By Sarika Chawla

As Jeremy Sisto's career is on fire, he returns to his theatrical roots in Dead End.

As an actor, Jeremy Sisto likes things to be complicated. "My agent is always trying to get me to do romantic comedies and stuff like that, but that's just not me," he drawls, before quickly retracting the statement. "I shouldn't say that, because I would do one if the right one comes around. If it's like Sideways or something like that; a real thing. But I don't think it fits into my fucking thing."

What this "fucking thing" means isn't exactly clear-cut for him. As the son of actress Reedy Gibbs and jazz musician Dick Sisto, he has been performing almost his entire life. At 7 years old, he appeared alongside his sister as an apparition in Tennessee Williams' House Not Meant to Stand at Chicago's Goodman Theatre: "I think I had two lines. They were 'Tick tock' if I remember correctly." Since then, Sisto's versatile looks and often quirky role choices have kept him flying under the radar, but he finally reached the mainstream consciousness with a role in HBO's Six Feet Under, playing an

emotionally disturbed young man with some creepy desires for his sister. Sisto seems to regard the darker side as more of his thing, and he's pretty adamant about not resurrecting his role as Elton in my pitch for Clueless: Cher's 10-Year Reunion. "No way. Wouldn't do it."

Having already established himself in film and television, Sisto finds himself repeatedly returning to his onstage roots. He impressed critics in the one-man show Sanguine at the Blank Theatre in 2003, and most recently, as the backwater homophobe Shane Mungitt in the Geffen Playhouse's

production of Take Me Out. These days, he is deep in rehearsal for The Center Theatre Group's

production of Sidney Kingsley's Dead End, playing at the Ahmanson Theatre. Telling the story of a group of Depression era teens, known as the Dead End Kids, who contend with class conflict in their East Side tenement, Dead End is rarely produced due to its sheer volume. It is one of the more complex plays that the Ahmanson has staged, with one of the largest sets ever created for the theater, including an orchestra pit filled with 10,000 gallons of water to simulate the East River, and a whopping cast of 42 actors, including Tom Everett Scott and Joyce Van Patten. "What's cool about it is that there's a lot of energy. A lot of young guys and old veterans; people who have done the play before; people who are so happy to be here, like myself. It's that kind of bubbling energy." Being surrounded by such a varied cast is also giving him a weird sense of déja vu. "It's funny because there are kids in this play; I watch them and think, 'That was me!' And now I'm the old guy that I used to look at. It's very interesting."

At 31, he's not exactly being typecast as "the old guy." In Dead End, he's playing gangster Baby Face Martin, the role that was first immortalized by Joseph Downing in the original 1935 stage

production, and then by Humphrey Bogart in the 1937 film version. Taking on such a well-known role can be a daunting task for a performer, but it's a challenge that Sisto already knows how to deal with. "I was really worried about doing an imitation, like I was worried in Take Me Out. I've watched the movie once. I might watch it again. I don't think it'll hurt me, it just won't help me. What I need to do is make everything as real for me as I can, and that happens in my own head more than anything else."

A play like Dead End has its own place in history as a snapshot of a particularly traumatic time in America. A 21st-century revival contains the risk of losing its impact for an audience so far removed from the subject matter. But in Sisto's experience so far, he firmly believes that its cultural relevance is as powerful as ever: "There are still poor kids, there are still rich people, there are still class struggles. It's a really well-crafted play in the sense that it covers the whole spectrum of what it is to grow up poor." He even relates the Dead End Kids to a group that he met while in his own travels in the Caribbean islands: "They lived in a one-room house, 10 kids sleeping on the floor, never enough to eat. But every day, they would go to this beautiful hilltop and make kites out of plastic bags and sticks. There's something really interesting about watching that, the spirit of young people and their resilience."

Since he tends to stay away from the fluffy roles, Sisto has to rely on his acting abilities to carry him through his more sinister performances. While in Take Me Out, screaming "faggot" onstage in front of an audience full of theater queens was less than an ideal situation, but it was a necessary evil he was willing to explore. "You have to figure out how to get behind it. Sometimes that's kind of disturbing, because for me it's not my job to psychologically analyze the characters. In that particular situation, Shane was a really messed up guy; he was really fucked up, you know? You just have to turn that shit around and believe some things that you don't actually believe." Similarly, playing a guy with more than brotherly affection for his sister on Six Feet Under might give him a kind of ooky feeling. "I see if I can talk myself into really believing the same thing. If I'm in love with my sister, I have to really be in love with her and make that make sense to me. Then people watch it and say 'Well, that's sick, but if you want it so bad, maybe it does make sense.' That's the goal anyway." He still doesn't like for his real-life sister to watch those episodes, but assures that all is functional in the Sisto family.

Since he seems to have already conquered film, television, and theater, all roads seem to be open for the wry actor who has longevity in mind. "Movies and plays are what I like to do. I like TV too, but you spend a long time playing the same character, so I imagine it might tend to make me a little complacent. What's fun to me is figuring out these people; the more times I get to do that the more alive I feel." His upcoming films include Population 426, about a man who investigates a mysterious town with a population that never changes; Unknown, in which a group of men test each others' suspicions while trapped in a warehouse; and Broken, where he plays Heather Graham's ex-boyfriend who is determined to win her back. "[In Broken] I definitely played a dark character, but I worked on making him very human." In whichever medium his career leads him, he remains sure that it is the craft that drives him more than anything else. So is he shooting for a Tony, Emmy, or Oscar? "Whatever. It'd be fun to get it, but really, it's so silly to me. This business is so overrated now, so self important, it kind of takes away from any kind of significance it does have." He pauses. "But, you know, it would be good for my career."

Dead End is performed Aug. 28-Oct. 16 at the Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. For tickets, call (213) 628-2772, or see www.TaperAhmanson.com.