Bad boy image window dressing

Posted: Wednesday, June 11, 2003


But we cornered him at Carson Pirie Scott & Co. in Chicago, where he had signed books, "Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes," for 400 fans.

We persuaded Wilson to retreat to the store's home furnishings department where, slouched on a comfy sofa, he talked about growing up on a downstate Illinois farm, plus his years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied voice, joined a fraternity and played Friedrich in "The Sound of Music."

It was the bright lights of Broadway that drew him to New York, but it was the handyman jobs he took to pay bills that led to a design business and "Trading Spaces."

These days, he juggles his design business plus "Trading Spaces," a column on celebrity homes for In Touch Weekly magazine and an in-the-works book for publisher Clarkson Potter. When Wilson, 38, took a breath, we asked:

Q: How do you relax?

A: I jump on beds - don't print that! I have friends in the entertainment industry in New York, so I go out to hear them sing and perform.

Q: When you left Illinois, it was to study at New York's National Shakespeare Conservatory. Any roles you like?

A: I love the clowns and the fops because they're the ones that say the most.

Q: Something you've done on the show that you'll never live down?

A: I'm proud of everything I've done on the show. I think the frustrating thing for me on the show - the thing that concerns me or whatever - is that in creating a sort of character that embellishes my own personality, the way they edit things doesn't always necessarily give you the full sense of what's being said.

So to be perceived sometimes as being, you know, the mean guy - it's not me. I'm not mean-spirited at all. I'm having fun. I'm being devilish and mischievous, but nothing that's mean-spirited.

Q: Some consider you the resident "bad boy" on "TS," but you also have an on-line fan group - Divas Defending Doug. What gives?

A: When I came on the show, I was the opposite of Frank (Bielec). He was country, cozy, fun-loving, affable. And I was going to be the New York edgy designer. And they said, "We want conflict and resolution." Well, being from a theater background, I approached this as an actor. I didn't approach this as a designer necessarily. This is television. This is acting."

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