Lifestyle

It’s 6:30 on a typical weekday morning in the Pacific Palisades home that Chris O’Donnell shares with Caroline, his wife of 17 years, their five children and Kimmy, their adored 13-year-old black lab. The custom-built house sits in a celebrity-dense Los Angelesneighborhood, where residents include A-listers like Matt Damon, BenAffleck, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn, on a bluff overlooking the ocean.The views are stunning, but Chris and Caroline barely have time for a glance as they corral their brood.Fourteen-year-old Lily, the oldest, is out the door and heading to high school across town. Charlie, 10, “my focused little guy,” as Chris calls him, has already gotten dressed, eaten breakfast and iswatching the Golf Channel. Chip, 13, ispresent but not fully accounted for; hiseyes may be open but he’s half asleep.Finn, 8, is nowhere in sight. “You’ve called him 12 times but he’s still in bedand won’t come down,” Chris says. And 6-year-old Maeve, snuggled ona lap, is having her ponytails done.Some mornings, between volleyingquestions—Did you brush your teeth?Make your bed? Pack your backpack?—Chris steals a moment, pulls out hiscamera and videotapes the (mostly)controlled bedlam. “You think of thegreat trips you’ve taken, but this everydaymorning routine is the real fun and the kind of stuff you’ll want to remember,”he says. “This is your real life.”The rush hour of lifeAt 43, Chris is in the throes of whathe calls—borrowing a phrase fromsociologists—“the rush hour of life.” It’sthat period when both the demands ofcareer and family peak. “Right now I’m in the vortex of everything,” he says.“It’s crazy for me.” Days on the set ofhis hit CBS series NCIS: Los Angelescan run 14 hours, and weekends are,if anything, even more jammed. “It’sliterally divide and conquer,” he says; he and Caroline split duties of shuttling thekids to riding lessons, soccer, basketball,football and baseball games, with most Sunday mornings devoted to church.As hectic as rush hour may be, Chris is more than contentriding in the carpool lane.He has created the life he alwayswanted for himself: a large, happy family and the means to providefor them. That desire for blissfuldomesticity seems woven into hisvery DNA.A couple of years after hisbeloved father, William, passed away,Chris looked into his roots on the TLCshow Who Do You Think You Are? (Thisis a sharp contrast to his TV character,G. Callen, a military special agentwho grew up in 20 foster homes anddoesn’t even know what the “G” inhis first name stands for.) What Chrisdiscovered left his blue eyes wateringseveral times during the episode:Generation after generation, the men of his family had answered acall to service—fighting in the War of1812 and later in the Spanish-AmericanWar, helping bury bodies during the cholera epidemic that hit St. Louis inthe 1840s—but always returned hometo their families when they were needed.“Family was the most important thing in life to them,” Chris says.“And maybe that’s part of why itfeels so natural to me, so right, thatit’s also my instinct to put familyahead of everything else. There arepast generations that instill that inyou without your even knowing.”A nice guy who's finishing firstChris has a reputation in Hollywoodfor being a nice guy. Asked about this,he says, “Obviously, you’re talking tothe right people. I’m sure there arepeople who don’t have that opinion ofme.” Finding those people would likelybe a fruitless quest. In person, Chris isunfailingly gracious. At a photo shoot inthe Hollywood Hills on a rare morningoff, he is asked to wade into a pool withhis clothes on, a request that wouldleave many a more finicky actor aghast.But he’s all for it. “Just tell me what youwant me to do,” Chris says. Steppinginto the pool, he playfully brandishes animaginary Robin cape,reprising his days as Batman’s trustysidekick. Then, when a particularlyexuberant kick leaves a photographer’sassistant soaked, he’s full of apologies.He’s just as affable outsideHollywood. An avid and gifted golfer,he has played for the past 18 yearsin the AT&T Pebble Beach NationalPro-Am, a tournament that raisesmoney for the nonprofit MontereyPeninsula Foundation. It’s DougThompson’s sometimes-delicate jobto get the tournament’s celebritygolfers to talk to the press. Manybalk at the request; not Chris.“I have worked with dozens and dozens of celebrities over the past 13 years,” Doug says, “and Chris is themost open and friendly of any of them. He’s willing to do whatever I ask him.” This year Chris was on the driving range practicing with a swing coachwhen Doug approached him aboutdoing a television interview. He saidyes, even though he had a coveted teetime at Cypress Point [Club], widelyconsidered one ofthe most beautifulgolf courses in theworld.“You don’tever want to miss atee time at CypressPoint,” Doug says.