by Jamie Portman
Source Vancouver Sun
 

It seems that Enrique Murciano is the busiest guy in Hollywood these days. To begin with, there's his regular job as youthful FBI agent Danny Taylor on the hit CBS series Without A Trace, the show that gave him his big break.

But that wasn't enough to keep him occupied last year. So when he wasn't in Hollywood working on Without A Trace, he was in Las Vegas working with Sandra Bullock and playing another FBI type in Miss Congeniality 2. And when he wasn't doing that, he was in the West Indies, acting in a new film, Lost City, which was Andy Garcia's directorial debut.

"So I was going from L.A. to Vegas, Vegas to the Dominican Republic then back to L.A. and then back to Vegas. I had a one-week period where I shot days in L.A. and nights in Vegas, so I was on a plane twice a day."

The worst aspect of all this that he missed his dog.

"I'm having a love affair with my dog. And I couldn't bring him with me to Vegas. He's a dachshund -- a long-hair miniature. He's got long hair and blue eyes. He's the Paul Newman of dachshunds. He's fantastic. He's name's Tonto -- but I can't take him anywhere."

The 31-year-old actor has a few other enthusiasms -- motorcycles, exotic cars, guitar and piano.

He used to own eight cars, and although the number is down to four right now, he says it won't stay that way.

"When I'm not making movies or TV shows, I'm buying cars or selling them or fixing them up and playing with them."

His favourite?

"I'd sell my body before I'd sell this car. It's a 1967 250SE Mercedes Benz with a cream colour top, cream colour interior, cream colour exterior. I call her 'creme brulee.' In that car, I feel -- not who I really am, but how I dream of being. It takes me back to any moment in time that I've read about in books. All of a sudden I'm The Great Gatsby in this thing. So I love it. My hands get sweaty even thinking about it. In fact, I want to get my dachshund, put it in the cream-coloured car and go for a drive."

Tonto also rides with him on the motorcycle. "I have a leather jacket, put him inside, zip it up, and we ride. The wind irritates him a lot, so he sort of tucks his head into my armpit"

Murciano speculates that the success of Without A Trace is because it "invites the viewer to become a sixth member of the team in a way. It's not like a sitcom where it's supposed to be funny because you can hear the audience laughing. There's no laugh track on our show. You're invited to become that sixth member. You have to put the puzzle together with us."