This article is no longer available online. The REAL THING: Michael T. Weiss assumes role of 'The Pretender' for NBC Michael T. Weiss has always liked playing at pretend. "That's what life is all about, isn't it?" smiles Weiss. That's what it's all about now for the hunky, handsome actor and star of "The Pretender," the Saturday night series on NBC. Jarod Russell, `The Pretender," is a preternatually brilliant youngster holed up in a lab, where he is studied as a human guinea pig until he grows up and breaks out to join the real world as a normal person. But this is no Everyman - unless every man one bumps into is a genius at fields as diverse as medicine, technology and law. In playing mind games with the scientists out to recapture him, the child prodigy-cum-"pretender" uses his protean talents to serve mankind, posing as varied professionals in his quest to quiet the chaos of society. As a suddenly free spirit, Russell gets a charge out of outwitting his enemies and brainstorming for the benefit of mankind. As the brains behind Russell, Weiss is a witty choice. Self-described as a "free spirit," the Jewish actor from Chicago, raised in a Reform home, relates to Russell. "Well," quips the actor, "we have the same IQ, so it works out really well that way." He's joking. "No, I mean, he's obviously much starter than I am. I think he plods through and thinks it through. I'm a little bit more impulsive than he might be." Pulsing through the series is a sense of cat-and-mouse game a la "The Fugitive." There is no one-armed man, however - just a mysterious group of scientists up to their elbows in intrigue, out to recapture the genius-on-the-go. There has been at least one real-life pretender who has made news: Ferdinand Demara, whose life was acted by Tony Curtis in the film "The Great Imposter." Weiss doesn't have to pretend about how much he enjoys his role. "It doesn't come along very often in the TV world where you get to play a different character every week," says the actor who, last year, portrayed a gay man in pursuit of the title character in the AIDS film comedy "Jeffrey." He sees "The Pretender" as "a dream role." Weiss has other dreams. He is also a playwright, whose most recent effort, "Streams of Consciousness," will get a production by a Los Angeles theater group called the Met. Weiss met no resistance when he tried on his "Pretender" role for real. "I snuck into the New York Stock Exchange, wearing their clothes" marketing himself as a trader, he grins. Did they buy it? "I got right in." Weiss has the right stuff for the role of Russell. The essence of being a pretender, he notes, is being true to oneself. "It's a lot of fun if you really could give yourself the freedom of no parameter about what you can be a person," he says. "You can have a lot of fun. That's what I plan on doing." Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Michael Elkin, Jewish Exponent, 10-31-1996