Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown) recently told the Philadelphia Inquirer how grateful he is for the doors CSI has opened for him.

"I'm overjoyed it's gotten to the point it has," the actor said. "Finally to have some peers in the Screen Actors Guild like Glenn Close and Samuel Jackson Jr. speak to me and say the most beautiful things about my work - it doesn't get much better."

Dourdan grew up in West Philadelphia, where as a teenager, he admitted, he was far from the sex symbol he's seen as today. "I had no rap. I got passed over so many times. I was a late bloomer. I didn't even have a steady until I was a senior. An Italian girl at Willingboro - she turned me out."

Once he bloomed, however, Dourdan got into the music business, which eventually paved the way for him to become an actor. "I started hanging out with the rastas in Tompkins Square Park and growing dreads," Dourdan said. "People didn't know what to do with me then. I committed to music and started playing with a hard-rock band. I kept auditioning [for acting parts] but the only roles I was getting were Drug Dealer No. 2."

That all changed when he was given the role of Warrick Brown on CSI. After 5 seasons, Dourdan returned to the show sporting a wedding ring, not his but his character's. But does that mean Warrick is off the market? Marg Helgenberger, whose character Catherine Willows has been flirting with Warrick for a while now, hasn't given up hope. "He's married. He's not dead," she joked.

Head over to the Philadelphia Inquirer (free subscription required) to read the rest of the interview, in which Dourdan talks about his experiences growing up in Philly.

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