Michael T. Weiss, star of TV's "The Pretender," plays Valmont, and Louisa Krauss is Cecile in the Huntington Theatre Company's production of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." (DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN)

"That was the great thing about playing Jarod on 'The Pretender,"' he continued, referring to the NBC show (1996-2000) on which he played a person with the ability to slide into somebody else's personality. "I got to be a different character every week, so I never became bored or got pigeonholed by other people. That was the best character on television, in my opinion, at the time. Every day he was in a different world. I would step out of my trailer and be on a different planet each week, as opposed to being on 'ER' where you're standing there holding a scalpel week after week."

"It's a classic that transcends time," Weiss said of the play, written by Christopher Hampton, as well as the original book written by Choderlos de Laclos. "It's all about human relationships and how we tend to manipulate each other for our own personal gains and how all that can come and bite us in the tuchis. The novel is so genius. It's written as a series of letters written between these various lovers and it's a great read. It was banned in Paris as being completely scandalous, so of course everybody read it because it was so deliciously sexy and dirty."

Along with being a smash hit on Broadway, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" - or "Dangerous Liaisons" as it is translated - also has been made into several successful movies, including the Oscar-winning 1988 film directed by Stephen Frears and starring John Malkovich in the role of Valmont.

"He's such a fantastic character to play. He's an angel on the outside and a devil on the inside," Weiss said. "He's manipulative, he's charming, he's funny, he's twisted and tortured. Anybody who sets out to break someone's heart as a game, something's going on there that isn't quite right."

Just how he planned to make his Valmont different from the other interpretations was something Weiss wasn't sure how to answer when this interview was conducted, since he'd been in rehearsals for only a few days and, in his words, "hadn't even begun to scratch the surface" of the part.

"The only thing I've learned so far is that this is far and away the most difficult role I've ever played," he said with a smile. "The demands of playing Valmont are huge. I tend to be drawn to playing characters that have different layers and who go on a journey, and Valmont's arc is incredible. He starts out believing that love and relationships are a game, and he ends up being ensnared by his own manipulations. He has a lot of regrets by the end of this play. Plus he's sexy and interesting."

(Published: December 31, 2005)

Copyright © 2005 Cape Cod Times. All rights reserved.