‘Models’ Actor Paul Shines in Two Worlds

Don Michael Paul is better known to fans of Fox-TV’s “Models Inc.” as Craig Bodi, romance-novel-writing surfer-hunk. But when he’s not catching the waves or sparring with the nasty Julie (Kylie Travis) in front of the cameras, Paul is just as happy to toil away from the bright lights on his own screenplays. In fact, he may well be the only actor in a prime-time soap who just landed a two-picture writing deal.

Paul, 31, first broke into screenwriting with 1991’s “Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man,” starring Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke for MGM. Paul also co-produced that film, which was not warmly received by critics, but which ended up making money on video.

During a break in shooting “Models Inc.,” Paul repositioned himself on an overstuffed Southwestern-style sofa at his Manhattan Beach home, leaning forward to make his point.

“There’s so much about writing film other than just telling a story and coming up with interesting characters, because when you write film you deal with people who read 50 to 75 scripts a week,” he says. “And when somebody has a stack of scripts that they have to go home to after spending 12 to 15 hours in an office, you’d better get their attention right away.”

Though he’s most visible as an actor, he says his first love is writing, although his earliest attempts, he freely admits, were not very good.

“I was struggling with what to write about and what to say,” Paul says. “I guess it’s a lot like acting. You get a script and you read the dialogue and you can say a line any number of ways--you’ve got to find a way to touch the people that are going to watch it. And when you’re writing, you’ve got to find a way to be able to touch the people that are going to read it.”

He’s certainly touched MGM with “The Night of the Hunter,” a thriller about a minister who extorts money from a young boy, based on the Davis Grubb novel. The studio is holding negotiations with several potential directors, including Carlo Carlei, the young Italian who directed last year’s well-received “Flight of the Innocent.” Paul is now putting the finishing touches on the second film of the deal, “Half Past Dead,” a futuristic thriller set in 2005, which he also will direct.

Brushing a hand through his sun-bleached hair, Paul offers his theory on the appeal of shows like “Models Inc.” and couplings like his and Julie’s on the show: “To see people who have great chemistry. There are great couples like Hepburn and Tracy--and you always knew that those two really were hot for each other.

“I think in our real lives, we know what the love is like between our mates and ourselves. We don’t want to watch what goes on in our love life--we want to see what goes on in other people’s bedrooms.”

Christopher Seitz, producer of “Models Inc.,” thinks Paul’s appeal is a little more basic: “The macho feeling he puts forth,” he says, is the key to the actor’s success. But even so, he says, “he’s very well liked on the set, and he seems to have a joie de vivre that is so infectious.”

So far, Paul seems to be more bemused than anything about his moment in the spotlight.

“Fame is an odd thing,” he says. “Little girls run after me in the mall.”

For the “Half Past Dead” project, he says that, despite its title, its overriding theme for him is “life is worth living.”

“I always try to find one sentence, one little something that means something to me. And it’s never said in the script, but it comes out, hopefully in the character’s actions.” Paul said. “I split up with my fiancee about 11 months ago, and so basically the story becomes about a guy who’s recovering from the loss of a love.”