“But Chris gaveus 45 minutes.He even showedthe host howto swing a golf club.That typifies him.” Doug runs outof adjectives as he describes Chris’generosity. “He’s just a great guy,” Dougsays, “really incredible,awesome.”A boisterous boyhoodEarly in his acting career, Chrissometimes felt like a fraud becausehe couldn’t call upon a harrowing childhood. “God forbid you came froma stable family,” Chris says. “That feltlike such a cop-out. Sure, a lot of artists did, of course, come from torturedbackgrounds, but I didn’t. When Iwas a young guy and I did interviews,I thought I had to produce some kindof edgy image. I don’t care about thatanymore. I feel so blessed to have had agreat upbringing with a lot of love frommy parents, my brothers and my sisters.”Chris grew up in Winnetka, anaffluent suburb of Chicago, the youngestof seven children. His brothers andsisters complained that as the baby of the family, Chris was spoiled; it didn’t helpthat his mother’s nickname for him was“Precious Love.” In some ways, Chrissays, he’s a composite of every oneof his siblings. “I had this amazingexperience being the youngest ofseven,” he says, “because I was soinfluenced by each of my brothersand my sisters. I see this with my ownkids, too. As the youngest, I wanted tobe like everyone, so I play golf becausemy brother John played golf. I’ll neverbe as good as John—who’s one of thetop amateur golfers in the country—butI’m pretty good. My brother Bill gardensand cooks, and he can build a house. I can do a lot of that, though I can’t doit as well as him. But Bill doesn’t golfand John can’t do any of the stuff thatBill does. I’m somewhere in-between.”The way, way backHis dad set an example of relishing simple pleasures. “He would get as excited about a good homemade burger and a cold beer, sitting in his house with his feet up and watching the Bears game as if he was in the fanciest restaurant in Paris,” he says. The family ate dinner together every night, with Chris and his sister Angela sitting at the breakfast bar because there wasn’t room for all nine O’Donnells at the kitchen table.There were occasional meals out to Hackney’s, a casual family restaurant. “That was a really big deal,” Chris says. “We’d all pile into our two cars—a Buick and a Caprice classic station wagon—and, inevitably, one car would be 30 minutes late because halfway there someone got in trouble, wasn’t allowed to go to dinner and had to be taken home.” There were rules, like each kid was allowed one soda for the night. “You could chug it if you wanted or you could take little sips and wait for everyone else to finish theirs,” Chris says. He’d chug his, then climb under the table and pour packets of sugar into a glass of water. “My parents would say, ‘Just leave him alone, he’s quiet,’ ” Chris says. “It was chaos, and they’d always say, ‘We’re never doing this again.’ But, of course, we did.”Best of all were the weeks spent at a summer cottage on Lake Michigan that had been in his mother’s family for generations. There was a small public golf course behind the house. “My favorite day as a kid was getting up early, going to play golf and then coming home, having lunch and being on those sandy beaches with my family,” Chris says. “We’d build bon fires and generations—my grandparents, parents and lots of cousins—would come together. It was just a simple, fun tradition.”Getting to workWhen he was in the eighth grade,inspired by a classmate who wasappearing in local ads, Chris reached out to a local talent agent. Soon, he wasappearing in local TV commercials andthen national campaigns, like one forMcDonald’s where he rang up an orderfor basketball player Michael Jordan. At17, he landed his first movie role, oppositeJessica Lange, in Men Don’t Leave. It washis introduction to the perks of success,and it left him wide-eyed. “They flew me out to New York to audition,” Chrissays. “I took my dad, and they put us upat The Regency Hotel. There were threeTVs in our room; there was even onein the bathroom. I was blown away.”When Chris started Boston Collegeafter deferring a year to do the movie, hedidn’t tell anyone about his acting career.“I didn’t want to be known as the kidwho was in the movies,” he says. But thenads started running for Men Don’t Leaveand, he says, “the cat was out of the bag.”His anonymity completely evaporatedover the next few years, as he starredopposite some of Hollywood’s biggeststars (Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman andGene Hackman and Faye Dunaway inThe Chamber) and newcomers who wouldgo on to become the next generation ofsuperstars (Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Brendan Fraser in School Ties andDrew Barrymore in Mad Love).The allure of stardomWhen he was 23, Chris went on location to Vienna to star opposite Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland in The ThreeMusketeers. It was, he says, “the biggest eye-opening experience of all time.” Ifhe liked to have a good time, he was a choirboy in comparison to Kiefer and,especially, Charlie. “I always say it was like taking your craziest buddy fromcollege, giving him $20 million and justseeing what he does,” Chris