LOS ANGELES (AP) – Skeet Ulrich of the new CBS series “Jericho” once thought it might be fun to be mysterious about the origins of his unusual nickname.

“Early on, when I first started making movies and doing interviews, I wanted to have a different story as to where that name came from for every interview, but there was just no way to keep it up,” he grins.

So he’s stuck with the truth – “the boring old story” that when he was a kid, a baseball coach tagged him with it because “I was small and fast, like a mosquito.” Before long, it caught on with everyone and Ulrich wouldn’t even respond to Bryan, his given name.

As for Ulrich, it’s the name of his first stepfather, NASCAR driver D.K. Ulrich.

Truths about Jake Green, the character he plays on “Jericho,” can’t be revealed so simply.

The serial drama, airing Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET, follows the fate of the population of a small Kansas town isolated in the wake of nuclear explosions. Green is the mayor’s prodigal son, who tells different stories to whomever asks where he’s been for five years.

In the opening episode, he performed an improvised tracheotomy to save the life of kid. But if he’s a hero, he’s clearly a reluctant one.

“The one thing I wanted to make sure of was he wasn’t just a stereotypical figure,” says Ulrich, explaining that his collaborative work with the writers provided “a dead still moment” in that scene when Green had to make the choice to help or not.

“That someone could do such good and still feel such self-loathing to some extent kind of hints at what he’s been through in those five years, that he still thinks of himself in that way, as “a screw-up’,” Ulrich comments.

Series creator Jon Turteltaub says that immediately upon meeting Ulrich he felt he would be right for the role “because had a very realistic and sly sense of humor that just showed off his intelligence and warmth. It’s easy to find handsome; it’s hard to find humor.”

Executive producer Carol Barbee says Ulrich has “this aloof but engaging persona. You are just interested in him and he doesn’t give it all away, you have to get to know him, get in there and earn his trust … and he’s awfully cute, so that doesn’t hurt.”

Although he easily slots into the handsome leading man category, Ulrich says he’s always been attracted to character acting.

“Certainly, when I was coming up it was all about who was the coolest and who was the most popular and who could be the most comfortable in front of the camera, instead of necessarily being about people trying on characters. I think the stigma of leading man is you are yourself,” he notes, saying he “marvels at people who make vast changes.”

He cites as an example British actor Gary Oldman, with whom he worked on the 2001 movie “Nobody’s Baby.” Ulrich’s other movie credits include “As Good as it Gets” and “Scream”. His television credits include the short-lived ABC series “Miracles” and TNT’s miniseries “Into the West.”

Born in Lynchburg, Va., Ulrich, now 35, “lived just about everywhere on the East Coast” before his family settled in Concord, N.C. When he was ten he had open-heart surgery. He’s not sure quite how “the ripples” from such a defining moment have manifested themselves, but he has one memory of that time that has helped him with this series, which addresses how people do or don’t cope in dire circumstances.

“I’ve witnessed people handling things in ways you never thought they would, finding humor in situations that you would never ever imagine,” he says, recalling the resilient kid who was his hospital roommate.

“His father had killed his brothers and his sisters and his mom and tried to kill him, and he’d have to have brain surgery and stuff like that, and the thing I remember most about James, that was his name, was his laughter … in that situation you would never think that would happen.”

With his 5-year-old twins, Jakob ad Naiia, just entering kindergarten, Ulrich is happy to have a series that will allow him to stay home in Los Angeles. Jericho’s main street, including a church with a steeple (which blocks the view of a California palm), has been constructed at the Calvert Street Stages in the San Fernando Valley. If suitable scenery can’t be found locally, special effects fill in the Heartland landscapes.

“There’s a lot of fun in traveling and location shooting, but there is also a creative reward in make-believe, and that’s what we like about it” says Turteltaub.

“That’s what we are supposed to be doing. It’s funny how people get upset and say, “That’s not really Kansas,’ but I hate to tell you but that not really Mayor Green, it’s actually Major Dad!” he laughs.

Turtlebaub is nodding in the direction of veteran actor Gerald McRaney, once the star of the sitcom “Major Dad,” who at this moment is acting in a scene opposite Pamela Reed. They play Jake’s parents.

Ulrich likes that family tie. “Gerald and I are very similar in some ways,” he says. “I think there is a reserved quality to us that kind of rings out.”