AL SANTOS Actor finds laughs playing chauffeur in WB's 'The Help'

The 28-year-old was a model before getting into acting.
By TERRY MORROW
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Al Santos is one picky guy.
"I have very fine and particular tastes," he says when it comes to women. "If I see four or six girls that I am attracted to a lot in a year, then that's a lot for me. That number makes me happy.
"And I go out a lot."
On "The Help," he plays Ollie, a chauffeur whose libido runs high. The comedy, about life in a mansion as seen through the eyes of the household staff, is from the creator of "Married ... With Children."
The ensemble comedy also stars Mindy Cohn ("Facts of Life") and Tori Spelling.
A running gag usually involves whomever Ollie entices into the limo's back seat.
"He's there for the fun, the money and the girls," Santos says.
The same could be true for Santos, a boyish-looking actor of 28. After years of being a model for the likes of Versace, Armani, Valentino and Abercrombie & amp; Fitch, Santos turned to acting.
What he likes
He has very simple standards for what he wants to do as an actor. He is drawn to large casts and comedies.
"The one thing I love about this business is trying to make people laugh," says the New York native. "If I can always make people laugh, then I am happy. I've never been a fan of drama.
"I am content in an ensemble cast. 'The more the merrier' is always my motto. I'm like that in life and work. I usually travel with a large entourage. I always have nine or 10 people with me everywhere.
"I like it that way. They are my posse, and they are usually girls."
Unlike Ollie, who has never met a woman he didn't want to seduce, Santos says he gets tongue-tied around a female in whom he is interested. "I turn into a 5-year-old boy," he says.
He met his current girlfriend while on a bus tour to promote "Jeepers Creepers II" last fall. She avoided him at first, he says, because he was an actor.
Previous role
Santos is catching his second wind with "The Help" after coming off the comedy "Grosse Pointe" for the WB two years ago.
"Grosse," created by Darren Star ("Sex and the City"), focused on the behind-the-scenes antics of a prime-time teen soap.
He played dual roles as a dimwitted actor burdened with the challenge of playing a bright high-school student on the prime-time soap. Like Ollie, "Grosse's" Johnny Bishop had a way with the ladies, too.
Santos may play the hunky dummy for the cameras, but in real life he was a pre-med student who had no desire to entertain. He was a semester away from graduating when he went on an audition for "Grosse" and met Star, who persuaded him to shift career gears.
"Grosse" ended, and he went back to New York to invest in real estate and bide his time for months. He also launched his own production company, which is developing an animated project for him.
Why 'The Help'?
Deciding to get back into acting, Santos says he looked over close to 100 scripts. Very few excited him. He had no second thoughts about wanting to do "The Help," a series blasted by critics for its crudeness.
"Out of all the scripts I read, this one made me laugh until I cried," Santos says. "That's how I knew I wanted to do it."
What if "The Help" doesn't work out for the WB? "Then you look back and laugh," he says. "That's all you can do."