Stakes Just Got Higher for Kinnear : A Co-Starring Role in ‘Sabrina’ Puts the NBC Late-Night Host in Spotlight

By traditional TV standards, Greg Kinnear may not yet be a major star--but the wheels are rolling.

The boyish, mischievous, 31-year-old has a way of getting noticed, despite his relatively smaller audiences in TV’s twilight zones--fringe areas out of the mainstream of prime-time series on the Big Four networks.

First came “Talk Soup,” an irreverent digest of TV’s top talk shows that won a cultlike audience for cable’s E! Entertainment channel.

That propelled him to NBC and a 1:35 a.m. series, “Later With Greg Kinnear,” which follows the higher-profile Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien shows.

So far, so good.

But then, recently--whammo--and maybe the jackpot. Out of the blue came a leading role for Kinnear in a major motion picture that most prime-time TV stars would kill for.

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The film is “Sabrina,” a remake of the charming 1954 Billy Wilder comedy that dealt with Audrey Hepburn as a chauffeur’s daughter and the two men in her life--Humphrey Bogart as a wealthy but stuffy businessman and William Holden as his rakish younger brother.

In the remake from Paramount, Harrison Ford is playing the Bogart role, Julia Ormond has the Hepburn part--and Kinnear inherits the breezy Holden character. The producers are Scott Rudin (“Nobody’s Fool,” “Sister Act”) and Sydney Pollack (“Out of Africa,” “Tootsie”). Pollack is also the director.

It is, as Kinnear’s boss, NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield, puts it, “the chance of a lifetime.”

“I was stunned when I first heard about the meeting to go in and talk with Sydney,” Kinnear said by phone from his New York hotel room. “It literally came out of nowhere. I didn’t believe it. It was flattering, but it was just a meeting. But that meeting led to other meetings, and after about three months I finally got the role.”

On the basis of Kinnear’s two modest but attention-getting series, Rudin and his colleagues obviously saw potential in the young performer, who says he decided to give up “Talk Soup”--his contract was up--to focus on the film and his NBC show.

But there was a major problem to be worked out:

With Kinnear heading off to New York to film “Sabrina” right smack in the middle of the TV season--including the key February and May ratings sweeps periods--it took some high-level negotiating to protect NBC’s interests. The network clearly had special concern because of CBS’ move to claim overall late-night dominance with David Letterman and Tom Snyder.

NBC Productions is the primary owner of the network’s late-night lineup--Leno’s “Tonight” show and the O’Brian and Kinnear series--and thus has a high stake in anything that might upset its long-term plans.

“We’ve spent a lot of time and money and energy on the late-night schedule,” says Michael Zinberg, president of creative affairs for NBC Productions and a prime figure in working out the Kinnear arrangements.

Adds Zinberg: “When Scott Rudin called and said, ‘Can we work this out?’--he said Greg was charming, bright, new and funny--we really wanted to. Greg has a nice, light comedic quality. I think the guy’s a TV star, and obviously they think that translates onto the big screen.”

So, says Zinberg, a plan was worked out to protect NBC’s interests: “We banked (taped) about four weeks of original shows. We’ll do a couple of weeks of reruns. Then Greg’s got a hiatus from the movie, about three or four weeks, and he comes back to do more originals in Hollywood. We’ll also be doing about two or three weeks with guest hosts.”

Kinnear’s agents at the William Morris Agency, Greg Lipstone, who has represented him for nearly three years, and Fred Westheimer, who specializes in films, had talked about moving Kinnear into motion pictures.

They credit Rudin and top NBC executives--Zinberg, Littlefield and West Coast president Don Ohlmeyer--for making the deal work.

“There’s a charm about Greg that we think will become a long career,” says Lipstone. Adds Westheimer: “This (movie) will help Greg in visibility in his present NBC deal.”

Kinnear, whose “Later” show--inherited from Bob Costas--is a mixture of interviews and comedy, already is up 11% in total households and 51% among 18-to-49-year-old viewers favored by sponsors since he took over the series one year ago this month, according to NBC.

While the “Sabrina” offer was the stuff that dreams are made of, Kinnear’s performing ambitions began early. With his father in the State Department, he grew up in Indiana; Washington, D.C.; Beirut, and Athens, where, in his teens, he hosted a show on Armed Forces Radio called “School Daze With Greg Kinnear.”

After studying broadcast journalism at the University of Arizona, he headed for Los Angeles and became a host on a new cable channel, Movietime, which evolved into E! He then was emcee of an HBO entertainment show and also landed acting parts in the series “Life Goes On” and the television movie “Murder in Mississippi.”

As with his “Talk Soup” series, Kinnear is both host and executive producer of “Later.” His former boss at E!, Fran Shea, senior vice president of programming, says that he “helped put (the channel) on the map. He is so serious about his craft. He works hard behind the scenes.”

Still, it’s a new ballgame. He’s in fast company in “Sabrina” with Ford, Pollack, Rudin and a supporting cast that includes Angie Dickinson, Nancy Marchand and Richard Crenna.

Ford “took me to lunch the other day,” says Kinnear. “He’s been terrific. I’d never met him before. One of the things he said to me the first day was, ‘Do you have any older brothers?’ I said, ‘Yes, two.’ He said, ‘Good. I hope they’ve prepared you.’ ”

However “Sabrina” turns out for him, Kinnear seems to have a quiet resolve and perspective beneath his wisecracks. One insider notes, “Probably if I were NBC, I’d be nervous, because if this guy becomes a movie star, how long can they keep him? He’s an interesting unknown, not a slam dunk. But it’s a brilliant part for him.”

Kinnear maintains that regardless of how “Sabrina” affects his professional standing, “I can’t imagine my feelings about my (NBC) show or my commitment changing. Unlike sitcoms, where you gotta strike and you gotta strike quick, one of the reasons I got into late-night is that it’s a long game, and it’s not about finding yourself in six episodes or one movie.

“There was a lot of talk about sitcoms, and the bottom line was, ‘Get that thing up and it better explode by the third episode or “See ya.” ’ I don’t know if I want my career to head that way. It should be about growing.”

NBC seems determined to keep Kinnear for the long haul. He’s seen as an all-purpose player--in the wings, for instance, if O’Brien’s series fails.

Zinberg says he’s “the perfect bookend” for NBC late-night: “He has a sense of comedy and edge. More people will get to know him (in “Sabrina”) and that can only benefit us.”

“This was under our control,” says Littlefield. “We could have said no under (Kinnear’s) long-term contractual obligations, but we tried to work it out to let him have his dream. It was worth it to keep him. Also, he’s not the host of the ‘Tonight’ show, so the stakes are not quite as high.”

Says Kinnear: “I’d like to hold my judgment on future plans until I see how this works out.”