‘Rescue Me’ actor cools down

By David Hiltbrand

Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA

You may be immersed in the final season of “Rescue Me,” but John Scurti and the rest of the cast of the FX series said goodbye more than a year ago when the episodes you’re seeing now were shot.

“It seems like a distant but pleasant memory,” says Scurti of the show, which runs until Sept. 7.

For seven years, as FDNY Lt. Kenny Shea, Scurti played Falstaff to Denis Leary’s haunted Hal. The guys in the firehouse always call-ed him Lou, an affectionate acknowledgment of his rank.

While “Rescue Me’s” characters were always mired in personal imbroglios, the show strove for workplace realism. “You don’t want to be laughed at by firemen,” says the actor. “You have to be carrying all the right tools and know how to get on and off the rig without looking like a jackass.”

The authenticity could be dangerous during the three-alarm sequences.

“It was always real fire,” he says. “They’d be lighting things up all the time. I caught on fire a couple of times. To make it look like a burning ceiling, they’d use a flammable gel, which would sometimes drip on you. That burned like crazy.”

Scurti met Leary through a mutual friend, director Ted Demme. Before his untimely death at 38, Demme directed, among other things, the frenzied black-and-white rants on MTV that catapulted a chain-smoking Leary to fame.

“People always want to hear horror stories from the set. There was a little fighting here and there,” he admits. “How could there not be when you have Leary around?”

But Scurti would repeat the experience in a firefighter’s minute. “I hope I get on another show that has half as much humor and intelligence and ability to move people,” he said.