As a response to his troubles, Brian turned to athletics and achieved success inseveral sports, including weightlifting. As a result, he observes, "I sort of built this shield as I started to develop my body. I built up confidence and cockiness and became pretty much of a monster by the timeI got to college."

As a teenager, Brian participated in football, wrestling and track programs, but grew tired of the emphasis on winning and dropped out of athletics when he was a junior in high school. "I got into gangs and those kinds of things — fights and being generally disorderly, wreaking havoc," he ruefully admits, adding, "There was a park and we would hang out down there and get drunk." How did this behavior go over at home? Brian replies matter-of-factly, "Never got in trouble. I was a very good liar."

Brian became interested in acting during his senior year when someone asked him, "Do you want to be in the play?" When Brian learned that the role called for him to kiss a certain girl, he replied, "Well, that sounds good." He liked doing it — kissing the girl and acting in the play — and majored in theater at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey before dropping out to try his luck as a performer in New York. He did some theater work, but eventually gave it up and bartended with the intention of earning enough money to open a business. Brian resumed acting and "got serious" when he found an agent who felt he had a strong desire but lacked focus. Enrolling in an acting class didn't really teach him how to act, Brian says, but "It made me more comfortable with who I was. I had this very intimidating wall; I needed that shield. I was a tough guy, but it wasn't really me. It helped me drop that. It took a while."

Brian believes a major turning point in his life occurred when he tore up his knee during a dance performance. "I had sort of gotten into this hunk status," he notes and had, until then, accepted the type-casting. The injury, however, forced him to take the focus off his body and place it on his mind. Brian worked with John Tillinger at the Longwharf Theater, and was studying with William Esper when the opportunity arose to create daytime history portraying Hank Eliot.

So far, it's been smooth sailing, but will portraying a gay man affect his career? Brian concedes, "It's a risk... I'd much rather be playing Hank than a hunk ... but I miss playing love scenes with women."

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