Justin: ‘Party of Five’ actor Scott Wolf gets his first taste of Minnesota

Scott Wolf didn’t pick up hockey until his junior year of high school in New Jersey, but the way he was gliding around the 3M Arena at Mariucci rink earlier this month, you would think he was born with skates on.

Smooth moves have been Wolf’s public persona since the ’90s hit “Party of Five,” in which he played Bailey Salinger, a high school heartthrob who always seemed to be on the verge of tears.

His latest series, “Doc,” is set in a fictional Minneapolis hospital, the perfect excuse for the 56-year-old actor to make his first significant visit to the Twin Cities.

The show’s writers don’t make much of an effort to incorporate local references (it’s shot in Toronto), although early episodes cite the University of Minnesota, Prince and the Spoon and Stable, where Wolf dined during his last evening in town.

But while he visited the Gophers hockey facilities and donated blood at the American Red Cross office, fans welcomed him like he was one of us, thanking him for past projects like NBC’s “The Night Shift” and the 1996 film “White Squall,” directed by Ridley Scott.

He’s just starting to get recognized for his latest project, which debuted as the most watched new series Fox has had in five years.

“I don’t have to look at the ratings,” said Wolf, who is playing a TV doctor for the fourth time. “I can just tell it’s working by people’s reactions.”

This is his eighth series for network TV, a platform that has only solidified his image as a family-friendly celebrity. The idea of hearing Wolf curse is as unsettling as finding footage of Mister Rogers kicking a dog.

Other actors may have already fired their agent for not sending them edgier roles. But Wolf has made peace with his place in the Hollywood zeitgeist.

“I’m going to drop a name,” he said after taking a solo spin on the ice that proved he still plays hockey every week that he’s back home in Park City, Utah. “I was lucky enough to be on a coast-to-coast flight with Michael J. Fox. It was right as I was finishing ‘Party of Five,’ and I wanted to do films, anything other than network TV. He said, ‘That’s all well and good. Do what you need to do. But you have a secret weapon. You are someone people feel comfortable with in their living room. Don’t take that for granted.‘”

Wolf leaned against the railing at the arena.

“I haven’t thought about that in a long time,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to network TV.”

“Doc,” however, does offer Wolf some new challenges.

The main protagonist, Dr. Amy Larsen (Molly Parker) has lost her bedside manner after her son dies. After a car accident, she wakes up with no memory of the past eight years, which means she’s unaware of her divorce, an affair with a subordinate and the fact that she was about to turn in a fellow doctor for his major screw-up.

That colleague is Wolf’s character, Richard Miller. At first, he’s the show’s villain, determined to keep Larsen from regaining her memory — or her position at the hospital. But creator Barbie Kligman, who based the show on an Italian series, has something more complex in mind. Miller is not pure evil. In this week’s episode, premiering at 8 p.m. Tuesday on Fox, we learn more about Miller’s back story, how efforts to keep his family together have distracted him from his duties.

“This is as complex a character as I‘ve ever played,” he said while checking out the locker room on the team’s day off. “You can’t put him in a box. You think you have an idea about him, but then things are revealed that put him in a different light.”

It’s the kind of role that Wolf might not have been ready for in his 20s, when his dimples were just as vital to his career as his acting ability.

“If I was on set of ‘Party of Five’ and I saw someone eat a sandwich off camera, somehow 6 percent of my mind would not be on the scene,” he said. “But now everything gets folded in. Things that were once a threat to your focus become part of the experience.”

Wolf treats publicizing his shows with the same earnest attitude that made him a star. At the Red Cross, he joked with the staff right before getting stuck with a needle.

“I always support the shows I’m in, but this is taking it another level,” he said. While his blood was being collected, he startled his publicist by pretending to pass out. Afterward, he told stories about playwright Neil LaBute and actor Jeff Bridges while sipping out of a juice box.

He’s grateful for the longevity of his own career and for the success of his “Party” castmates Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lacey Chabert, Matthew Fox and Neve Campbell.

“We were really lucky that the first thing that put us out into the world was written so well,” he said. “Cutting your teeth on something that matters becomes part of your DNA. It sets the bar for the kind of things you want to be a part of.”