Photo: Michael Brosilow

Recently, I sat down with actor William Petersen in the lobby of the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater. Better known as Gil Grissom of CSI, Petersen stars in Scottish scribe David Harrower’s play Blackbird, about a man and a woman who reconnect 15 years after their sexual encounter—when she was 12. You can read about his thoughts on taking on the controversial character in our full interview here, also out in this week’s issue. But one snippet that didn’t make it into the published Q&A was the Chicago native’s ambivalent feelings on being a celeb in his hometown.

Time Out Chicago: How is stardom different here in Chicago as compared to L.A.?
William Petersen: In L.A., they’re more blasé about it. They want to be cool enough that they don’t want to get excited about it, or they’re too used to it so they don’t get excited about it.

TOC: And here you’re the hometown guy made good.
WP: Here there’s just not that many guys walking around, and I still like to walk around. I still like to do Chicago the way I used to do Chicago, so I get recognized a lot. I mean, CSI is all over the world. My wife and I went to Italy, and there’s nobody that didn’t recognize me in any restaurant. Everybody’s nice, it’s not like I’m worried about something bad happening, but you just feel like you have to be on a little for people you don’t know, which is okay sometimes.