You've Seen Peter Krause on TV

The star of "9-1-1," "Six Feet Under," and "Parenthood" talks about his Roseville roots, working the State Fair, and the (many) characters he's portrayed.

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Peter Krause is sitting in his trailer on a studio backlot in Los Angeles, eating pork loin. It’s mid-August, and he’s on his lunch break while filming the third season of Fox’s first-responder drama 9-1-1. Krause plays a firefighter, Bobby Nash, trying to extinguish both L.A.-area blazes and some personal fires on the side. 

I’m catching up with the 54-year-old Roseville native during a busy summer production schedule that has already seen the cast (the esteemed Angela Bassett among them) visit Mexico to film an episode about a natural disaster. Even over the phone, though, it’s clear that Krause feels perfectly comfortable chilling in a trailer, waiting for his next call time. He’s breezy and eager to wax poetic about everything from the woes of being a Vikings fan to the joys of schlepping fish and chips at the State Fair. What happens to Bobby Nash in the next scene couldn’t be further from his mind. 

It helps that he’s spent the majority of his adult life doing just this. His first paid gig—after an undergrad degree from Gustavus and an acting MFA from NYU—came as an ensemble member in Carol Burnett’s early-’90s sketch comedy show, Carol & Company. And he’s never looked back.

Krause spent the next decade popping up all over the television dial, with roles in Seinfeld, Ellen, Cybill, and Beverly Hills, 90210, to name a few. Then, a great part—Casey McCall on the ESPN-ish comedy Sports Night—made him a perennial TV lead. (He’d met the show’s writer/creator, Aaron Sorkin, a decade earlier, when they both worked in bars on Broadway.) Krause’s career since then has included a lauded turn as Nate Fisher, the prodigal son in HBO’s early-aughts mortuary drama Six Feet Under, and as reliable dad Adam Braverman in NBC’s hit family dramedy Parenthood.  

Before we could ask one of our Minnesota questions, though, Krause, who hasn’t lived here since 1987, had a question for us.

Isn’t Elizabeth Warren in town? 

Yeah. She was at Macalester last night—drew like 12,000 people. 

Oh. Wow.

Minnesotans show up. 

Totally. But that number is still pretty big, which is encouraging. 

Since that was sort of an iconic Minnesota moment, who comes to mind when you think of iconic Minnesotans?

Boy, that’s tough. The first name that came to my mind was Bob Dylan. Maybe Paul Bunyan, but he’s not really an iconic Minnesotan.

Plus, I think Maine also lays claim to Bunyan. 

Babe Winkelman, the fisherman. Was he a Minnesotan? 

Still is. Lives in Brainerd. 

Well, he’s kind of quintessential. I guess it depends on how you define iconic. Joe Mauer maybe. Growing up, I never really had anyone like that. I had Tony Oliva and Rod Carew. None of those original Twins were Minnesota natives.

No, they weren’t. 

When I first moved to New York City, in 1987, I was bartending on Broadway at a bar called McHale’s Pub. It was the Minnesota Twins vs. the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. And the city of New York didn’t care. I mean it. Nobody in the bar was paying attention to the TV except me, which kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

Are you still a Minnesota sports fan? 

I still follow the Twins, more so when they’re winning. So, I’ve been keeping up this year. I hold out high hopes, but we’ll see what happens. Sadly, I also still follow the Vikings. 

When I lived in California, I was surprised to find out that there are tons of SoCal Vikings fans with no ties to Minnesota. 

Yeah, I don’t know if it’s the purple and gold or what it is, but there are people here who have nothing to do whatsoever with Minnesota that love the Vikings. 

What’s your favorite Minnesota place?

I would say the Boundary Waters. 

Did you go up there as a kid?

My first time ever was in junior high. I went with my buddy Doug Stahley and his dad, who was the track coach at Hamline, and a pal of his who was a biology professor there. We headed into Basswood Lake. Caught a lot of smallmouth bass and walleye. Did the portaging. I really had a blast. Famously, my buddy Doug came running out of the woods yelling, “I saw a bear! A real one!” 

Beware of your surroundings when taking a leak in the Boundary Waters, I guess.

I’m also a big fan of the Minnesota State Fair. I worked there all the way through high school and a few years in college. 

What did you do? 

I worked at a fish-and-chips booth between the horse and sheep barns. 

Crazy. 

It was pretty awesome. I mean, for those of us who grew up in Roseville and Falcon Heights, it’s the great two-week period in the summer where you could make a lot of money. But you worked really hard, too. I mean, I went home every day smelling like a fish. 

How long since you’ve been? 

