Carving out some time for the family

Dylan WALSH, who plays a hardworking yet conflicted plastic surgeon in the FX series “Nip/Tuck,” was born in Los Angeles, but he didn’t start living here until 14 years ago. With his parents in the Foreign Service, Walsh spent the first 10 years of his life in Ghana, Indonesia and India. After graduating from high school in Virginia, he moved to New York to pursue acting. These days, he has a house in Hollywood with his fiancee, Joanna Going, and his three children -- Tom, 8; Joanna, 6; and Stella, 9 months.

Off to a slow start

So many Friday nights we work into Saturday mornings; we can go to 2 or 3 a.m. Mostly what I do then is sit down with the TV or do something mindless to wind down. TiVo is a new part of my life, so I might catch up with “The Sopranos.”

On Saturday mornings, we like to go down the street to the Griddle Cafe. We can push our stroller there. I usually have a breakfast burrito. And if I don’t do that, I make breakfast for the family.

After that, we get some sun or see a movie at the Sunset Laemmle or the Grove. We’ve got a Blockbuster down the street, so if we don’t go out for a movie, we’ll all pick a title. Recently my son got “Godzilla,” my daughter wanted “The Music Man,” and my girlfriend and I got “In America.”

We also go to Bergamot Station in Santa Monica a lot. There’s a gallery, Craig Krull, where we buy lots of photographs to hang at home.

The family caravan

I live in a great neighborhood, in that I can actually walk to places, like I did in New York. So Saturday night there’s a caravan of Walsh people heading for Bristol Farms down the street. We go shopping, then we all make dinner together on our outdoor grill. On the weekends, I become the typical suburban father.

My favorite place in Los Angeles is the Chateau Marmont. If my girlfriend and I can get a baby-sitter, we’ll walk down to have a drink. Even better, we’ll bring the kids and go together as a family and just take over the lobby as if it was our own living room. I like the Old Hollywood feeling. There’s a coziness. It’s a little secretive, and I sit there, trying to imagine who may have passed through that lobby.

One of our things is to go to A.O.C. on 3rd Street. They have tapas, and we’ll have a sampling of seven or eight -- a plate with exotic cheeses, some prawns with garlic -- and they have an elaborate wine list. Cobras & Matadors on Beverly Boulevard has a similar setup. And sometimes we go to Table 8 on Melrose Avenue for elegant dining, when we feel like dressing up.

Time for a run

I may run up Runyon Canyon or around Mulholland. Or I might go to Equinox gym on Sunset. I don’t work with a trainer. I pretty much do my own thing -- the treadmill for a while, then some weights. Another sport I like, though, is tennis. My manager is a member of the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, so I’ll play there sometimes.

Oh, and speaking of playing, there’s the guitar or piano. I’m not really great at either; it’s more like therapy for me. It’s not about accomplishing a song, it’s more about spontaneously improvising, just laying out some chord progressions. Unlike what I do for a living -- memorizing lines -- it’s something that’s freeing for me.