BULLY FOR HIM! : Wilson Uses Mean-Spirited Character as Springboard to Cowboy Tommy, Nice Guy

Talk about a classic case of miscasting.

Other than being 6-foot-2 and weighing 200 pounds, Tom Wilson is woeful bully material. He’s thoughtful, measures his words carefully, plays music at church with his wife, Caroline, and likes to spend time with their three daughters.

His selection to play Biff in the “Back to the Future” trilogy is even more surprising when you compare his speech with that of the character.

Wilson: “The stairway to being a big star is a journey taking a lot of serendipitous events, which may or may not take place.”

Biff: “What are you looking at, Butt-head?”

Wilson: “I like my show to be participatory. By bringing a few people onto the stage, others can live vicariously through those members.”

Biff: “What are you looking at, Butt-head?”

And so on and so on.

Wilson, however, doesn’t regret playing Biff, Griff and Buford (Mad Dog) Tannen in the trilogy. Not in the least.

“The movies are classics,” Wilson said from his Encino home, after cutting short a call on another line to start the interview on time. “They were a tremendous thing to be a part of. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But the fact remains it’s a very large and difficult shadow to walk out from behind. Admittedly, I’m in the process of doing that.”

Helping him do that is his latest venture, “Cowboy Tommy’s All-American Round-Up.” In fact, the one-man show--playing at the Brea Improv through Sunday--owes a debt to the Michael J. Fox trilogy.

“I was filming ‘Back to Future 3,’ ” Wilson recalled. “And performing that bad-guy character every single day gave me the idea to dress up as the ultimate good-guy singing cowboy. I did it one day as a joke. Everybody came up and said I should do it, the last singing cowboy in America.

“I tried it as a bit in my stand-up act, and it struck a chord with the audience. They were coming up and telling me the cowboy was great.”

An L.A. club owner liked the bit, too, and gave Wilson stage time to expand his “Tommy.” The bit is now a fine-tuned 50 to 60 minutes.

One hurdle Wilson had to overcome was the audience. Typical stand-up crowds expect--demand, actually--rapid-fire monologues. Wilson is giving them a slower-developing, theater-like piece. It doesn’t help that he’s generally the third act to take the stage.

“I’m following other performers in a very different style. I was asking the audience to pay attention, but it wasn’t funny right away. Plainly, a stand-up audience is not willing to (wait).”

So Wilson took matters into his own hands.

“I’m applying stand-up skills from over 15 years and injecting them into the show. Injecting those skills into the Cowboy Tommy character has been successful.”

Now that the Philadelphia native has Cowboy Tommy up and singing, he’s trying to turn the character into a TV series, working with Universal Studios and Global TV, a Canadian network.

“We signed a development contract, and now it’s a matter of writing out a script.”

Also in the works is a new movie, “Camp Nowhere,” with “Back to the Future” buddy Christopher Lloyd, who plays a crooked camp counselor. Wilson is a state trooper who smells a rat. Shooting is scheduled to start in the middle of this month.

“I’m just heading forward, not to any particular place,” Wilson, 34, said. “I enjoy being on stage and in film. I plan on continuing that, paying attention to interesting things.”

Wilson got his start in entertainment as a freshman at Arizona State University, where he studied theater for a year. He went from there to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and basement acting seminars.

“You remember people lying on the floor, reliving painful childhood memories? I was among them,” Wilson said, laughing.

When he was 19 and doing “Richard III” in summer stock, Wilson followed some friends into stand-up, starting at a small Pennsylvania club.

“Since then, I’ve done both,” said Wilson, who moved to California in 1981 to pursue TV and films. “People tend to think of you as just one thing. I don’t have just one thing to offer. What I’m most proud of in my career is showing versatility. In our media age, though, that doesn’t lend itself to a great deal of celebrity. You need to align yourself with one thing.”

In his stand-up routine, which he still performs every couple of months, Wilson looks to his own life for self-deprecating storytelling. He also throws in a bit of tuba playing, which some fans will remember him doing on his “Tonight Show” debut in 1990, when he led the audience in a football march song. The bit went over so well, Johnny Carson invited him back.

But despite its early success, the instrument has been relegated to second-chair status.

“My tuba is now in the garage, waiting for my next stand-up foray,” Wilson said. “But I’m sure Tommy will someday play tuba.”

A tuba-playing, singing cowboy. That untapped niche might be the one thing Wilson could hang his hat on.

Who: Tom Wilson in “Cowboy Tommy’s All-American Round-Up.”

When: Today, Feb. 3, at 8:30 p.m.; Friday, Feb. 4, at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 5, at 8 and 10:30 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 6, at 8 p.m.

Where: The Brea Improv, 945 E. Birch St., Brea.

Whereabouts: Take the Lambert Road exit from the Orange (57) Freeway and go west. Turn left onto State College Boulevard and right onto Birch Street. The Improv is in the Brea Marketplace, across from the Brea Mall.

Wherewithal: $7 to $10.

Where to call: (714) 529-7878.