I was back a couple years ago with my high school buddy Jeff McGuire, and we walked around and had a nice time. When I was really little, my dad worked for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Then it was called the Highway Department. They had a stand, and they’d hand out the new state map every year. It was really popular. I remember I got to sit on a crate back there and hand out the maps.

Didn’t you also work at a movie theater?

At the Har Mar Cinemas. Back then most people in the Roseville–Falcon Heights area didn’t have a lot of money, so getting food for less was a big deal. And across the street from the theater was an Arby’s, where you could get two for one if you had a ticket stub from the theater. Being an usher, I had an endless supply of ticket stubs. And my buddy Jeff McGuire worked across the street at Rocky Rococo Pizza. And their deal was, after a half hour, any slice of pizza had to be thrown out. He would take all the pizza slices that were supposed to be thrown out. So, we were having two-for-one Arby’s and old slices from Rocky Rococo’s. 

Not to mention all the movie theater popcorn you could eat.

Oh my God. I can barely eat popcorn today because of it.

Switching gears, you costarred in 1987 indie slasher flick Blood Harvest, which was filmed here. This is your greatest cinematic achievement, correct? 

Oh God. False. 

Fine. But Tiny Tim, whom you worked with on the picture, is your greatest costar, correct? 

Uh, I did work with Carol Burnett. And I’m currently working with Angela Bassett. So, I think I’m going to have to take a false on that. 

I read that your role after college on Carol Burnett’s show Carol & Company is what made your skeptical parents finally come around on your decision to become an actor. You and your siblings just sold their home, right? The house you grew up in?  

Yeah. The place that my parents bought in 1969, when I was four. 

That must have been rough. 

My mom lived there until she passed away. That was weird. Losing my dad and then my mom. And then finally it was just the house, and like, my brother and my sister and I had to come to terms with that. Over the years for me, the return home was always a great comfort. I love that town, and I had all my old running routes from being on the track team in high school. I enjoyed taking my own kid over to the park where I used to play ball. My brother and sister still live there, but I haven’t been back since we cleaned out the house.

Is that on purpose?

No. I’ll get back. I mean, life got busy during that time. My parents were both sick for a period of like four years, and I was on a plane, it seemed, like every four or five days. So, I was going back to see them a lot. I’ll get back, but selling the house did feel like I was getting kicked out of my hometown. 

You’ve lived away from Minnesota longer than you lived here. Do you still consider yourself a Minnesotan?

I feel like at my core I’m a Minnesotan. You know, I maintain certain attitudes. Like, “Could be worse!” That very particularly Minnesotan thing where, whatever awful situation we’re in, we’re like, “Could be worse! Could be raining!”

I think when you exist in a place that is inherently full of extremes, you are forced to regress to the mean in all situations. 

I got in a bad car accident when I first moved to L.A., and my mother’s response was, “Are you okay?” And I was like, “Yeah, I’m fine.” And she was like, “Welp, coulda been worse!”

That’s really funny. 

My family also has a really deep appreciation for being able to go outside at night in California because there are so few mosquitoes. Because when you grow up in Minnesota, you understand that when the sun goes down, you can’t stay outside without first dousing yourself in poison. 

Totally. 

Or there’s that experience that every Minnesotan has had where you’re in bed at night and then you hear the mosquito in your ear and you jump up, throw on the lights, and then you start scanning the room for that tiny little mosquito body. Do you remember back in the late 1970s or early 1980s, the song “Mosquito Paranoia Can’t Destroy Ya”? 

No. Was it on local radio?

Yeah. It was like, “Mosquito paranoia, can’t destroy ya…” Maybe like based on Ozzy Osbourne.

Funny. I’ve always perceived some degree of Minnesotan-ness in the characters you play. Do you feel that? 

I’ve always wanted to play characters who want to be good people. Who want to be decent men. And I think there is something about growing up in Minnesota that engenders a sort of decency. That, to me, is probably what you notice.

I know you don’t like to look ahead, but what do you reckon you’ll do when 9-1-1 ends? 

I really enjoy doing television series, and I’ve made a point to play different characters. I’ve greatly enjoyed 9-1-1, which is more of an action series than I’ve ever done. But in terms of what’s next, you know, I wouldn’t mind doing some straight-up comedy. 

Like what? 

Not necessarily like Ted Baxter in Mary Tyler Moore, but I’ve always thought it would be fun to play like a, you know, goofy weatherman. 

What you are officially telling me is that you want to remake Mary Tyler Moore, shoot it in Minneapolis, and play Ted Baxter? 

Yeah. Umm. Hmm. I do think I’d like to play a weatherman, but not necessarily that one. 

9-1-1 airs Mondays at 7 pm on Fox. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

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