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After years of playing various cops on screen, 65-year-old actor Jerry O’Donnell is ready to stop pretending.
O’Donnell has appeared in approximately 50 films and shows over his four-decade acting career, often portraying police officers in series the young and the Restless, NYPD Blue, NCIS, BOSCHAnd Dexter. But now, the actor is taking steps to become a real-life law enforcement agent with the Asheville Police Department in North Carolina.
“I feel blessed and grateful to still have some capacity, so you know, it’s like a sense of purpose — to serve,” O’Donnell told the local outlet. asheville watchdog recently.
After months of rigorous classes and training, O’Donnell is awarded officer status in APD as he undergoes basic law enforcement training with other cadets. Trainees will take their state tests in January. If he passes, O’Donnell will graduate on Jan. 30 and be sworn in in March. This entire process takes about a year.
The veteran actor opened up about the physical demands of the training and said that the cadets have to run up and down in parking garages. He added: “And then you do the exercises – 15 air squats, run to the second level. Do 50 push-ups, run to the second level. Do 50 burpees.”
O’Donnell has previously completed physical training: he spent four years in the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division before making his TV acting debut. shine In 1991. In addition to playing a cop on several shows during his time in the spotlight, O’Donnell appeared in four episodes. Mad Man As Gerry Respola, Elisabeth Moss’s brother-in-law from 2008 to 2014.
However, after living in Los Angeles for years and working as an actor, O’Donnell said he was inspired to move to North Carolina and then find a community-focused job. hurricane helen Last year it devastated the western part of the state. He told his wife that he wanted to become a police officer, but she insisted that Los Angeles was too dangerous a place to start a career in law enforcement.
Rather than go into retirement like many people his age, O’Donnell said he feels a sense of purpose in joining the force, even if it means he is much older than his fellow trainees.
Asheville Police spokesman Rick Rice said, “There is no way to absolutely guarantee that he is our oldest cadet ever, as APD is currently celebrating 150 years, and our records only go back so far.” Independent. “But from the research I’ve done, I can’t find anyone older than him.”
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O’Donnell told asheville watchdog: “I always think that when you walk into a house at the end of your life, you want to be completely exhausted… you know – dirty, stained, a little bloodied, and spent.”