‘Suburgatory’ fits Sisto
‘I’ve never told anyone this in an interview,” said “Suburgatory” star Jeremy Sisto, who grew up on the North Side of Chicago. “My first movie was a porno.” Whoa. “I was like 7 or 8,” he added. Double whoa. “I don’t know if my mom just didn’t read the whole script or if it changed afterwards,” said Sisto, 37, referring to the 1987 film “Outtakes.” The obscure flick is made up of several short movies, one of which was supposed to feature Sisto as a young boy who kills his mother and her boyfriend, on Christmas no less.
Sisto’s story didn’t make the final cut. But he and his actress mother, Reedy Gibbs, went to see the movie several years later at the Biograph Theater.
“The ticket taker looked at us with a curious eye,” recalled Sisto, a high school student at Francis W. Parker at the time. “We go in, and there’s six or seven creepy older dudes seated intermittently around the theater.”
This began to make sense when the movie shifted its focus to an allfemale orchestra having sex with their male conductor.
“My mom, being liberal, asked if I’d like to stay,” Sisto said. “I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to stay and watch a porno with you Mom.’ ”
Liberal isn’t the parenting style you’d use to describe Sisto’s character in “Suburgatory,” ABC’S freshman sitcom (7:30 p.m. Wednesdays on Wls-channel 7) that looks likely to get picked up for a second season.
Sisto plays George Altman, a single dad who flees Manhattan for the child-friendly confines of the suburbs after finding a box of condoms in the drawer of his teenage daughter, Tessa (Jane Levy). Tessa labels their new home suburgatory, since it feels like a soulless prison where the jail bars are white picket fence posts.
“A father-daughter relationship like ours is pretty unique on television,” Sisto said. “I like [George’s] impetuousness. I have a similar quality, where you get an idea in your head and you just go for it without stopping to think about the consequences.”
Sisto identifies with George more than any character he’s played — a list that includes Jesus Christ, Julius Caesar and a mentally disturbed, incestuous brother on the brilliantly dark drama “Six Feet Under.”
In 2010, Sisto wrapped up a three-year run on “Law & Order.” The “monotony” of working on that legal drama led him to channel his creative juices into making music.
His debut album, “Escape Tailor,” drops this spring. (His father, Chicago native Dick Sisto, is a jazz musician who’s played many a gig on the South Side.)
Sisto’s movie credits include the 1995 films “Clueless” and “Hideaway” with Alicia Silverstone, who recently reunited with her old friend on the set of “Suburgatory.” Silverstone has a story arc as Sisto’s love interest.
“It’s interesting to get back together now that we’re at the beginning of a new part of our lives; we both have young children,” said Sisto, whose wife gave birth in March to their second child.
Does that mean it’s time to move to the suburbs?
“One could argue all of Los Angeles is a big suburb,” Sisto said.
“I’ve always had an issue with suburbia being kind of boring, like it wouldn’t be for me,” he added. “But we’re renting this place in L.A. and right down the block is a cul de sac. There’s a little basketball hoop there. We shoot baskets and the neighborhood kids come around. Neighbors dropped off some cookies at our place. I got a feeling of warmth by that whole concept. Who knows? Give it a few more years and I could be living in Skokie.”