. I would rather die than make a fool of myself in front of 38 million viewers." He actually knocks wood.

While has been approached by some of those viewers with the idea that their daughter would be just perfect for Carter. "I don't understand it," he admits with a shake of his head. "Carter spends all his time at the hospital, and none of the relationships he's had has worked out. I don't see him as marriage material, but what do I know?"

In fact, Wyle has created a whole history for Carter. "They told me his father was a doctor, but I decided his father and grandfather were surgeons. That's why my decision to leave surgery is so weighted. And I know that Carter used to wrestle in college, because I once had to say to a patient, `Oh, you went to Penn State? I wrestled there.' It was so embarrassing, because I had to throw my chest out and pretend that I had a wrestler's body."

He's also baffled by the fact that people often ask him for medical advice. "But I like to pretend. When a friend cuts their finger, I'll say, `Let me see that, hold it under the light. Okay, run cold water on it and rinse it out. Does that feel like a pin-prick, or is it more of a throbbing pain? Let me see if it needs stitches.' And they're like, `Noah, it's just a cut.' Tony and I are thinking about opening a little clinic in his garage," he kids.

"It's crazy. I have a good friend who's a shoulder specialist. He's dying to take me along when he does rounds, just to see who the patients feel more comfortable with. I have a feeling, as scary as it may sound, that more patients would respond to my bedside manner than his!"

Could Wyle do stitches if the need arose? He starts to nod like crazy. "I think so, I really do! Because I'm the guy on the show who is always practicing, so I've done a lot of sutures. I can't promise that it would be excellent workmanship, but it would be functional."

ON THE FAME GAME For Wyle, stardom fits as comfortably as a set of scrubs. He smiles at everyone in the restaurant and makes this fame thing seem as routine as an appendectomy. "It's funny," he says, sipping a cup of coffee and fiddling with his ring, "some days I don't even notice it. Most of the time, people are complimentary. And I'm an actor who loves compliments, so I find it very gratifying. And then there are days when you just don't wanna be the guy on the TV show. You just want to hide.

"It's like there's three waves of people: There're the people that are big fans and would love to have your autograph. And that's great. If they're nice, I'll do anything. Then there's the second wave, who saw the person ask for your autograph, and they were gonna ask, but they were a little shy. But since that person asked, they'll ask too.

"And that's okay. Then there's the third wave: the people who really had no intention of getting your autograph; they don't really care who you are, but everybody else is getting it, so they might as well get one too. And those are the people who are the worst.

"They ask, 'What show are you on?' as if they're just waiting for you to dazzle them."

Wyle certainly seems to be taking it all in stride. "Red Buttons was on the show last year. He told me, `Go out and enjoy your life, don't be one of the schmucks who hides in your house and is afraid to do this and afraid to do that. Because when you get to be my age, all you have is a hatful of memories, and if you haven't collected enough of them, you'll know,'" Wyle says. "And I knew as soon as he said it that he was right."