Once Again, It's Wyle And Clooney

Seen weekly as smart, sexy and vulnerable Dr. John Carter on E.R., Noah Wyle this week joined his pal George Clooney in the black and white live broadcast movie Fail Safe, that aired April 9 on CBS.

Wyle was the first person Clooney signed to appear with him in the CBS thriller. Wyle played Buck, a Russian translator responsible for communicating the U.S. president's messages to the Russian chairman. Early Show Co-Anchor Jane Clayson spent some time last weekend on the Warner Brothers' lot to interview both Wyle and Clooney. (To see Clooney's interview, click here.)

Of rehearsals for the live Fail Safe broadcast, Wyle says, "The worse that it's going now, the better off we are, because everybody will get in kind of a fever pitch of paranoia and fear and then, serendipitously, it will all come together on Sunday."

Clooney offered his friend the role over a game of hoops. Wyle accepted so casually that his agent and the producer of E.R. both were surprised to read about it months later in the Hollywood Reporter. Wyle just had not thought to tell them.

Of Clooney, Wyle says, "I can't even conceive of what my life would be like if I hadn't met him six and a half years ago and had his experience and wisdom and guidance to help me navigate these waters of change."

Wyle's life turned upside down with the launch of E.R. The show created a tidal wave of success that Clooney and Wyle rode together. How did their friendship start? What did Clooney do for him?

"What did he do for me? Paid my rent," Wyle recalls. "Right after we shot the pilot (for E.R.), George, Eriq (LaSalle) and I took off to go to Europe to waste all the money we made on the pilot, basically. And I did. I came home, and I didn't have any money, and George wrote my first two rent checks after the show started. And the first check I wrote when I got my first paycheck from E.R. was to pay George back for covering me."

When Clooney left the show, Wyle was pressured to step into the heartthrob role. But he has managed to be one of those unaffected Hollywood hunks despite five Emmy nominations and three Golden Globe nominations for his E.R. role.

As E.R. became a ratings powerhouse, most of the cast used their visibility to jump to films. But Wyle stayed low-key, doing theater and small independent films.

Wyle's background is in theater and he's the creative producer for The Blank Theater Company.

Now, he's engaged to makeup artist Tracy Warbin, whom he met on the set of The Myth Of Fingerprints. They will probably marry this year.

It was love at first sight, but he admits it helped that they were both Bob Dylan fans and she drove a 1964 Pontiac. (One of Wyle's own treasures is a 1960 Oldsmobile convertible, a gif from Clooney.)

"Yeah. I found a girl that loves me back," says the actor.

That hadn't happened before?

"Not like this. Not like this," he replies.