David Boreanaz

Despite growing up as the son of forecasting royalty - WPVI’s Dave Roberts- David Boreanaz wisely chose Hollywood over Accu-weather. This month marks the 34-year-old Malvern Prep grad’s fifth season as the star of WB’s Angel, and he recently wrapped The Crow: Wicked Prayer. Checking in from L.A., our own Keanu waxes on about fatherhood, the evils of roosters and pottery as a metaphor for the! self. Whoa!

Philadelphia magazine: What do you miss the most about Philly?

David Boreanaz: Los Angeles is like a circus. You live among people who are striving to achieve ego status, which is like the worst possible thing. I miss the sense of family and friends and the relative fours seasons that go through the seasons, as far as the climate is controled.

Pm: Um, okay. What’s it like growing up with a celebrity for a father?

DB: He was just a dad and a friend, somebody I looked up to. Just being around him was an unbelievable period of growth for me. He remained so human and so himself. He just does his work, and that’s rubbed off to me.

Pm: Why did you keep the family name instead of "Roberts"?

DB: Different times for my father. There was a lot going on as far as the invention of television was concerned, and Italian names were not politicaly correct. For me, it was a matter of pride, so it never really crossed my mind.

Pm: Is there a method-acting to playing a vampire on Angel, like sleeping in a coffin or avoiding sunlight?

DB: I don’t play him as a vampire. His foibles and his weakness is that he can’t go out in the sunlight. He’s not walking around sucking people’s blood all the time; he’s not wearing a black cape. I don’t play into any of that crap.

Pm: What part is more difficult, being a vampire or a father to your 17-month-old son?

DB: Again I don’t consider it playing a vampire.

Pm: Oh, right.

DB: Playing a character like Angel can’t touch being a father.

PM : What’s the story behind your son! ’s name, Jaden Rayne ?

DB : Jaden came from my wife [Playboy centerfold Jaime Bergman], who wanted initials with Jaime and Davidm so there’s JD. Jaden means "God is heard2 in Hebrew. Rayne is becaus it rained on our wedding.

PM : Are you sick geeky writers asking you how you landed a Playboy playmate as your wife?

DB : I’ve never realy had anybody ask me that. She finished a pilot for Comedy Central called Knee-high Private Eye, and she was on Son of the Beach. Sure, she was a Playmate, but I don’t look at it that way. I just met my wife, y’know.

PM : But seriously, tell ne about your first visit to the Grotto.

DB : [laughs] Well, I don’t knoz, It’s just crazy. Probably the best party you’ll ever have been to in your life.

PM : I understand you have a fear of birds. Was there a Philly Zoo trip that went horribly wrong?

DB : I was a kid at camp. I had a run-in with a chicken that wasn’t to great.

PM : [laughs, silence] Really?

DB : Yeah. I think it stems fron a childhood trauma. Being chased by a rooster as a kid.

They’re too skittish for ne. Birds and roosters. I’m not fond of them.

PM : Was that a consideration when you were looking over the script for The Croz’s sequel ?

DB : I actually met the bird, but I didn’t get too close to it.

PM : I read a few quotes of yours, and some of them are pretty profound. I was hoping you could explain a couple, like this one : "I think of myself as a clay pot,and the important people in my life kind of me up and paint me and shape me."

DB : When you’re born, you’re pretty clean. As you evolve and learn, you get chipped and you get broken and you get put back together. It’s just the way it is in life until you become an antique and you’ve outgrown the pot. But there’s a remembrance of what those chips and pieces are.

PM : Has DB been chipped ?

DB : Oh Yeah. I continue to be chipped and look forward to more cracks.

PM : But yo’re far from becoming an antique.

DB : Right.

PM : Having a new clay pot in the family, what lessons have you learned from the way you were raised?

DB : Just the fact that I was brought up in a family and with all that love, it’s just enabled me to see a lot clearer.

PM : Here’s another quote; " I think people are interesting for who they are, not what they represent, because that transcends itself." Is that a statement on the superficiality of Hollywood ?

DB : Probably, yeah. You have to look deeper inside the person.

Having a child, you gain the insight of what life is pretty much about. You become more of a master of your own destiny, and you become a bit of a Jedi in your own right.