Joker's Wild

Fan Favorite Sean Murray Brings The Sizzle To Sin City

- Fred Schruers

AT THE VENETIAN IN LAS VEGAS, NOBODY IS going for understated. The suites are almost double the size of a typical lodging on the Strip, an expansive Grand Canal navigated by gondoliers offers half a million boat rides per year, and there’s enough art, statuary, and gold-painted glitz and geegaws to make Mar-a-Lago look like a hunting cabin. With the addition of the Palazzo tower in 2008, the complex boasts 7,000 rooms, making it the second-largest hotel in the world.

There’s no better place to throw humble and perhaps a bit shy Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Field Agent Timothy McGee. Rather, there’s no better place to throw the actor who embodies him, Sean Murray—who if anything is humbler and more of a straight arrow than the agent he brings to life. In 14 years on the unstoppable show, McGee has never let us see him utter a curse, disrespect a woman, or violate a sensible regulation. He’s plugged a few bad guys in the service of our democracy but no one who wasn’t asking for it.

Loyal viewers won’t be surprised to hear that Murray in person has McGee’s Boy Scout virtues—and more, because in place of the character’s winning befuddlement, the actor has a nice measure of dry wit.

“This shoot was pure Vegas,” Murray says in recalling the day’s work. “A whirlwind of suites, cash, high-roller tables, showgirls, limousines—it was not hard to play the part.” He’s a rather sedate age 39, married to wife Carrie since 2005 and with two kids, but “in my 20s, I visited Vegas quite frequently, and I still like to get out there when the opportunity presents itself,” he says. “I love blackjack. But as many times as I’ve been to Vegas, I’ve yet to go to a show or a concert. I spent New Year’s Eve ’99 there with a group of friends—good times!”