Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Things are getting more and more interesting for James Van Der Beek as he's playing the mean, womanizing ICU chief on NBC's "Mercy" this season — and he's having a blast.

"I would love to do this show for a while," declares the 32-year-old actor, who debuted on "Mercy" last month.

Speaking of his brash Dr. Joe Briggs, he says, "We reveal him layer by layer. It's really fun with this guy — to take him right to the edge of despising him, then give the audience a little bit of a reason to like him a lot. It's all in the writing."

As for getting his comeuppance for his playboy ways? "We're still waiting on that," says Van Der Beek with a smile.

He also smiles about the upbeat reviews for his starring stint as an FBI man in the current big-screen "Formosa Betrayed" political thriller. He's been credited with "acquiring the kind of credibly adult masculine authority many former teen idols never achieve" as Variety put it.

Has he been looking for roles that show off such authority?

"I think all that stuff just comes with age, to be honest," replies Van Der Beek, "but as far as 'Formosa Betrayed,' I've always wanted to do movies like that. I loved 'All the President's Men,' 'The Parallax View,' 'Three Days of the Condor' — that style of movie. I never looked old enough to believably be in one of them until lately. I'm glad some of these opportunities are now coming my way."

Van Der Beek, whose marriage to actress Heather McComb ended in divorce last year, is also glad to be spending time on set, and says the "Mercy" group was quick to make him feel welcome and at ease.

"When I was No. 1 on the call sheet, working almost every day on 'Dawson's Creek,' I remember tossing off 14-hour days and feeling those were the short days. Compared to that," he notes, "this job is way easier."

FUNNY BUSINESS: Three-fourths of the popular "Blue Collar Comedy" act are currently together again for a few stand-up shows, but Larry the Cable Guy tells us not to expect any long-term reunion. He says they'll never be able to top what they once accomplished, so why try?

"Jeff (Foxworthy), Bill (Engvall) and I are getting together for about 12 dates and doing some shows together as a one-night-only-type concert.

We're getting together for this because it's just kind of (a) fun thing to do. We're doing so many other projects, it's hard to get together and do a full-scale tour," notes Larry, who's been having a ton of success as a solo act.

"As far as the 'Blue Collar' thing getting back together, I don't think that's going to happen. We quit doing that at the perfect time. It was the highest-grossing quartet of all time. You can't ever top numbers that we got. It's in the history books as an amazing thing."

The guys even went on to do a popular TV show on the WB, but they walked away from that as well. "Everything we did, when we quit doing it, it was at its top form. It was perfect. Later on, it's hard to recreate a lot of that," claims Larry. "If you come back and do it again, you don't want people going, 'Yeah, it was funny, but it wasn't like those other ones.' You want to leave everyone with a good taste in their mouth," he adds. "I would not be surprised, though, if we're still alive when we're 75 and you see us do a little Vegas thing maybe."

SKIN IS IN: Megyn Price's "Rules of Engagement" character gets accused of sexual harassment in an upcoming episode — which turns out to be quite revealing. "There is nudity in it. Yes, it'll be hyped," Price tells us with a laugh. "I finally said to David Spade, 'OK, I'm on the nude train, too.' I'm not totally naked," she clarifies. "I thought, 'I'm a grown woman with a 2-year-old child. I don't do this.' But, if showing my panties is in the name of comedy, I will."

OH, BABY: The babies playing babies on ABC Family's "Secret Life of the American Teenager" are awfully cute, but they're not easy to work with. According to Molly Ringwald, each of the infants who play her son and grandson on the show "is only allowed to be on camera 20 minutes a day. A lot of times everybody is ready to do the scene and the babies are like, 'I don't want to do the scene. I don't want to be here.' You can't blame them, you know?" shrugs the actress, who has her own baby twins at home (Adele and Roman, who were born last July 10). She admits, "A lot of times, we've started out with babies, and by the end of the scene, it's been rewritten so there's no baby there."

With reports by Emily-Fortune Feimster

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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