'Rescue Me' gives FDNY heartburn

[x635 4,066]

'Rescue Me' gives FDNY heartburn 

 

By MARISA GUTHRIE

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER 

 

Actors Michael Lombardi, Steven Pasquale, Daniel Sunjata & Denis Leary (above, l.-r.) rehearse their lines on the set of 'Rescue Me.' Below, Leary in action. 

 

"Rescue Me," Denis Leary's warts-and-all portrayal of NYC firefighters, has become the show the FDNY loves to complain about.

"There are firefighters who are a little angry at us," said Jack McGee, who plays Chief Reilly. 

McGee, a New York native, spent 10 years on the job at houses in the Bronx. 

"They're [angry] because we're taking a mirror and we're turning it on them. When I was a fireman," he said, "there were 45 guys in my house, you mean there weren't six a-- in that 45?

"It's just a slice of life; you got 45 guys, six of them are going to be knuckleheads."

Among the fictional firefighters of Truck 62 are womanizers, alcoholics and a couple dim bulbs. But the show centers on Leary.

And when the second season starts June 21 (on FX, at 10 p.m.), Leary's Tommy Gavin is in dire straits. His ex-wife has disappeared with their kids. His girlfriend (Callie Thorne), the widow of his late cousin, is pregnant with Gavin's child. And he has been transferred to a house on Staten Island that is full of anal retentive neat freaks. 

Gavin's obvious flaws - including that he's a raging alcoholic, have rankled some of the FDNY. Nonetheless, Leary, himself, has loads of good will from firefighters. 

After his real-life cousin was killed fighting a warehouse fire in Worcester, Mass, he started the Leary Firefighters Foundation, which has donated thousands of dollars to firehouses in the city and in Massachusetts.

Firefighters, said Leary, "feel like it's hard for them to act like they like the show. It's kind of an on-the-sly thing. They know the show's great, but they can't tell you in public."

Denial is a self-preservation mechanism and so is humor.

"It's a ridiculously tough, strange, foreign job to most human beings to begin with," said Leary, "and even more so after 9/11. I'd like people to understand what these guys have to go through and where a lot of the comedy comes in. If they didn't keep this humor about things..."

"They'd go nuts," said McGee.

Leary and series co-creator and director Peter Tolan also weave real-life situations and personal quirks of their actors into the fabric of the show. 

This season, McGee's Chief Reilly is dealing with his wife's worsening Alzheimer's. Unable to care for her on his own, he asks his estranged son, who is gay, for help.

McGee's brother was gay and had AIDS. He died in 1988. His brother's sexual orientation was an open secret in the family. 

But it was one that McGee's father, who died in 1974, never confronted. In the show, Reilly gets to repair his relationship with his son.

"Peter and Denis listen," said McGee, "and this is right on the money. ... It's like making amends with my brother. And here we are 27 years later and I'm playing my father." It may be a little out character for a crusty old FDNY veteran. Or maybe not.

"As you get older, you learn about yourself," he said, "You learn you don't have to be anything but yourself anymore. Acceptance is a tough thing, but it's the only thing."

And whether or not "Rescue Me" is publicly accepted by firefighters or anyone else, isn't a concern.

"If you're not [angering someone]," said Leary, "you're hitting the middle of the road. And that's never where I wanted to play anyway."

Hot calls for the new season

TOMMY GAVIN (Denis Leary)

The house's senior firefighter is transferred to Staten Island after his angst and alcoholism caused him to nearly get fellow firefighter Franco Rivera (Daniel Sunjata) killed in the line of duty last season.

MIKE SILLETTIE (Michael Lombardi)

"The fat chick" dumps him because he's too dumb. But it's not long before he finds another girlfriend, of different but equally odd proportions.

SEAN GARRITY (Steven Pasquale)

Unfortunately, said Pasquale, "It looks like [sean's] not going to be any brighter than [he] was last season." He does get a girlfriend this year, but seeing as how she's a "fire bug," the relationship is bound to fail.

FRANCO RIVERA (Daniel Sunjata)

His girlfriend made him choose between her or the toddler daughter he didn't know he had. He chose his daughter. Unfortunately, his injuries have left him with an addiction to painkillers.

LAURA MILES (Diane Farr)

The token woman will have more run-ins with misogyny this season. This time the battle between the sexes could threaten to shut the doors of the firehouse.

SHEILA KEEFE (Callie Thorne)

Her affair with Gavin last season turned into a full-blown relationship after she became pregnant. But her raging hormones aren't exactly meshing with Tommy's raging alcoholism.