Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 2, 1995 TAG: 9509080002
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUSAN KING LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD LENGTH: Medium
```ER' is my favorite show,'' proclaims the waitress with a smile. She thrusts a business card on the table. ``It's my friend's birthday. Could you autograph this?''
LaSalle, an Emmy nominee for his role as the cocky, brilliant surgeon Dr. Peter Benton on NBC's mega-hit, grins, exchanges some small talk and begins to scribble away. He gives the card back to the waitress. ``Thank you,'' she says happily and walks away.
``ER'' has catapulted the intense, personable LaSalle into TV superstardom.
LaSalle has always heeded the advice his mother gave him as a youngster. ``It's not enough for you to be as good as your white counterparts; you have to be better to be considered equal,'' LaSalle explains.
``That doesn't mean I think I'm a better actor than anybody else in the show. The experience I've had in this industry is that I have to come in and do things that maybe some [white] people take for granted. What has worked for me is presenting stuff that's above and beyond the call of duty. It's just like Benton is a perfectionist. He is not just a doctor, he is the ``creme de la creme,'' the elite. I am so committed to my job, but that goes against the image for years that black people are supposed to be shiftless and lazy.''
LaSalle points out that there has never been any mention of Benton's race on ``ER.'' ``There was no reference in the script of him being black'' LaSalle says. ``It has nothing to do with him being black. That's what I love about the show. That's how we make progress. ...'' As soon as ``ER'' concluded its first season in the spring, LaSalle directed ``Psalms From the Underground,'' a short film he wrote about a female black civil rights activist.
``I figured it was really a good time to do what I ultimately want to get into - directing,'' says LaSalle, who has directed two other award-winning short films. ``We want to put it in Sundance [Film Festival]. We want people from studios to look at it and, hopefully, turn it into a feature.''
LaSalle got into directing about six years ago when, at 26, he was fired from the feature ```Love Field,'' in which he was cast opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. ``This was `ER' before `ER' for me,'' LaSalle says with a tinge of bitterness. ``This was the role that was going to give me a career.''
The ``Love Field'' incident made LaSalle realize ``this is the career you have chosen. You are going to be subject to this type of thing for the rest of your career. That made no sense to me whatsoever. That's when I went and took a film class in New York, just for a summer, because I definitely had to have more control over my journey. I'm one of those people who always tries to obviously find something good out of a bad situation.''
He also finds directing to be empowering, especially as a black performer. ``I realize the role of the black artist in this industry is always on some kind of borderline,'' explains LaSalle.
``Black films come along in waves,'' he says. ``The message that sends to some people is you have to be the person who ultimately starts creating. If you are always reacting to trends you are always at the whim of someone else, of what this person deems important. I think all cultures' stories are important, but if I'm in an all-empowering situation, I can decide what is important. I think we have gotten to the point where we learned not to buck too hard, not to confront and say, `We need to do something else.'''
by CNB