The star of the upcoming Dinner with
Friends reflects on his sun-soaked days in Phoenix, Tucson,
Scottsdale, and Sedona.
The son of a career diplomat,
Greg Kinnear spent his youth bouncing
around the globe. From their hometown of Logansport,
Indiana, the
Kinnears moved to Washington, D.C., then to
Beirut and Athens,
where a teenage Greg hosted an Armed Forces Radio show called
School Dazes with Greg Kinnear. He landed in
Tucson when he
moved there to attend the
University of Arizona. He earned a degree
in broadcast journalism, then moved to
Los Angeles. After gaining
fame as the host of the E! channel's talk-show spoof
Talk
Soup, a call came in from
director Sydney Pollack's people. "I
had no idea what I was doing in Sydney's office that day," Kinnear
has said. "I thought he wanted me to drive a catering truck on his
next movie." Instead, he was cast as one of the leads in Pollack's
1995 remake of
Sabrina. Later, Kinnear nabbed an Oscar
nomination for his role in
As Good As It Gets, then starred
in the hits
You've Got Mail and
Nurse Betty. This
month, Kinnear joins
Dennis Quaid and Andie MacDowell in
Dinner
with Friends, an HBO original film based on the Pulitzer
Prize-winning play. Although he now lives in Los Angeles with his
wife, Helen,
Arizona is the state he'll never forget, partially
because his parents and brother still live in Phoenix. And while we
caution the fainthearted about trying this in the heat of August,
Kinnear's proposed Arizona driving tour would make a perfect fall
outing.
FRIDAY
TUCSON
Lodging