ER Star's Hawaii Trip
Checking out of ER was no great loss for Sharif Atkins. During his three seasons as boring Dr. Michael Gallant, he never really became one of the hospital drama's breakout characters. We're talkin' zzzz....
When last seen, Gallant — who paid for med school as an Army reservist — was shipped off to active duty in Iraq. Just before leaving, Gallant nobly took the fall for Parminder Nagra's Dr. Neela Rasgotra, whose professional screwup resulted in a patient's death. So it seems pretty darn safe to say Gallant's gone for good, which is just fine by his portrayer, who's trading in cold Chicago winters for the sunny shores of Hawaii! NBC's newest cop show kicks off Sept. 1 and co-stars Atkins as Honolulu police detective John Declan.
"There's worlds of difference [between the characters]," Atkins says. "John Declan is one of those guys who's born to do what he does. He never thinks he's not gonna catch the bad guy. He'll go to any [lengths] to do that. The sky's the limit! As you saw on ER, Gallant was a buttoned-down, tie-up-to-the-neck, straightforward kind of guy. Declan is almost a polar opposite. But they do share a passion for what they do."
Living on the balmy isle of Oahu also makes a nice change of pace for Atkins. "It's gorgeous," he enthuses. "I'd only been to Hawaii once prior to starting this show. I'm amazed at how the people and things are so different from the mainland! I've done some hiking here, and I've gotten to a peak where I can see 360 degrees around the island. There's not too many places on the mainland where you can see both mountains and ocean at the same time.
"It's just icing on the cake of having a great show to work on," he sums up. "We will show you a Hawaii that you have yet to see, that even
Magnum, P.I. and
Hawaii Five-O didn't touch on."
