LOS ANGELES (AP) — Joel Gretsch rushes into Marmalade Cafe. He’s ten minutes late. “I am so sorry, but my kids...,” he begins, revealing how they anchored him at the ankles to keep him from leaving.“But we’re going to the zoo later on,” says Gretsch, 43, as the midmorning sun shapes a postcard spring Saturday in suburban Sherman Oaks, “so they’re excited about that.”

He’s visibly geeked about the outing, too. Weekends are family time for “The 4400” star, who’s shooting the USA series in Vancouver through the summer. He lives not too far from the restaurant with his daughters — Kaya, 5, and Willow, 2 — and wife Melanie, daughter of William Shatner.

Gretsch isn’t one to complain about working — or the weekly hassles of airport customs. But why would he, having landed on one of the hottest series on basic cable.

Consistently engaging and a regular ratings winner, the thriller pits a government agency against 4400 abductees returned to Earth after decades away. All have acquired supernatural powers during their abduction, such as healing or mind control.

“The 4400” returns for its fourth season on Sunday (9 p.m. ET), with its band of misguided terrorists continuing the widespread distribution of promicin — the substance that gives the 4400 their powers.

For mere mortals, promicin offers only a 50-50 chance that they can acquire dramatic abilities, that is, if they even survive the intake.

“It’s out on the street like crack cocaine,” says Gretsch, who plays agent Tom Baldwin, a member of the government’s National Threat Assessment Command responsible for monitoring the returnees.

This includes keeping tabs on his nephew, a 4400 member now in a coma, and his son, who’s mind has been altered, as well as searching for his wife, who was abducted in last season’s cliffhanger.

“I always saw Tom as this meat and potatoes kind of guy,” Gretsch says, “the kind of guy who (has) got to see it to believe it to a certain degree, and here he is thrown into the most fantastical kind of life.”

And, he adds: “I love his vulnerability — that he can be completely wrong, but want to do something so right. That he’s not always the best dad or the best husband. I embrace the screw-up part of Tom — it’s fascinating for me to play those scenes where he’s not so put together.”

But Gretsch almost passed on the part.

“I had just done ‘Taken.’ I got to work with Spielberg! We won Emmys. That was magic,” ‘Gretsch recounts during his fried eggs and sausage breakfast. “So when I got the call from my agent for this, I didn’t want to do another sci-fi show. And he said, `Just read it,”’ and Gretsch fell in love with the character drama.

“I thought, `Wow, it’s not me talking to a green screen all the time. I can actually care.’ Usually it’s the emotion that connects me to something, when I can care about a relationship to somebody,” Gretsch said.

But, says series executive producer Steven Behr, it’s more than Baldwins angst that makes the character compelling.

“There was this great empathy Joel brought to him,” says Behr, suggesting that his fatherhood helps Gretsch tap into Baldwin’s compassionate side.

“I do think that being a father certainly gets you in touch with feelings and the deepness of those feelings,” Behr continues. “Speaking from my own experience, when you have children the depth that it takes you into, both positively and negatively, you worry more than you’ve ever worried. You care more than you’ve ever cared, and I think that has to inform his playing of Tom Baldwin.”

A Minnesota native, Gretsch studied at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis before coming to Hollywood in 1990. He trained with Larry Moss, who also works with Hilary Swank and Leonardo DiCaprio. He did a lot of theatre and television work — taking odd jobs to make ends meet. But the handsome blond never landed big roles, not that they weren’t offered.

“I would pass on a lot of things that I just felt like I didn’t know how to contribute to them,” he says.

But in 2000, the avid golfer scored as golf pro Bobby Jones in Robert Redford’s, “The Legend of Bagger Vance.” Two years later, he appeared opposite Tom Cruise in the Steven Spielberg thriller, “Minority Report,” and with Kevin Klein in “The Emperor’s Club,” before starring in Sci Fi’s ten-part miniseries, “Taken.”

“I don’t know if it was fate or just stupidity, but I was very lucky,” he says. “When I found something that I loved, I drove my agents and managers crazy, like, `I’ve GOT to play this!”

He recently wrapped production on “National Treasure II,” and is writing a screenplay. “I’m the only one in Los Angeles who’s doing this,” he quips.

With over an hour gone by, the doting dad is mindful of the date he has to keep. Of course, the conversation could not end without inquiring about what it’s like having a famous father-in-law.

“I never had that moment where you have that big epiphany like, `Oh my goodness!’ I mean, I always knew Bill was famous,” says Gretsch, adding, “he’s just happy I’m working. It’s always, are you working? Great! Pass the salt and pepper.”’