By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
April 6, 1990
In his relatively short career, Sean Kanan has carved out a little niche for himself playing handsome bad guys. In the new Fox series “The Outsiders,” he’ll be adding a little twist to that image: He plays a popular preppie who gives the series’ dramatic center a hard time.
“The guy I play looks like your all-American guy,” Kanan said. “That’s what’s so dangerous about him and guys like him: They’re everywhere, and they’re acceptable to society, because they dress well and speak nicely. But they’re dangerous.”
“The Outsiders” airs from 6 to 7 p.m. Sundays on WFLD-Channel 32. Set in the mid-1960s, it is based on the S. E. Hinton novel about alienation between the greasers (poor kids) and the socs (rich kids, pronounced “soshes”). Kanan plays Greg, the lead soc.
The series has its work cut out for it. It’s counting on school-age kids who read Hinton’s novel in class to tune in every week. Although the series is set in the mid-’60s, when these potential viewers weren’t even born, it has something that’s proven to be a sure bet in the past: a young, male ensemble cast where each actor is better looking than the next.
That’s a technique not unlike the one Francis Ford Coppola used in his 1983 film version of “The Outsiders.” A mediocre production that lacked the power and the poignancy of Hinton’s classic novel, the movie nonetheless launched the careers of then-relatively unknown actors Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio and Emilio Estevez.
Ironically, the one cast member who failed to become a full-fledged movie star was C. Thomas Howell, who played the lead role of Ponyboy Curtis.
Kanan is determined not to become the Howell of this cast. An actor whose intense, blond good looks draw easy comparisons to James Dean, Kanan takes parts that most future leading men would shun.
Playing Greg, a character that isn’t wholly likable, will make it more difficult for him to win over fans than some of his colleagues, but Kanan’s handsome face should help him in that respect.
“My mother keeps telling me to play a sweetheart, but it’s really fun being the heavy,” he said, laughing, in a phone conversation from his Los Angeles apartment. “I like it.”
Kanan got his first major role playing Ralph Macchio’s cold-blooded nemesis in “Karate Kid Part III.” TV viewers may remember him in guest-starring roles as the greedy, egocentric baseball player on “Who’s the Boss,” or as the jealous, chauvinistic boyfriend on the short-lived “Baby Boom.”
The 23-year-old actor said “The Outsiders” is the perfect chance to prove himself on a weekly basis. If the show establishes him as a star, it’ll mean he stood out from the rest of the pack. If it doesn’t, it means he won’t get typecast into a certain role. Either way, Kanan figures, he wins.
Kanan’s background falls somewhere in between the socs and the greasers. Raised in Newcastle, Pa., Kanan got an early start in show business. He won his first role in a fourth-grade production of “A Christmas Carol.”
But it was his karate lessons that got his foot in the acting door. During class, he met Fumio Demura, who was Pat Morita’s karate double in the “Karate Kid” films. Kanan asked Demura if there were any way he could get a part in the next “Karate Kid” movie.
“I had a lot of chutzpah,” Kanan said, laughing.
