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Although O'Malley plays Jimmy for weeks on end, and in real life seems much like him (a T-shirt-, jeans- and baseball cap-wearing regular guy), they are not kindred spirits. "I wouldn't hang out with Jimmy, but I could talk to him at a barbecue," says O'Malley. Co-star Snyder says O'Malley is nothing like Jimmy. "He's hard-working, for one thing," she says. He's also a nice guy, she adds, a stroke of luck from her point of view since the script calls for them to kiss now and then.

In fact, O'Malley often plays characters with whom he has little in common, including randy would-be suitor Oliver in "28 Days," bet-taking air traffic controller Pete in "Pushing Tin" and over-the-top Boston sports fan "The Rick" in a series of ESPN commercials.

"I always play doofus guys because I have a rubbery face, one that's easy to make stupid expressions with," explains O'Malley. But, he adds, "I think of myself more as a writer. It's where my head is. To be honest, I don't get a thrill out of acting anymore. I'm seriously thinking about retiring after the show runs its course."

O'Malley and friends, post-graduation, May 1988: from left, Tara Mahon, Walter Jenkins, Steve Kasmouski, O'Malley, Paula Blake, Kristine Doran Lang, and Hilary Rakoske Bugbee.

O'Malley has written three plays, "Three Years from Thirty," "Diverting Devotion," and his latest, "Searching for Certainty." "I started writing plays because I watched other people get parts that I wanted. I figured the best way to get those parts was to write them myself," he says.

John Edwards, UNH professor emeritus of theater, says he is not surprised that O'Malley succeeds as the "clever and jovial bad boy in the television series, and has published short plays and now has a major full-length play in the works." At UNH, O'Malley was most proud of his two roles in serious plays, Edwards remembers, but at the same time in musicals he was "just wonderful" and an "effortless performer."

O'Malley was raised in Nashua, N.H., by a family of extroverts. Of the four O'Malley children, two are in show business. His younger sister, Kerry, is an award-winning Broadway actress who stars in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" at Connecticut's Goodspeed Opera House through December.

Elvis lives: O'Malley in a UNH theater department production.

"We weren't the Von Trapps or anything, but my uncles and my parents had great senses of humor," says O'Malley. An aunt, Regina O'Malley, is a professional actress, "so we had a role model of someone actually making a living as a performer," explains Kerry O'Malley. She adds, "In the Irish tradition of storytelling, one had to hold one's own at the dinner table if one wanted to be heard." Their parents instilled in them a belief that what they had to say was interesting, and that they should speak their minds, she says.

O'Malley didn't have serious theatrical aspirations until his senior year at UNH. "I don't think anyone loved college more than me," he recalls. "I was hyper-aware that it was a unique time. I was always a five-minute walk from 25 of my closest friends. I squeezed a lot out of it," he says.

Between parties at his fraternity, Kappa Sigma, and Freshman Camp reunions, Mike eventually discovered the UNH theater department. Theater professor Carol Lucha Burns remembers him as a standout at his first audition. "His song was hilarious--'I'm a Little Teapot' or something like that. But his cold reading landed him the part of a steel worker," she says. His enthusiasm and natural talent won him coveted roles, including Danny Zuko in the 1988 production of "Grease" his senior year. "I started out as an actor who was a goof-off--I was not considered for more serious roles until professor Gil Davenport gave me a break," O'Malley recalls. Taking a chance, he auditioned for the role of Mephistopheles in "Dr. Faustus."

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