Celerity Scoop: Gale Harold

The first time we met Charles Meade, the character played by Gale Harold in The CW's Thursday hit "The Secret Circle," he was watching impassively as a young mother was killed in a house fire he set by magic.

Since then, though, the character has had his hands full with his willful daughter, Diana (Shelley Hennig), and his occasional partner in malice, Dawn (Natasha Henstridge). Fans may soon see Charles making some more decisive moves.

"I can say that there are other people who are trying to get in my way, trying to grab my lunch off my tray, and that's going to cause trouble," Harold says. "I hope that what we see is people learning who's really running the show here, and that's Charles."

"Circle" co-creator Kevin Williamson says he cast Harold to bring a sense of menace to the show after admiring the actor's work in the Showtime drama "Queer as Folk," where he played gay ad executive Brian Kinney.

"Brian was the most energized, while simultaneously being threatened, character that I have ever played," Harold says. "Brian knew what he wanted, and he was very good at getting it, but at the same time a lot of people wanted to get him out of the way, including some of his good friends and his father. There's a parallel there in that Charles is taking what he wants, but what he doesn't have that Brian had was an almost unflappable self-confidence, at least on the surface."

After that cable series ended, Harold played Susan's house painter boyfriend on "Desperate Housewives."

"Marc (Cherry, creator of 'Housewives') had tried to bring me on before that and it just didn't work out because of the scheduling," Harold says. "I really dig the way Marc writes, and to be asked to work on a show that has that kind of profile was very flattering."

Favorite book: "At the moment the book that I am wrapped up in is 'A Violent Life' by Pier Paolo Pasolini. I highly recommend picking it up, because it's off to the races from the very first page. One of the things that had a huge effect on me was an early short story by Dylan Thomas called 'The Dress.' Anyone who is into frightening and passionately charged storytelling should check that one out, too."

Favorite movie: "Certainly 'Bonnie and Clyde' is up there. You had these two incredibly compelling characters who ran across each other and the dynamic that they brought out of each other and the fact that they were naively willing to go to such extremes. That movie goes so deep and it does it so seductively. So much of what they do is horrible, and yet you're falling in love with them."

Favorite recording: "I want to recommend one that a friend of mine just released. The band is called Electric Flower, which is the title of the record, too. My friend Josh Garza is the drummer, and I've been listening to that pretty much nonstop. The guitarist is Imaad Wasif. It's a 10-inch EP with three songs on it, and I think it's going to lead to something bigger.”