Another Wayne

What actor wouldn't want to star in a movie?

Brendan Wayne. He was content to take a supporting role in Angel and the Badman, a remake of the 1947 western scheduled to run on the Hallmark Channel on Sunday night.

Playing the lead, gunman Quirt Evans, would have meant stepping into the impossibly large boots of his grandfather, indelible western icon John Wayne.

No thanks, Pilgrim.

"It's the Duke. Big shadow," says the 37-year-old native of Encino, Calif.

There's also a physical disparity between the screen legend and his descendant. "I'm four inches shorter and 60 pounds lighter," points out the actor, who is 6 feet and weighs 170 pounds.

He was christened Brendan Daniel La Cava, the youngest of eight born to Toni Wayne, the Duke's oldest daughter. He was the runt of the litter.

"My [four] brothers are all built like my grandfather and I'm like my mom," says Brendan, whom most people call Danny. Toni died in 2000.

"I have one [brother] who is 6-foot-4 and 260 and another 6-foot-3 and at least 280. They're like linebackers. I said, 'What is with you people? What did you eat that I didn't?' "

When he first went into acting, he had to be persuaded to adopt his grandfather's moniker. "My mom and my manager said, 'We know you're resistant to throwing the Wayne name at the end. But you have to mine that soil. He didn't work that hard for you to have to hide from it. Take it, make it yours.' "

The Duke, by the way, also assumed a professional name. He was born Marion Mitchell Morrison.

The famous patronymic is no guarantee of success. "Your name will get you in the door," says Brendan's manager, Jerry Silverhardt, "but then you have to prove your weight."

Westerns are a natural fit for Wayne because he's comfortable in the saddle.

"My grandfather had a ranch out in Arizona and I kind of grew up on that," he says.

As a boy, he was barely aware of his grandsire's monumental fame.

"He was just a guy," says Brendan. "The grandfather I knew was fun-loving. He loved to fish and he loved to play jokes on people."

Now that he's grown up, Wayne is repeatedly struck by the man's enduring and far-reaching legacy.

Three years ago, he was shooting Home of the Brave, a film about Iraq war veterans, in Morocco. (Despite an impressive cast - Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Biel, 50 Cent, Christina Ricci, Chad Michael Murray and others – the film was never released in this country.)

He had dinner one night with a local family and mentioned his lineage. "I came out of my tent the next morning and there was a line of people outside my trailer. I said to Samuel, 'Do I owe somebody money?' " he recalls.

"He said, 'They know about your grandfather.' My grandfather had been dead 27 years at that point, and this is Morocco. They don't even have TVs in their houses."

Wayne speculates that the gritty genre the Duke was known for may play a part in his seemingly timeless popularity.

"Every empire had a certain mythology that its people connected with," he says. "And I consider this country an empire. The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians all had their mythology. I think ours comes from the cowboys and the frontier."

Like his grandfather, Brendan has a distinctive and rather unplaceable accent.

"When I was in acting school, they teach you proper diction and the teachers write down what they think you are naturally," he says. "I got everything from Boston to Jersey and even Texas. I guess I haven't made up my mind where I'm from."

He was a late addition to Angel and the Badman. Lou Diamond Phillips was already in place as Quirt and Luke Perry as the villain, Loredo.

Brendan was brought in as Quirt's running partner, Randy.

"He was one of the last pieces of the puzzle," says director Terry Ingram. "I was casting that role locally in Vancouver. We were about to put out offers when [the producer] called and said, 'We have John Wayne's grandson.' I said, 'That's smart.' "

The film was shot in December while record levels of snow were falling in British Columbia. It was so cold that during the film, you can see clouds of steam coming out of the actors' mouths even during the interior scenes.

So cold that Wayne, to keep his blood pumping, asked to do his own stunts. Up to a certain point.

"We get to the barroom brawl scene where they throw me out the saloon door onto a hard ice pack," says the actor. "The stunt master says, 'Let me have [the stuntman] do this once just to show you how it's done.'

"He goes flying out the door and I can see him wince when he lands. I looked at [the stunt master] and I go, 'You know what? He did that so well I would hate to embarrass him by taking it over.' "

The original film was shot in the Arizona desert.

Climate wasn't the only difference in the experiences the Waynes had in shooting Angel and the Badman.

Brendan had promised his wife and two daughters he would make it home to celebrate yuletide with them. Then the snow socked him in for four days after his work was finished.

"I made it home Christmas Eve," he says proudly.

John, on the other hand, arrived home late from the film's wrap party. His second wife, Esperanza Baur, was convinced he was having an affair with his costar Gail Russell and was so upset she reportedly fired a pistol at him as he walked in the door.

Sometimes, the acorn does fall far from the family tree.