says. “It wastotally out-of-control. I loved it, butI had my limits. I’d knock back somecocktails with them, but at a certainpoint, I’d check out while they’d run all night. This was a big opportunityfor me, and I was taking it seriously.”While Chris enjoyed his stint as a Hollywood heartthrob, he recognized “there were different paths you could take.” He goes on. “I knew I could continue to date and never get married and enjoy Hollywood and all the benefits of it, but that really wasn’t who I was,” he says. “It’s tough to have it both ways. If you know you want to have a great family and a bunch of kids, it’s hard to run around in Hollywood.”Finding his soulmateHe started dating Caroline Fentress,the sister of a college roommate (“Assoon as I kissed her, I knew she wasthe one,” he likes to say), and, threeyears later, in April 1997, they married.“Being in this business can be anemotional roller coaster, and Carolineis an incredibly stable person and agreat sounding board for me,” he says.She provided a ballast early on, inthe heady aftermath of making BatmanForever and Batman & Robin.“TheBatman movies changed everything,” he says. “It took me to a differentlevel.” Chris was bombarded with filmoffers, and though he declined rolesthat turned out to be hits for otheractors, including Men in Black, he hasno regrets. “I love doing films,” Chrissays, “but traveling all the time andbeing on location isn’t conducive tofamily life. When I started having kids,I realized TV was going to make moresense for me.”Joining the NCIS familyAfter co-starring stintson Two and a Half Men, The Practice andGrey’s Anatomy and a starring role inthe Cold War miniseries The Company,he moved on to NCIS: Los Angeles. Itproved a hit out of the gate and stilldrew top ratings in its fifth season.This year, to keep things interesting,Chris directed an episode for the first time and hopes to do more directingnext season. Still, he is far fromrestless. “I’m comfortable with thecharacter I play, and I’m crazy aboutthe people I work with,” he says. Chrisshares a special chemistry and a kind of“bromance” with his co-star, rapper-turned-actor LL Cool J. “I love him,”Chris says. “He’s one-of-a-kind, anincredibly confident guy who’s reallycomfortable in his own body. He’s alsosomebody that I absolutely trust. I can tell that guy anything and he’s like a vault.”For now, Chris is looking eastwardto the coast of Maine, where he has asummer home. Hoping to re-createthe kind of experiences that he enjoyedgrowing up, the family spends summers at their 100-year-old waterfront home.“I’ve got Maine fever,” he says. “It’s myfavorite place to be and I can’t get therefast enough. I get eight weeks off fromthe show, and everyone always asks me ifI’m going to do a  lm on my hiatus. I say,‘Are you crazy? This is the most precioustime of the year with my kids.’ We justkind of shut things down and hang out.It’s when I really get to live my life.”The days are sun-drenched andleisurely: They pack a picnic and exploredifferent islands—there are over 4,600 islands off the coast of Maine—sail, swimand golf. And, unlike when they’re in LA,even his older kids don’t balk at spendingfamily time together. “I’m still a big shotto my little guys,” he says, “but Chip andLily are gone every weekend. I’ll say,‘I thought we were going to do somethingtogether,’ and they’re like, ‘I don’t knowI’ve got so-and-so coming over.’ I’m like,‘All right, but what am I, chopped liver?’ ”Finding the good life at homeDon’t feel too sorry for Chris. Alongwith taking romantic trips to places like Paris and the French Caribbean Islandof St. Bart’s, he and Caroline have very active social lives themselves. “I’m notrunning around in Hollywood going to every event,” he says. “But we’re always going to dinners with friends and havingparties.” Recently, Caroline organized agame of team charades, with 60 adultsbroken into eight teams. “People wereracing through every room of thehouse,” he says. “It was the best night ofthe year.” And just recently they hosteda more elegant event—a catered wine pairingdinner for a dozen friends. Chrisis a serious wine collector, and when hehad his home built from the ground up,he included a wine cellar (as well as anoutdoor pizza oven).When theO’Donnells return home from Maine,Chris will begin making plans for theOktoberfest he hosts every year, completewith fare like beef roulade, schnitzeland beer passed around in a giant stein. “It’s a family tradition,” Chris says.“I get really sentimental about things,and I’m really a creature of habit.”Right now, it’s time for Chris tomove on to his next appointment.Before he heads out to his car—anAudi sedan that, he says, is the fanciestcar he has ever bought and that leaveshim feeling slightly abashed—he iscertain to thank every crew memberwith a hearty, “Appreciate it, man.Have a good day.” And just as thedoor closes behind him, there’s asound that follows Chris O’Donnellwherever he goes. People turn to eachother, smile and exclaim, “What anice guy!”