ER Star Turns Gladiator
When we think Spartacus, we naturally think of Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick's 1963 epic tale of studly slaves rebelling against Rome. We don't think of TV star Goran Visnjic — or anyone else in that role, to be fair. Even so, USA Network will risk a Spartacus remake-cum-miniseries starring the ER actor on April 18 and 19. Please tell us he won't clown up that immortal line: "I am Spartacus!"
"We don't have that part of the original movie in our film. I have to tell you that," Visnjic laughs. "We take it as an homage to the [Kubrick] film not to do it. Because it's so famous, we were a little bit afraid of doing it, so we're not touching that."
Just as in the original Spartacus, look for lots of grappling gladiators. "As a kid, you love to play with swords," Visnjic says. "Once you finish training and you come into a real arena to fight another actor with a metal weapon, it gets scarier than you thought it would be! I could've lost my fingers a couple of times. They had to invent an armored glove for me because I got lots of injuries on my right hand — lots of bruises and open wounds in the fingers. But once I got the glove, it was OK."
Also this month, Visnjic stars as a hypnotist in the big-screen thriller Close Your Eyes (opens April 23). Could all these headlining roles mean Dr. Luka Kovac's days are numbered? "I'm definitely planning to stay on TV for at least a year," he says. "We still have one more season to go [on my contract]. During next season, we're probably going to discuss what will happen in the future."
The 31-year-old Croatian heartthrob doesn't appear to be in any hurry to exit ER, however. "This season, I had two of my favorite episodes of the five years I've been on," he enthuses. "[It was] the stuff when Carter and Kovac went to the Congo. So I can't really complain about being on the show. I see good reason to be on for a while."
