Coming to you from Queen and John, it's "Around the House" on "cityline" with Marilyn Denis. (Applause) (music)

Marilyn: Hey, welcome to the show! It's Monday, "Cityline." If you're just waking up, you're waking up with Kevin Sorbo. (Applause)

Kevin: Wow!

Marilyn: How's that?

Kevin: Very nice.

Marilyn: Kevin is here and the reason why we're in front of all this furniture is he's going to explain that in just a moment. So good to have you with us.

Kevin: Thank you. So good to be here.

Marilyn: We're going to talk about your furniture line, and take calls.

Marilyn: Okay. Very good. And then making the food because the food's really important on this show, Kevin, I want you to know. Stephen Alexander. (Applause) so this is good that you're here today because I know a little something about Kevin Sorbo. He used to hang out at the A&W in Minnesota when he was a teenager. We're doing a little beef here, aren't we?

Stephen: We're fancying out some beef. Fancy ground beef today.

Marilyn: Two recipes.

Stephen: Meat loaf with roasted garlic and stilton cheese and doing some meatballs with green onions, horseradish and, what else?

Marilyn: Don't worry about that because I'll tell you something. They can write it down a little later on. Fast and easy food and moms are going to love that, too. If you'd like to talk to any of my guests today, call in. So much to talk to you about. Let's just talk about what of the timing, Kevin Sorbo.

Kevin: I had no idea. (Applause) nice picture.

Kevin: Thank you.

Marilyn: So--

Kevin: I don't recall not wearing any shoes. That's the weirdest thing about that photo. I have no idea. It was very strange. I guess I was in a hurry.

Marilyn: You can tell Kevin used to be a model. We'll talk about that, too. Here's the thing. I remember going through "U.S.A. Today" and I went Kevin Sorbo has a furniture line? How did that all come about?

Kevin: How much time do we have?

Marilyn: Go ahead.

Kevin: I lived in Europe for three-and-a-half years. I fell in love with the architecture over there like most people do. I fell in love with the furniture lines they had over there, the design and things. My wife and I designed our furniture at home. We live out of Henderson, Nevada outside of Las Vegas when we're not up in Vancouver when I film Andromeda. I'm there 8 months of the year. I met a guy on an airplane who works for Boyd furniture. Bill Carpenter. Good guy. We hit it off just talking. He had no idea who I was and we just became friends. And we started talking about the furniture we designed. We showed him the furniture. He said we should do a collection. I laughed at it. I'm not going to do a collection. He kept pushing it and pushing it. We decided why not? Let's just go for it. After two-and-a-half years of sort of hemming and hawing, this is the first line. We have 30 pieces out there.

Marilyn: It got launched when?

Kevin: The official launch was in October. This line will come out and be in stores-- it's carried here in Stoney Creek, which is near Hamilton.

Marilyn: Yeah.

Kevin: And it comes out officially-- these are the only pieces right now. We have 30 pieces and they're between North Carolina and here.

Marilyn: Okay.

Kevin: There's only 30 pieces of the one of a kind all in North America. The other ones are being shipped right now. They'll be here probably in the next two months.

Marilyn: Bedroom furniture, Dining?

Kevin: Occasional, Entertainment, TV, things like this. This is called the French Collection.

Marilyn: It's beautiful. And let's talk about this. This is really-- is it because you and your wife couldn't find what you wanted? Is that why?

Kevin: Yeah, kind of. You know, we designed our own bed. We designed a pretty big four poster bed. It's quite different from this one. We also love sleigh beds as well. I fell in love with this right away-- sleigh beds. It came out unbelievable. We worked with the designers. They saw what we like, what we designed. They did most of the designing. We did some little pinching here and there with them. I'm not the brains behind all the this completely but this is my taste, there's no question. We had a say in what, you know, we ultimately wanted for a bedroom set.

Marilyn: Now I remember, too, as you were mentioned when you were modelling you spent three years over in Europe. You were in Paris, Milan.

Kevin: Milan, Paris, Munich, London, Zurich, all those places.

Marilyn: Do you name all of the pieces?

