Evening Times Online, December 1, 2001 by Andy Dougan The first thing you notice about Goran Visnjic is that he smiles a lot more than you expect. You also realize why he literally talks down to so many people on ER. Think about it, in just about every scene on the medical drama, Luka is either bending over someone, leaning in a doorway, sitting at a desk, or doing something to disguise the fact that he's a strapping six foot four. Visnjic has become an international heartthrob through his role on ER as the brooding, haunted, melancholy Dr. Luka Kovac. Off-screen, he couldn't be more different. He is cheerful, chatty, unfailingly courteous and tremen-dously polite. Take this interview, for example. It's been on and off like a Julia Roberts romance. How- ever, he finally agreed to have a chat even though it meant coming in for half an hour on a rare day off in shooting occult thriller Dr. Sleep. Naturally since he's come in, they've taken advantage. So his 30-minute visit to the set has turned into half a day filming - not only that but all the scenes involve him being smacked about the head - and he still has to do the interview. I know plenty of actors who have called the whole thing off, but a promise is a promise for the 28-year-old Croatian. So as he packs a bag and tries to get away for the day, we chat in his dressing room while he apologizes for the mess. "It's a boy's room," he shrugs, gesturing at a floor covered in running shoes, sports gear and generally looking like a tidy student flat. Dr. Sleep, the thriller he shot in London this summer, is one of two films he managed to make in the past year while still doing ER. The other is The Deep End, which opens in Glasgow next month. The films bookended his latest stint on the medical drama and meant that he had next to no time to himself and has had no holidays for 18 months. "I made The Deep End during my vacation from the show last year," he explains. "I want to get my film career moving, so it is worth giving up my time off." Goran claims his English is a lot better than it used to be, but clearly he has still to learn the meaning of the word vacation. "I was the worst in my class at school," he laughs, when the subject of his English comes up. "My English professors are probably having a laugh at me now. On ER, I've been working with a dialogue coach for the last two years, so it is slowly improving." Despite the difficulty with language, it is blindingly obvious to anyone who cares to look that Goran Visnjic is a hugely talented actor. In some respects he is Croatia's answer to Kenneth Branagh, his annual production of Hamlet at the Dubrovnik Festival is one of the highlights of the European theatre calender. It was British director Michael Winterbottom who gave him his movie break when he cast him in Welcome to Sarajevo. When that film was so received at Cannes, Goran was snapped up by an American agent. She offered him the chance to come and work in the States and he landed the role as the villian in Practical Magic opposite Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. "Just over two years ago, I got a call from ER and they offered me the chance to be on the show for three years and I decided to take it," he explains, picking up the story. "It was an obvious decision to move there because the show shoots for nine months a year, so you can't really live anywhere else but Los Angeles." He and his wife, Ivana, has now bought a house of their own and he feels a little more settled. She also travels with him to his film locations. Even so, spending nine months away from Dubrovnik each year does cause the odd pang of homesickness for the intensely patriotic Goran. Sharp eyed ER fans will have noticed that in a recent episode of the show when the ward turned out for a softball game, Dr. Kovac was wearing a Croatian football shirt. "That was my idea," he beams. "I don't follow any specific teams but when Croatia are playing I get a bit worked up whatever sport it is." One of the reasons why Goran is so keen to build a film career is to provide him with a little more variety than he gets on television. In Dr. Sleep, for example, he plays a hypnotherapist who is able to receive flashes of what is really inside the minds of his patients. Detective Shirley Henderson persuades him to use his talents to unlock the secrets hidden in the mind of a child, the only witness to a serial killing. In The Deep End, he finds himself playing opposite another Scots actress, Tilda Swinton.