Jessica Alba couldn't kick ass every week on Dark Angel without the help of some supporting players. One such player is J.C. MacKenzie (pictured), who plays Normal, the head of the courier service for whom Max (Alba) works as a cover for her antigovernment espionage. MacKenzie was a student of Concordia University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and played some bit roles in movies, including some by Spike Lee. Dark Angel is his second TV series, after Murder One.

MacKenzie invited me over to his L.A. apartment to discuss the show. He keeps his place clean, to the point that I had to take off my shoes. But J.C. was a gracious host, offering me a drink of water before beginning our discussion.

What is Normal's role on the show? The way I approach the role is that he's dealing with a bunch of 13 and 14-year-olds that he's going to have to correct and they're inevitably going to screw up with whatever they do. So, I have to be on them the entire time. I'm not a dictatorial tyrant outside of the office, but when I'm there the job has to get done, so that's the way I approach it. I hope to get a chance to get outside of the Jam Pony Messenger Service and round out the character in terms of giving him a little more different angles. I had a chance to have a relationship with a transsexual last year which is an odd twist because he fell in love with her. I'd like more stuff like that to do. I mean, the show is Dark Angel. It's not Dark Normal or Dark Original Cindy or Dark Logan even. It's about her and we're essentially, at least for the first year, we're satellites around this major planet.

But some characters' roles are basically exposition. That's not you, right? This may not always come across, but I think Normal might be - this is going to come out wrong because I can't stand when actors say, "He's comic relief" because often they're not because they're just not funny. I don't think I'm that funny, but I think Normal certainly isn't there for exposition, which is a blessing. I did a lot of exposition in Murder One and getting your mouth around that stuff that emotionally doesn't really have a lot of resonance is tough. I really honestly have a great time. I spent a vast majority of my life trying to be liked by people and trying to be sweet and nice but he has no concerns of that. It's just kind of emotionally freeing to get in there and f*ckin' yell at people. Then again, I don't want to be just Mr. One-dimensional Yell Guy. I'm not really giving you an answer to your question. I think the nature of these characters and thus the joy of being in a television show is that they evolve. Once the writers get your voice, they can develop the character and give it different dimensions.

Why is he called Normal? That's a good question. I didn't even know my name until about four or five episodes into it. My name is Reagan Ronald. My parents were arch liberals and as a joke decided to name me Reagan Ronald, and I'm an arch conservative. My hero is George Herbert Walker Bush. I know all his stats. I know where he went to school. I know his SAT scores. So, the kids I don't think could get their head around Reagan Ronald, and the nickname, this is what I've been told, they decided to nickname him Normal because he's anything but.

Did you invent bip bip? No, I didn't come up with that. It was during the pilot and I said, "What is bip, bip bip?" Charles Eglee took me aside and said, "I used to work with Bruce Paltrow on St. Elsewhere and he'd come down on set and when things were going over or money was going down the toilet, he'd do this. [Taps his watch.] Ah, bip, bip, bip! Bip, bip, bip." He decided to stick that in there and I said, "How about I do ah, ah, ah?" They went, "No, let's do bip, bip, bip." So, we split the difference. Half the time I say bip and half the time I say ah. That's Bruce Paltrow, not me.

How's your relationship Jessica? Jessica couldn't be more down to earth, smart, nice, never complains. She's unique. She's like 20 going on 40. She sticks to herself. She doesn't kiss ass. She treats everyone pretty well the same. At first she just kind of looks at you. She's shy, but once she warms up it's like a little sister. She's got a photographic memory. She knows her lines and your lines. She's on set 14 to 16 hours a day every day. She's a cool kid.

Were there any funny incidents in shooting the kissing scene from when she was in heat? That was so much fun because Jess is a ball buster. She goes right for it. If she's got to attack you, she'll attack you. In that scene, there are many takes which didn't make it to screen where she's licking me and sniffing my arm pits. I have pretty good concentration, but I had absolutely no concentration. There were three or four things in the gag reel of that alone because she's sniffing my crotch and it was very, very funny.

(Article orginally from about.com)