Command performer

Everything about Dennis Haysbert invites trust:

The imposing 6-foot-41/2-inch stature. The velvet bass voice with rich hints of Paul Robeson and James Earl Jones. The friendly, confident smile.

And more than anything, the bearing - the indefinable command presence of Sgt. Maj. Jonas Blane, of 24's President David Palmer, of the guy who tells good drivers they'll get a break with Allstate.

You're in good hands with Haysbert.

"He's a 21st-century Marshal Dillon," says Shawn Ryan, executive producer of The Unit, the CBS action drama in which Haysbert stars at 9 on Tuesday nights. (Matt Dillon, of course, was the legendary lawman of Gunsmoke who brought order to Dodge City.) "He carries himself in way that demands you, as a viewer, look at him."

Haysbert was in Philadelphia the other day to promote the series. He stopped to chat over lunch at the studios of KYW Newsradio, a CBS station, in the 400 block of Market Street.

Haysbert is passionate about The Unit, the story of an elite squad of U.S. Army Rangers.

The series, inspired by Delta Force, the Army's hush-hush counterterrorism outfit, "is a healing for the nation and for the military," says Haysbert, who plays Blane, the team's leader.

The Unit has done well, given that it usually goes up against one of two Fox heavyweights, American Idol or House. Haysbert and crew have averaged nearly 11.5 million viewers per week this season, running second to Fox in the 9 p.m. Tuesday time slot.

Haysbert describes The Unit, created by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet and former Delta Force member Eric L. Haney, as pro-military but not pro-war.

The show, Haysbert says, gives viewers "an understanding of what our military goes through" - and what their spouses, whose stories make up a major part of The Unit, go through.

"We're trying to tell you the truth of what is going on out there," Haysbert says.

The 52-year-old actor is no less enthusiastic about the character he plays.

Ask Haysbert to describe himself, and some of the traits he cites could easily be attributed to Blane: sense of humor, loyalty, trustworthiness, fierceness, unrelenting drive.

"Sometimes, I like to feel as though I'm channeling Blane, because he's a tough guy, and I like who he is," Haysbert says. "He's a compassionate warrior."

And a warrior with a conscience. As a soldier, Blane carries out orders. How would he handle an order to do something he believes is wrong?

"He'd work his way around it," Haysbert replies without hesitation. "He'd find some way around it."

The son of a San Mateo, Calif., deputy sheriff, Haysbert decided at the age of 10 that he wanted to be an actor, although he was a high-school football standout. (A brother, Adam, who lives in Mount Airy, played wide receiver on Brigham Young's 1984 national championship team).

But it was acting, not football, for Dennis, who decorated his room with posters of Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier.

He made his first television appearance in 1976 on The Lou Grant Show, playing a teenager interested in journalism.

That debut was followed by guest appearances on enough TV shows to fill an issue of TV Guide, including The White Shadow; Laverne & Shirley; Battlestar Galactica; Quincy, M.E.; Dallas; Magnum, P.I.; The A-Team; and Growing Pains.

Haysbert has appeared in more than 20 films, including Major League, Far From Heaven, and Breach.

His impressive height and sonorous voice have proved both "a detriment and an asset," Haysbert says.

They intimidate some actors, who have balked at working with him. "I've had directors tell me they would love to have me, but so-and-so is not going to go for it," Haysbert says.

His staunch physical presence is just fine with other performers, including Regina Taylor, who plays Blane's wife, Molly.

"I think there's a plus to having a gorgeous and melodious man by your side," she says by phone from California. "A huge part of the success of the show is absolutely Jonas Blane. It's the cachet he brings. He's a man's man, and easy on the eyes for the ladies."

Haysbert believes his height and voice worked for him in 24, where his character, David Palmer, was both a former basketball player and a politician.

And landing the role was a big career boost.

"Playing President Palmer really put me on the map," he says. "Quite frankly, I think that's what got me the Allstate ad. Then came The Unit; I wanted to play something a bit more action-oriented."

Action is exactly what he gets in The Unit, where Jonas Blane flies off to war zones the way other guys take the bus to work. Playing Blane is physically demanding. "I stay in pretty good shape," says Haysbert, who is watching his weight and picks at a salad during part of the interview.

He seems a little uncomfortable with a suggestion that he is carving out a niche as an authority figure. All his roles are different, he says.

"In Allstate [commercials], I'm an advocate," he explains. "I don't tell anybody what to do, I just show them choices. [As Jonas Blane], I get my orders, and I go out and implement them."

In the 2002 film Far From Heaven, he plays a black gardener who becomes involved with a white woman (Julianne Moore) in Connecticut in the 1950s. Haysbert's character there is "a good guy, but there's nothing really forceful about him. This is a man who has courage enough to love and risk being hurt."

Does the number of African American actors nominated for Oscars this year mean that the entertainment business has turned a corner when it comes to race?

"I hope so, I hope so," Haysbert says. "We still have a ways to go, I think, and I think African American actors can help themselves out by just visualizing more." That means developing a sense of "who they are and where they want to go. I think actors in general are insecure and would do just about anything in order to work. There are actors out there that are good enough that they don't have to do that. They can visualize what they want to do."

What does Haysbert visualize?

"There are a lot of warriors that I still want to play," he replies - especially the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint L'Ouverture.

That project is in the works, but it would be a French production, with a French director. And it would be shot in French - a prospect that doesn't bother Haysbert, even though he doesn't speak the language. He'd just take a crash course.

It's what a competent, reliable guy would do.