The career dance

DULE HILL describes his career plans in educational terms.

“For me, if my acting class was high school, then ‘The West Wing’ was college,� says the 31-year-old New Jersey native. “Now I am just getting to that place where I am going for my masters. That’s my next step.�

After spending seven seasons as personal aide Charlie Young to Martin Sheen’s President Bartlet on “The West Wing,� Hill is starring in USA’s lighthearted detective series “Psych� as Gus, the straight-and-narrow sidekick and friend of the quirky Shawn (James Roday), a young man who solves crimes through keen observation.

Though “West Wing� brought him to national attention -- and an Emmy nomination -- Hill had been acting since he was 10, when he did the national tour of the Broadway musical “The Tap Dance Kid.� He also appeared on Broadway opposite Savion Glover in “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk.�

You must have literally jumped from “The West Wing� to “Psych.�

I think I wrapped “West Wing� sometime in March, and about a week later I was up here in Vancouver. I knew going into the final season of “West Wing� that I wasn’t going to be there every episode, and even if the show did go on, I wouldn’t be going on because the Bartlet administration was going to end. So I was given the opportunity to put feelers out there. Once they knew I was available, I had a meeting with the producers of this show, Steve Franks, Kelly Kulchak and Chris Henze. I did the pilot in October, and it was picked up. I was definitely thankful.

I wanted to continue to work, but I wanted to do something that was going to be different. I didn’t want to go and do another character that is similar to Charlie. I didn’t think either of these characters are like me. When I had a chance to really explore Gus, I thought this would be a nice flip and fun. And it’s a comedy. It’s about taking it easy and having a good time.

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I had no idea you had been a musical comedy star as a child. How did you begin tap dancing as a kid?

I was going to dance class because my cousins and my brother were going. My mom was a ballerina, so she was teaching at the school. I started going because I wanted to be around them. I did tap, jazz and ballet, and at the age of 9, “The Tap Dance Kid� called my school and asked for kids who could sing and dance. At the time my brother and my cousin were better, but I was the younger one, so they took me instead. I understudied Savion Glover for a month on Broadway, and then I did the lead in the national tour.�

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What was that like then at 10 to be dancing with Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers and Tony Award-winning Hinton Battle?

I didn’t really know who these people were because I was a 10-year-old kid. Hinton was like an uncle to me. I had seen Harold on TV dancing before. I was in awe. I was on the tour for a year and a month or two. After a year, I started to get a little tired, and my dad always told me if I got tired to call him and he’d bring me home. So one day in Chicago, I got home from the show and called Dad and said, ‘I want to come home.’ Two weeks later, I was back in New Jersey going to school.

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Did you retire from acting?

I was doing commercials, I did a Disney Channel movie and I did [the feature] “Sugar Hill.� I was in college at Seton Hall University. Savion called me and said, “I’m putting a show up.� They needed one more dancer. [“Bring in ‘Da Noise�] was supposed to be, like, a month and half at the Public Theatre and then it started to do very well and we went to Broadway. Before that, I had done “Black and Blue� on Broadway. At that point, I had to decide what I wanted to do because I was in college -- business finance was my major and I was going to go on and do corporate law. Once I got to college and I realized how hard it was, I said, “I have to do how many more years of school?�

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Do you still pursue tap?

I am still dancing. Even up here on Vancouver on the weekends, I go work out in a studio space. I do eventually want to get back into performing, but right now it’s more fun for me to dance for myself -- just seeing what comes up.

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I have to confess I didn’t recognize you in the recent film “Edmond� as the streetwise three-card Monty card shark.

A lot of people don’t realize it’s me when they see it. It was fun for me to do something completely different. There was no, like, talking proper -- it was just a straight cat from the streets. It was fun to have a chance to do it because sometimes I think people get confused when they see the characters I play. They think that’s me. When people hang out with me they say, “You are much more urban that I thought.� I can hang with the cats or hang with the president!

-- Susan King