The Prince Fresh Of Bel-Air

Zoo star James Wolk channels hollywood royalty at the Hotel Bel-Air.

- Kate Betts

HI, I’M JIMMY, the down-to-earth, upbeat actor from CBS’s summer thriller, Zoo, introduces himself with a wide, warm smile as he slides into an alcove booth at the Hotel Bel-Air’s famous Wolfgang Puck restaurant. It’s an emphatic greeting honed on Detroit’s bar mitzvah circuit, where Jimmy Wolk worked as an emcee in his early 20s before getting his first big break in television.

In the six years since he moved to Los Angeles from his native Michigan, Wolk has already racked up some pretty cool roles, including working alongside Robin Williams in The Crazy Ones, joining the cast of Mad Men in the final season and playing the part of a man afflicted with a severe case of Tourette syndrome for a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie.

Now Wolk is tackling what is arguably the most nerve-wracking role of his career: Jackson Oz, the swashbuckling animal expert and safari guide on CBS’s Jurassic Park–style action series Zoo, based on the best-selling novel by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. Wolk’s character is called to action when animals begin to systematically turn on humans. The action hero role is new for Wolk, as is filming with live animals, including gorillas, lions, leopards, wolves and bears. In one scene, he is within inches of a 600-pound Kodiak bear. In another, he and his co-star are surrounded by a pack of male lions.

“It can be terrifying, but there are trainers and it’s super safe,” he says. “If anything, all the trainers make it less terrifying because they slow the whole filming process down. So you have to be patient. They have to really maneuver them.”