More to Life Than TV Role

“I think I’m ready to do the psychos again,” says Terry Kinney, who spent most of the last TV season--as mild-mannered city planner Steve Woodman--being dumped on by Polly Draper’s character on “thirtysomething.” “When they brought me onto the show, I liked the idea of playing a nice guy.”

Somewhere between the really good (ranch hand Mark in last year’s film “Miles From Home”) and the really bad (adulterous, murderous minister Tom Bird in the CBS miniseries “Murder Ordained”) comes Kinney’s current role: playing ex-preacher-turned-labor organizer Jim Casy in the Steppenwolf production of John Steinbeck’s Depression-era tale “The Grapes of Wrath” at the La Jolla Playhouse.

“I don’t know how anyone couldn’t have a positive reaction to it,” he says, downplaying the plaudits he’s received. “It’s a very spiritual part, a very colorful character.” The actor did have one built-in advantage: The Casy role was written with him in mind by adapter Frank Galati. Beyond that, the migrant character clearly appeals to him; Kinney, 35, describes himself as a “permanent itinerant.”

No nesting instincts? “It’s supposed to happen,” he says, “but it hasn’t gotten that way for most of us--yet.” A founding member of Chicago’s 15-year-old Steppenwolf Theatre, Kinney calls New York home base. Not that he is often there; after La Jolla, “Grapes” will head to London for a run at the National Theatre.

As for his involvement with “thirtysomething,” don’t count on seeing too much of Woodman in the future. “I never wanted to be a regular on the show,” Kinney says. “I’m sure there are plenty of worse fates. But it usually means a seven-year commitment, and my big drive right now--beyond the theater company, which is always my main drive--is to work in features as much as I can. And I knew that to do that, I couldn’t be a regular on a TV show.”