Kevin: This whole collection is "Kamarg" for the southeastern part of france. The best compared to what I would know would be like Kentucky. It's very rolling hills, horse country.

Marilyn: Really pretty.

Kevin: Yeah. This type of furniture to me was always comfort furniture. It's like comfort food. To me it's like you can lay down in this and be comfortable with it. I had friends that had furniture that you looked like, can you even sit in this chair?

Marilyn: Because it looks really thin and substantial.

Kevin: This is pretty meaty.

Marilyn: You're looking at a meaty headboard. Herculean headboard. Take a look at this one over here if you could and tell us about that. That's beautiful. What's that centre door for? Can you open that up? I'm curious.

Kevin: There's drawers you can put in there as well. The top drawers are felt lined, which is very nice. And the bottom ones are all cedar lined and they're completely finished, which doesn't really happen in furniture today. It's very rare that they finish both sides inside and we also finished the back as well, which is never done.

Marilyn: That's never done.

Kevin: Some people have different ways of designing in their living room or bedroom where they want the furniture to be and sometimes you're going to see the back. That way it's not ugly.

Marilyn: What's the price point on that one, Kevin?

Kevin: They're all going to run probably around $2,700 Canadian, each piece, 2,600, somewhere in that range.

Marilyn: That's hefty but good.

Kevin: This stuff will last forever.

Marilyn: Guys, can you take a look at this on the side here? Do you want to do this side? I just want to see how lovely this is on this side, too. See? Covering it up. This is beautiful. Detail, detail. See it? Am I showing you?

Kevin: My wife and I both really liked that. We were both into heavily designed detailed wood. That's what we found when we were over in Europe. We were there at the same time but didn't know it. We were living in the same country.

Marilyn: She's beautiful by the way, your wife.

Kevin: Thank you.

Marilyn: How's your little boy? How old is he now?

Kevin: He's great. Almost 17 months now. Braeden.

Marilyn: Beautiful baby. There they are.

Kevin: Oh, there they are.

Marilyn: How gorgeous is this family?! Thanks for bringing those pictures in. (Applause)

Kevin: It's fun.

Marilyn: It's so beautiful. Let's just-- do we have time for this?

Kevin: Uh-oh.

Marilyn: Well, no. I have studied-- besides watching NFL football this weekend, I studied Kevin Sorbo. It was a Sorbo weekend. Here you are, correct me if I'm wrong. You're living in New Zealand. You're really into Hercules. You're working all day, 16-hour days. You go work out at a gym, have something to eat and study your script. All of a sudden you're 38 years old. You don't really have a life. You're Hercules and you don't have a life.

Kevin: I'm still single.

Marilyn: And this woman comes to audition.

Kevin: She came down to play a part in one of the episodes.

Marilyn: Okay. So what happened after that?

Kevin: I was hitting on her right away. (Laughing) and she said number one, I don't date actors and she was an actor herself. Number two, I don't date guys with long hair. When I played Hercules, I had quite long hair. I said, honey, right now I'm making a very good living with the long hair. It was one of those things. Now, we had a small water hazard between us called the pacific ocean. She was in L.A. I was in Auckland, New Zealand. But I-- it was weird.

Marilyn: You really had to talk her into it, did you not?

Kevin: Oh, sure. Sure.

Marilyn: It was a big sell job.

Kevin: Oh, yeah. I had 38 years of experience. (Laughing) I had all the good lines.

Marilyn: Yeah.

Kevin: You know, it's weird. You know when you know. And people always said that would happen. I never believed it. I had reached the point I was almost 38. I had reached the point in my life I figured I'd never get married and I was sort of content with that because I had sacrificed everything for my career, and Hercules was all consuming, 16-hour days. I'm much lighter than I used to be.

Marilyn: You're 25 pounds or so lighter.

Kevin: 25 pounds lighter than I was in Hercules.

Marilyn: Because I studied Kevin Sorbo all weekend. Kevin's favourite groups-- by the way I'm older than you so I get a little bit more respect from you, Mister.

Kevin: Okay.

