Nick Wechsler as Kyle Valenti in Roswell. Photo copyright of The WB Network.
In today's Sci-Fi Blast From The Past, Nick Wechsler talks about playing Kyle Valenti in the Sci-Fi TV teen drama Roswell.
Remember when you were a teenager and your biggest worries were acne, getting your driver’s license and finding a boyfriend or girlfriend? When Roswell first premiered, its resident high school jock Kyle Valenti seemed to be doing just fine when it came to these top teen concerns. The handsome young man’s face was pimple-free, he could drive a car and he had a pretty girlfriend, Liz Parker. As is often the case in life, though, things change. In a twist of fate, a fellow teenager, and an alien, Max Evans, saves Liz’s life. The two then end up falling in love, which leaves Kyle feeling hurt and angry notes Nick Wechsler, who plays the disgruntled youth.
“My character wasn’t a happy camper in the first season,” notes the actor. “The pilot episode is the first and last time you get to see Liz [Shiri Appleby] and Kyle as a couple. Things change after Liz is accidentally shot at the Crashdown Café and Max [Jason Behr] uses his healing powers to save her life. This helps bring Liz and Max together, while causing her and Kyle to drift apart. Kyle becomes obsessed with getting Liz back and, naturally, he goes about it in totally the wrong way. He behaves like a jerk towards both her and Max. However, I don’t feel it was so much that Kyle was mad at Liz but that he really hated Max. He saw Max as a threat to her.
“The situation gets further complicated when Kyle tells his father, Jim, [William Sadler], who also happens to be Roswell’s sheriff, that he saw Max’s [glowing] handprint on Liz’s stomach. This piques the sheriff’s curiosity not only about Max but also Max’s sister Isabel [Katherine Heigl] and their friend Michael [Brendan Fehr]. Kyle has always resented his father because of his job and for never being there for him while he was growing up. Now, the sheriff’s time is taken up chasing after Max. So Kyle’s lost his girlfriend as well as his dad to this guy. The poor kid can’t get a break,” laughs Wechsler. “Happily, this past [second] season Kyle came to terms with his anger. He’s eventually become less of a troublemaker and, to his surprise, even an ally, albeit an uneasy one, to Max and his fellow aliens.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photo copyright of The WB Network, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
Comments