First Dinner Theater, Then a Feast of Lead Roles for Leo Bermester

“Five distinctly different people--that’s a repertory actor’s dream” is how Leo Bermester describes the TV and film work he’s amassed just in the past year.

“Arresting Behavior” is the first to appear, with the offbeat half-hour that premiered last week on ABC. (It airs Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m.) Shot on video, one-camera film style, Bermester’s new series takes a comical look at the everyday lives of a suburban California town’s police officers. Graying and “in his late 40s,” the character actor plays a married cop, Officer Bill Ruskin.

Forthcoming for the Louisville-born, stage-trained actor are roles as a bigoted plantation overseer, “a Victor Jory-type,” in the CBS miniseries “Queen”; an alcoholic, homosexual real-estate agent, “a Tennessee Williams kind of character,” in “Louisiana Story,” a feature; “a cop who turns into a vampire” in John Landis’ “Innocent Blood” for Warner Bros., and “a Vietnam vet rap DJ” in the independent “Fly by Night.”

Having launched his career in dinner and regional theaters, progressing to the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville and then Broadway for “Les Miserables” and “Big River,” Bermester is now feeling the need to return to the stage. The baritone misses “doing rep, five characters, a continuous, linear concentration as opposed to 30 seconds a shot.”

Today, making a living as an actor and providing for his family are nice rewards for his years on the road.

He and Lauren Cookson, director of youth ballet at the State University of New York at Purchase, will soon celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary. They have two children, Daniel, 10, and Colette, 8. “I love my children more than anything on Earth.”

Should the renewal happen, the idea of playing Bill Ruskin regularly intrigues him. “To sustain a character for a few years will be interesting.”