Marilyn: The Eagles and Dan Fogelberg. As soon as I heard that I thought okay, he's got to be my age. Let's see another picture, too. Furniture, furniture.

Kevin: A couple more pieces.

Marilyn: That's gorgeous. That is beautiful. See, it's really-- it's not this light furniture. It's very substantial.

Kevin: Subtle detailing which we just like. We just like furniture which is comfortable in the house. Our house is very relaxing. You walk into it, it's a welcome home is what it is.

Marilyn: It feels like home.

Kevin: It is.

Marilyn: It's really important. There's one more picture.

Kevin: That's a dining room set which I love.

Marilyn: Looks really comfortable.

Kevin: Leather seats. The chairs are big. There's beefiness to them. You like them. Guys will love it. But they're big tables and it's sort of what we like.

Marilyn: The best part is they're in the kitchen or the dining room. That's where you know you have the best parties because it's comfortable and the food is great. We're going to have Kevin throughout the show today. You don't mind, you'll stick with us.

Kevin: Sure.

Marilyn: He went to the Raptors game yesterday and had to get up early this morning.

Kevin: I'm from Minnesota so I'm still a Minnesota guy at heart. Minnesota just got throttled but, you know, they told me that was the best Toronto's played in probably a month.

Marilyn: It's true.

Kevin: They looked great.

Marilyn: You should come to more Raptors games if they're going to win.

Kevin: I just wanted to see a good game. I don't get to see many Basketball games. Well the Grizzlies left. My first year back in North America after being away since 1993, I'm going all right, basketball again! And they move after the first year.

Marilyn: Ex-jock here. There you go. You're going to be with us for the rest of the show. We want you to stay tuned. If you've got any questions for Kevin, give us a call because we're going to sit down and chat with him a little later on, one on one. We'll be right back. (Applause) (music) (music) (applause)

Marilyn: Welcome back to "Cityline." We've got definitely Sorbo in the kitchen. I understand you like to cook, which is great.

Kevin: I do.

Marilyn: Stephen Alexander is here. You're a Sous Chef today, that's right. I think a lot of people will love this because sometimes you go, okay, I've got to do something a little different for the family tonight. So what's your first recipe?

Stephen: In the shop, everyone-- no matter what people come in to buy, for some reason everyone gets a pound of old ground beef. Standard. Everybody seems to get a pound. Throw it in their freezer and forget about it. Always ends up hamburgers or pasta bol necessarye. What we thought we'd do, people have tons of Visa Bills now coming in after Christmas. Something affordable but still snazzy it up, make it something nice rather than the same old boring thing. We have a recipe at the shop which we use for filet mignon. This is that recipe which we did with ground beef.

Marilyn: Oh, good.

Stephen: You get the same effect, just different way of doing it. Steak and stilton meat loaf. It also roasted garlic purée. So really simple. Obviously the strong flavour-- the main two ingredients are these two things, which is the stilton cheese which I love. It's just really strong and goes incredibly well with beef. So we thought--

Kevin: It is really strong. (Laughter) whoa.

Marilyn: He's going whoa!

Stephen: You get that nice bubbly baked sort of texture and really good and goes great with wine. And roasted garlic. You can use chopped garlic if you want. But this has more flavour. It's just better, like anything roasted. Brings the sugars out in the garlic. Anyway, we'll show you how we do it. Get a simple little mixing bowl here.

Kevin: This is for looks, I'll take it. You've got stuff in there.

Stephen: Aesthetics.

Kevin: What the hell.

Marilyn: Roast beef. We'll make it pretty.

Stephen: I'll throw a bit of that in to make it look pretty. Didn't help. Anyway, so first of all, whenever you're making a lot of burgers, you have to bind and that's what the eggs and bread crumb are for, not really for flavour. Merely to bind. I'll show you a recipe at the end of the show but I always put a little of this, a little of that. We show you the exact recipe.

Marilyn: I like it when people give us these recipes and they go just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. You cook?

Kevin: I'm a big barbecue fiend and I make great breakfasts. That was one of my lines to my wife. (Laughing)

Marilyn: By the way, stick around. I make a great breakfast. (Laughter) you're going to have to come back for a barbecue show, hey? You want to come back for a barbecue show? That will be fun.

