Austin Nichols Acts Up

CAN ANYTHING ever replace The Sopranos , which said ciao to HBO two weeks ago? Fuhgeddaboutit. But the network is trying with the spooky surfer drama John from Cincinnati, which premiered on June 10. Austin Nichols, 27, who plays the mysterious title character, has one thing in common with John, a brilliant surfer who seems to pick up the sport out of nowhere. Nichols has made a living by picking up athletic skills on the fly.

Wimbledon , 2004
Nichols was up for the part of a John McEnroe type in this romantic comedy, which meant he had to impress the film's tennis adviser, Pat Cash (a Wimbledon winner in '87). His problem: He'd never touched a racket. "[At the audition] they kept yelling, 'Swing hard!'" he recalls. "I didn't know how to play, so I just kept launching balls straight out of the court." Fortunately Nichols could act, and that got him the role opposite Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany. "When Pat saw my serve, he said, 'We can do it.' There was something about my motion that told him I was O.K." After four months of training for up to five hours a day, Nichols was ready for Centre Court .

Glory Road, 2006
When he was cast as a member of the 1966 Texas Western basketball team that was the first national champion with an all-African-American starting lineup, Nichols, never big into team sports, hadn't played roundball since he was a guard in junior high. Luckily, coaches like the Heat's Pat Riley and Western's Don Haskins were at a preproduction camp in New Orleans to provide lessons. Haskins , then 74, led the cast through drills. "He singled me out and started riding my a-- bad," recalls Nichols. "It felt like Little League all over again."

John from Cincinnati, 2007
Nichols, who grew up in Austin , comes from a family of water-skiers—his mother, Kay, was a national champ. He swam before he walked, and won waterskiing events as a teen. Nichols convinced the show's surf consultants that all he needed to get camera-ready was to "surf a bunch on his own." Now he (instead of a double) is able to do about 50% of what the scripts call for—"but that will keep growing every day." If John lasts as long as The Sopranos , maybe he'll end up being a pro, instead of just acting like one.