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Oh well, maybe Six Degrees will be the next Desperate Housewives and turn Jay Hernandez into a heartthrob for Middle America. He certainly looks sharp in that lawyer suit, and his romance with Erika Christensen?s character could certainly turn up the heat on network TV. And that?s only one sixth of the stories that will begin when Six Degrees starts Thursday, September 21.

Do you believe in six degrees?
?Yeah, I think people are connected in so many different ways.

There are so many examples of it. People I met like Erika Christensen, I met her at this Elton John AIDS fundraiser a very long time ago. We ran into each other, we got out of a car at the same time, we walked down the red carpet. Then cut to this, ABC, Six Degrees, X amount of years later. So things like that happen. The connectivity of everything in life, I firmly believe that?s a reality. One thing does affect another. It?s kind of a butterfly effect sort of a situation. I do believe things are connected in ways that we don?t really understand or we won?t understand until some future time.?

Will your family be in New York with you?
?No, everyone?s going to stay out here. My mom?s bummed out about that.?

Are they torn between you having a steady job and being so far away?
?Yeah, I?m across the country and I?m not going to be able to go to mom?s house for some barbecue, that kind of thing, so she?s sad about that. But I?m considering myself bicoastal right now. That?s my plan. I still have a place here so I will be coming back pretty often.?

Does it make it easier with an ensemble cast?
?Yes. If I was on a show like 24 where it?s one guy all the time, that?d be another situation because it demands so much of your attention. There?s not really any free time in a situation like that. But we have six people, we have a lot of different stories we have to follow and keep alive so it does spread the workload, which is great.?

Was the character always Latino?
?It was after I came. I became Carlos Green. It wasn?t really specified. They had an open mind and it?s not really explained as of yet what my ethnicity is. I don't know if it?s important. A city like New York is so diverse that you expect a little range in terms of ethnicity. He?s a New Yorker.?

Did you think about Crash?
?I didn?t think Crash. It?s a totally different setting. The City of LA, I?m from LA so I know LA very well. And New York to me? Yeah, that sort of idea of the connectivity, I guess so but it didn?t strike me as reminiscent of Crash. Just the setting is so different to me. The city of New York is something new and exciting for me and the idea of people living in New York is very different from LA. Like Erika said earlier, you can walk, you can take the subway, you can take a cab. It?s very tight though. It?s centralized.

In LA, you?re in a car. I don?t really see anybody. I saw somebody that I knew once on the freeway in Los Angeles. I always expect to see somebody on the freeway, figuring everyone?s on the freeway. I?m on the freeway; we?re all stuck here. I should see somebody. I never do. I?ve only seen one friend ever in my life on the freeway.?

What sort of research did you do for this role?
?For this I actually went down to the courthouse, sat in on a session and just watched proceedings. I tried to get a handle of what these people do on a daily basis, the comfort level, just the way they approach it. Just little aspects so I was able to do that for my character, which is great because not everybody has the luxury of saying, ?All right, this is a real big part of my life.? Like Erika is such a mystery, so I did have that luxury of being able to go there and talk to public defenders and understand what they do.?

Playing a guy with an adult job, is that the next step in your career?
?Yeah, that was one thing that was intriguing about it, the fact that I got to be in a courthouse. It was exciting. The first episode had a couple scenes in the courthouse. To walk in there and to talk to council and to have clients, that whole experience which I?m definitely going to be doing more stuff in the courtroom, it?s exciting to me. It?s something that I?ve never done and it just feels good as an actor to be in there and experience that.?

How do you see people getting involved in the love story? Will it frustrate people?
?I don't know. I have yet to find out. I know the direction of the characters in the show but I don't know all the particulars, which is kind of interesting, kind of brave and kind of scary at the same time. Film - you know where a movie starts and where it ends. Television, which is new for me, you don?t know where it ends. You know where it starts but it can go a million different directions. It?s going to be challenging, I guess, but I?m looking forward to it. I think people will go along with the love story. Everybody loves romanticism and people like to sit down and be entertained in that way, so I hope the audience will like it.?