Kevin: You know in L.A. The favourite pickup line is hey, I'm rich. How do you like me so far? That's the shallowness of Los Angeles.

Marilyn: These two were talking before we came on the air talking about-- where are you from originally, Stephen?

Stephen: Melbourne, Australia.

Kevin: I lived in Sydney for six months. My very first commercial booked in Los Angeles shot in Sydney. I asked the clients I was with, how long is my visa good for? They said good for six months. See you later. So I stayed.

Marilyn: Were you there during the summertime?

Kevin: I had shot the December in-- commercial in December and stayed until June.

Marilyn: What's your favourite part of Australia as you look back?

Kevin: I lived in Boné Beach. If people watch the olympics, that's where they have the volleyball tournament. I was just there with my wife not too long ago. I'm an avid golfer and I played Royal Melbourne.

Stephen: That's great. (Laughter)

Kevin: They had their Presidents Cup there back in '97. The Americans got themselves throttled by Europe.

Marilyn: His father, during the summertime, was-- took care of a public golf course and he and his brothers would go out barefoot. What's with the bare feet? You didn't remember your shoes for the picture on the cover of TV Guide.

Kevin: Back where I grew up just outside of minneapolis, they had no dress code then. We didn't have to wear shirts. We went out in little shorts and played barefoot. They've changed it now. It was fun as a kid.

Marilyn: Great memories. We're going to get back to this right now. You've got all the stuff in there.

Stephen: I'll go through what I've put in. Couple spoonfuls of roasted garlic. That would probably be equivalent to perhaps three or four little bulbs. Not the whole bulb obviously. Salt and pepper obviously just to taste, probably a little more pepper. Can't have too much fresh ground pepper. Of course the eggs and bread crumbs to bind.

Marilyn: Just one egg.

Stephen: Depending on amount. There's probably roughly two pounds here.

Marilyn: Why that type of cheese?

Stephen: It just goes great with beef. It's a very strong cheese and has a lot of flavour. If you don't like it, you can use whatever you want, any other cheeses would go great, for example even something like an asiago which is nice or even a softer cheese.

Marilyn: He wants you to use this cheese. Are you going to mix it up?

Stephen: Basically you just dig your hands in. It's really simple. 30 seconds to put it all together and the simple ingredients.

Marilyn: Not overworking it.

Stephen: No. And the flavour is--

Kevin: You feel like you're back in preschool again.

Stephen: Play dough, make some shapes. And you can smell-- well, kind of smell it at home.

Kevin: I'm smelling it. It's waking me up. (Laughter)

Stephen: It's so simple. That's what I like about this.

Marilyn: I'm setting the oven at what temperature?

Stephen: 350. I'm going to put this out. Once we've done that, just form it into a nice loaf.

Kevin: You can make a hockey puck out of that. (Laughter) that's what people want.

Stephen: Once it's cooked. And then--

Kevin: For the Stanley Cup parties.

Marilyn: There you go. Oh, please.

Stephen: Hopefully there will be the Stanley Cup for the Leafs.

Marilyn: It's been a long time.

Stephen: That's it, done. You take a little aluminum pan or a nice baking dish at home. Put it in. Set your oven preheat 350. Probably around about 50 minutes, maybe about an hour because it looks a little thick in the middle.

Marilyn: The best day for that is day two.

Stephen: Yes, great left over.

Marilyn: I love day two.

Stephen: I'll wash my hands.

Marilyn: That's our little sink there. Do you like that?

Kevin: It's very nice. Very classic. (Laughter)

Marilyn: It's kind of like camping. (Laughing)

Stephen: Nothing but the best here.

Marilyn: Hey, it's my job. (Laughing) you don't have a craft table here. There we go. That looks great.

Stephen: You can see inside you have the lovely pieces of stilton melting all the way through. Then serve up your favourite roasted root vegetables or something like that, whatever you want and away you go. There it is. Stilton meat loaf.

Marilyn: At my house, you know the vegetables that come in the bag with the slit in the bag, five-and-a-half minutes in the microwave and there you go.

