BACK WHEN Andy Comeau was earning all of a hundred bucks for his first professional stage appearance — he played the "Dancer" in Vaclav Havel's "Temptation" at Manchester's fabled Palace Theatre — they packed the house.

Now Andy's on "House."

It's just the latest high-profile role for the 37-year-old New Boston native who gets to play an altruistic doctor on FOX-TV's high-rated medical drama.

And, one of the best things about seeing Andy share the screen with "House" star Hugh Laurie is just that — the fact that we can see him — which was not necessarily the case in his first Hollywood role.

I'll get to that later.

Meanwhile, you need to plan on being in front of your TV tomorrow night at 9 to catch Andy as he and some fellow doctors jockey for a spot on the staff at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. That's where the rabidly misanthropic title character — Dr. Gregory House — chews up doctors, patients and Vicodin with equal relish.

"I didn't know it at the time," Andy said, "but when I got the job, I found out the whole season was going to be about all these new doctors duking it out for a job.

"I love the show, but I wasn't what you'd call an avid fan," added Andy, whose character, Dr. Brennan, has been nicknamed "Grumpy," "but the premise is that House had three doctors working with him on a three-year assignment, and since this is the show's fourth year, they're using that story point as a way to bring new people in.

"When I got there, the show had him taking on 40 candidates for three fellowships. They cast 17 people, then House quickly cut it down to 10."

Andy was comfortable with that number.

After all, his parents, Louis and Virginia Comeau, had 10 kids — Andy's the baby — but he's the only one who opted for a career in show business. That normally means a lifetime of professional ups and downs, and for Andy, the so-called "ups" have been big ones.

After graduating from Bishop Guertin High School in 1988, he went on to UNH, only to drop out and head to Hollywood to pursue an acting career. He did some bit work — I promise, we'll get to the juiciest bit in just a bit — but his first big break came at the age of 25 when he landed the lead role in a comedy called "8 Heads In A Duffel Bag" opposite Oscar-winner Joe Pesci.

Since then, Andy has struck a nice balance between theater, film and television.

He's done guest spots on big network shows like "Will & Grace" and "Criminal Minds," and for his recurring role in Showtime's "Huff," the show-biz Bible called "Variety" singled him out as a "performer to watch" and a dark-horse candidate for an Emmy.

As for films, he describes his role in the soon-to-be-released "The Babysitters" as "pretty dark, pretty bleak and pretty funny," and then there's "Animals" — his co-stars include Cynthia Nixon from "Sex and the City" — which is scheduled for 2008 release.

In the meantime, however, "House" is Andy's professional home. There are now six interns left standing on the show, and Andy's character is among them.

"But when it comes to working on a show with medical jargon that's this sophisticated, I am not that good at it," he laughed. "There are doctors who write for the show, and sometimes they'll read the lines into tape recorders so we can fall back on that when we're having problems on the set.

"I can also call my brother Steve who's a kidney doctor up in Bangor, but believe me, what you wind up seeing on Tuesday nights required take after take for me to get terms like histoplasmosis or amyloidosis strongyloides."

Like some medicines, Andy knows he may have a limited shelf-life on "House," but he's enjoying the ride and the chance to work opposite the show's star, Hugh Laurie.

"Sometimes you work with people you admire and, as people, they don't measure up to the work they do," he says, "but Hugh is the exception to the rule. He's very witty, very warm, very accessible — not at all like his character — and he's not one of those guys who hides out in his trailer. He's a very cool guy."And cool is the only word to describe Andy's first Hollywood job.

Shortly after he arrived in Hollywood back in 1994, he landed a part in one of my all-time favorite movies — that being Ron Howard's epic "Apollo 13" — but unless you have X-ray vision, you probably didn't know you were watching him.

"I played the double for Tom Hanks during the fantasy walking-on-the-moon sequence," Andy laughed. "We were on the back lot at Universal Studios where they built this lunar landscape, and the whole set was covered with cement dust to make it look like the surface of the moon.

"I spent eight hours a night, running in the dust, in slow-motion, in a 50-pound suit," he said. "Tom Hanks usually had his brother Jim do his double work for things like that, so I asked someone why Jim didn't take that job. I figured it out once I got there and saw what I had to do.

"I got to wear a real space suit, but the pack on my back was actually an air-conditioner so I could breathe in there," he added. "The suit was heavy, and I was wearing a flight suit underneath with all these metal clips on it. That way they could have me suspended with wires from this overhead crane so they could control my movements to simulate zero gravity."

Zero gravity?

Why, that's like almost walking on air, which is precisely what Andy's doing now. This past summer, he and his actress fiancee — the fabulous Dawn Lewis — came back to New Hampshire to tie the knot at the Comeau family farm in New Boston.

It was a perfect homecoming.

Especially for a guy on "House."

John Clayton is the author of several books on Manchester and New Hampshire, including the recently released "You Know You're in New Hampshire When." His e-mail is jclayton@unionleader.com