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Anyone
who watched the soap opera Guiding Light
in the early '80s would have noticed a young
John Wesley Shipp
playing the gullible and studly nice guy Kelly
Nelson. "You'll probably remember me running
around in my Speedos singing 'You Needed Me'
— that's where it all started," says Shipp,
who more than a decade later fits more comfortably
into the role of Dawson's father, Mitch Leery,
on the WB's Dawson's Creek (Wednesdays,
8 P.M./ET). After
appearing in several soap operas and winning
two Daytime Emmys (for As the World Turns
andSanta Barbara), Shipp was offered
the title role in CBS's short-lived comic
book superhero series The Flash (1990-91).
The grueling experience included 70-hour
weeks, all-night shooting sessions and a
requirement to appear in nearly every scene.
"It was kind of a relief when it ended,"
says Shipp. "I think there's an inherent
trap in playing a superhero for too long:
You get typecast."
Now,
at 43, he's playing a dad-although not an
altogether mature or stable one. In the
show's risqué storyline, Shipp and
his on-screen wife (played by Mary-Margaret
Humes) experiment with open marriage. "The
last thing [creator/executive producer]
Kevin Williamson wanted was for these characters
to become the typical parents on a television
show for teens," says Shipp. "What
I love about the role is that the father-and-son
relationship often gets reversed." All
of which is fine with the unmarried, Norfolk,
Virginia, native. "[Playing a] hot-blooded
parent helps you feel like you haven't yet
been put out to pasture," he jokes.
"I remember turning to Mary-Margaret
and saying, 'Remember when we were the kids?'"
-Tom Samiljan |