Stephen: That will work, too.

Marilyn: We have to take a break. We have the recipe recap coming your way. (Applause) (music) (Applause) (music)

Marilyn: Welcome back. Kevin Sorbo from "Andromeda" is with me today for the full hour. I really thank you very much for just wanting to spend an hour.

Kevin: My plane doesn't leave until late tonight. Hanging out.

Marilyn: Why don't we do a three-hour show? Kevin has a new line of furniture out that's available at Stoney Creek Furnitures there near hamilton. This just came in. It's a little chilly. This is beautiful. And this is for the bedroom suite?

Kevin: I think anywhere you want to put it in the house. It could go in the living room. Just buy it. (Laughter)

Marilyn: Just buy it. Because Kevin needs the money, okay? That's what he needs. Just call this 1-800 number. No. I have to say that the substantial, heavy, you know furniture. That's what it is. It's really great. And you are very much a part of designing this?

Kevin: My wife is as well. She's probably even more so than I am. I'm definitely into that. I was a pre-architect major in college before I switched over to a double major in advertising. My godfather was an architect. He sorts of talked me out of it. He says the architect world is pretty bad right now. At the time I was in college, so I switched into the business. But I took glad drafting when I was in high school and I sketched my own house. I drew the plans for my own house, my dream house I wanted to build one day.

Marilyn: You dabble.

Kevin: I love to do it. It's just something I like to do.

Marilyn: It's part of the creative process too. You knew that you wanted to be an actor a long time ago.

Kevin: Oh, yeah.

Marilyn: When you saw the High School performance of Oklahoma in grade 6.

Kevin: Yeah. I was 11 years old.

Marilyn: As you grew up, from what I understand, you know, drama kids were not looked upon as the most normal kids in the world.

Kevin: I grew up in a small town, about 7,000 people. The claim to fame to my hometown, Mound, Minnesota, was on Lake Minataka. Prince made it famous in the movie "Purple Rain" but we're more known for Tonka Toys which employed probably 30% of the people that lived in the town before they moved down to Mexico like everything else for the cheaper labour. I grew up in a very jock neighbourhood. I was a big jock playing football and basketball, hockey and baseball and did all the sports.

Marilyn: He dated a cheerleader by the way, we knew that.

Kevin: It was typical John Cougar Mellencamp type of stuff. But yeah, it's-- I wanted to get involved in it. I sort of-- that was my closet secret. I wanted-- I really wanted to be an actor. It wasn't until I got into college I really started diving into classes and things.

Marilyn: But that voice was pretty strong.

Kevin: No question.

Marilyn: As I understand it, you moved around from university to university. You're 16 credits shy of your major.

Kevin: I'm 16 credits shy of graduating. I had a chance to join a theatre group down in Dallas, Texas, of all places, theatre mecca of the world. I had two friends. You guys got room for rooming a couch? I moved down to Dallas and just got involved with a theatre group down there doing small commercials and local plays.

Marilyn: And you were satisfied with that? Just to get in?

Kevin: It was to get going. I was too intimidated by the aspect of moving to New York or Chicago. Spending my first 22 years in Minneapolis, I was tired of the winters, sorry. I was just so sick of them. And I wasn't ready for New York, for those reasons, and LA just kind of intimidated me. I wasn't ready to really--

Marilyn: That's pretty big.

Kevin: Yeah it was, so I moved down to Dallas.

Marilyn: You were on "Dallas".

Kevin: My first speaking part.

Marilyn: Do you remember it?

Kevin: Probably not. It was a blink. It was very quick.

Marilyn: What were you on "Dallas"? What did you do?

Kevin: Remember Chris Atkins from Blue Lagoon? He was on Dallas. They had this may/december relationship with Linda Gray on the show. We played camp counsellors at a camp for children that were like not problem children but just had, you know, whatever they had. And I had like one line knocking on the door and go-- his name was Peter. Peter, the camp counsellor wants to see you.

Marilyn: He made front-page news in Mound, Minnesota.

Kevin: Of course it did. I made front page news. I got invited to a party with "Dynasty" oh, please.