Hitting the Streets for Ideas

When it came to playing a homosexual street hustler in Rene-Daniel Dubois’ “Being at Home With Claude” at Stages Theatre, Morgan Weisser didn’t have to look far for research material.

“I didn’t actually talk to anyone,” says the actor (“The Long Road Home,” “Extreme Close-Up”). “But I am a watcher. I’d drive by Santa Monica Boulevard and look at the kids (hustling)--with their struts, their cold, arrogant looks.” His character is similarly tough on the outside but baby-soft inside: “He has so many feelings and doesn’t know how to express them. He lives in two worlds: hustling-survival and La La-land, where he goes to abate the pain.”

Weisser’s explosive stage turn as the fantasy-driven, homicidal Yves is an interesting counterpoint to his role in the upcoming ABC miniseries “Stay the Night” (April 26-27). In the movie, based on a true story, he plays the teen-age lover of older woman Barbara Hershey, who convinces him to kill her husband.

Weisser, 20, is the son of actor Norbert Weisser. He made his stage debut at 10 in the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival, but admits his adolescent interests ran more to martial arts, skateboarding and hanging out at the beach. Now, after a year’s hiatus from studies at USC (“I don’t think I’ll be going back”), he shares his Palms home with two ferrets, Sid and Nancy, named for the rock outlaws immortalized in Alex Cox’s 1986 film.

“The funny thing is, they’re just like Sid and Nancy,” says Weisser. “He’s spaced-out and overweight, and she annoys him all the time.”