Ellen Gray: Three shows are the charm for Peter Gallagher

COVERT AFFAIRS. 10 tonight, USA Network.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - If it's Tuesday, this might be Peter Gallagher Night.

Assuming, that is, that you're watching USA.

Because while the actor has occasionally been going head to head - and eyebrow to eyebrow - with himself at 10 p.m. Tuesdays this summer, thanks to his role as CIA department chief Arthur Campbell on USA Network's new hit, "Covert Affairs," and a recurring gig as Father Phil on FX's "Rescue Me," his arc as the avuncular (and occasionally inappropriate) priest is over.

Still, he's been busy.

And busy is good, Gallagher said during a recent NBC Universal party, "because I've got tuitions to pay." (He and his wife, producer Paula Harwood, have a son and daughter.)

Gallagher, who spent four seasons on Fox's "The O.C.," has also popped up frequently on Showtime's "Californication."

"I couldn't be more thrilled" with all the work, said Gallagher, who turned 55 last week. "It just happened. I think if you just keep showing up long enough, good things happen and my friends seem to have had things for me to do this past year."

With USA having just ordered a second season of "Covert Affairs," which stars Piper Perabo as a CIA newbie whose boss (Kari Matchett) is married to Gallagher's even bigger boss, the work's likely to continue.

But does Gallagher, who before he played father/mensch Sandy Cohen on "The O.C." was probably best known for such films as "American Beauty" and "While You Were Sleeping," enjoy TV?

"I love working with people I respect and admire and being part of stories that people embrace, and TV is an amazing place for that to happen," he said. "It's like anything - the experience is not so much whether it's TV or movies or it's theater, it's the people involved. In terms of 'Covert Affairs,' Doug Liman directed the pilot of 'The O.C.' and Dave [Bartis] and he were producers on the first season and I just have always wanted to work with them since, because I love them," he said of two of "Affairs'" executive producers.

"I respect the way they tell stories. They like to tell stories that happen on this planet. And sometimes find a place in the world that we're living in, in an entertaining fashion," he said.

His "Rescue Me" character was also pretty entertaining. "That's my other pal, Denis [Leary, who stars in and co-created 'Rescue Me'], who's one of my best buddies," he said. "It would only be Denis who could write that part, know that I'd be right for that part."

Father Phil wasn't as unhinged as he sometimes seemed, Gallagher said. "You know what I see? I see him as a practical priest. I see him as a guy who maybe has a few questions about, you know, the hierarchy in the church but has no doubt about his commitment to his vocation and to his parish, and will pretty much do whatever he needs to do to take care of his parish," he said.

As for Arthur, whose power-couple struggles with his suspicious wife are at least as much fun as whatever's going on in the younger characters' lives, he and Matchett's character "really love each other," he insisted.

"Apart from the CIA, it's a story about a marriage and the people who work together. It's hard enough to be married, but to be married and work together?" he said. Though workplace relationships are "encouraged within the agency, apparently . . . it would be monstrously difficult," since there would be things it would be impossible to discuss even with a spouse who worked at the same place.

"Everybody compartmentalizes. You can't know everything that's in your partner's mind or heart. But when you compartmentalize for a living, as those involved in the espionage business do" it's that much harder.

So the stuff Arthur's not telling is wife isn't necessarily what she fears it is? Gallagher paused, as if realizing that he, too, needed to keep some secrets.

"Well, yes," he conceded. "Yes, that's fair to say."

Though he's doubling up in one particular time slot, filming "worked out better," he said.

"I worked with Denis [on the New York-based 'Rescue Me'] in November and December last year. I only did four shows . . .

We shot them together, but it doesn't mean they're going to air them together. And then we started this show [Toronto-based 'Covert Affairs'] in April. And they just happened to be on the same night at the same time on different channels," he said.

Along the way, "I did a movie called 'Burlesque' with Cher and Christina Aguilera. I play Cher's husband. I did a movie called 'Conviction,' which is coming out Oct. 14, with Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell. I'm about to do a movie . . . with Ellen Burstyn called 'Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You,' a really neat little indie," he said.

So he's still busy?

"Thank God. The tuitions will be paid." *

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