TOM ARNOLD / ACTOR

Tom Arnold has had his greatest fame in a sidekick role--both in real life (alongside ex-wife Roseanne) and in movies (“True Lies,” “Nine Months”). Now he’s stepping out in the lead, starring in “McHale’s Navy” and developing a semiautobiographical TV sitcom for the WB Network. But when Arnold, 38, steps out from his Agoura Hills home, it’s often to reconnect with his Ottumwa, Iowa, roots.

OPEN COUNTRY: “Out here in Agoura I can ride my four-wheelers and motorcycle. We have a big hill out back. It’s nice to see the sky. When I lived in Beverly Hills, the houses were too close together.”

A QUIET MORNING: “I like to ride my motorcycle up Pacific Coast Highway early morning, go up there to the Rock Store and have breakfast with the bikers. It’s a well-known biker hangout, but also has great food.”

PAPARAZZI: “They go to the airport. Always at the airport. Can’t really avoid them, and I’ll tell you, the bottom line is it just doesn’t pay to beat them up. Last time I was in court, a few years ago, the photographer I had chased down said he could no longer have sex and feared for his life. But next time I was at the airport, there he was again.”

BIG SCREEN: “None better than ‘The Stupids.’ I saw that last year . . . just kidding! ‘Jerry Maguire’ was the best movie of the year. Tom Cruise was great in it.”

TUNES: “Went to see Sheryl Crow recently. My wife [Julie] is a lot younger than I am [23], but we can agree on people like Crow and Van Halen and Aerosmith.”

TATTOO REMOVAL: “I had that [tattoo of Roseanne’s name on his rear] removed. Dr. James Watson at the UCLA Medical Center does a very good job. You get about 3,000 of those laser shots, burns the skin and the ink steams out of it. I’m finishing up having a Grateful Dead one taken off my arm. I love the Dead, but when you meet someone else and that’s what they’re looking at, that can ruin some special moments, and I don’t need any help doing that.”

STOGIES: “It helps me lose weight. Makes me ill and nauseous if I smoke them fast. That’s working for me. And people stay away from you if you have a cigar.”

HOMETOWN PAPER: “I get the Ottumwa Courier every day and the Des Moines Register on Sundays. Ottumwa has about 25,000 people. Biggest town in a 50-mile radius. Show business is not a big priority there. Giant hog farm lots are.”