“I need a good lawyer show,” quips actor Skeet Ulrich, gently touching the latex-made prosthetic scar tissue applied to the right hemisphere of his face, while reclining on a steel-frame bed that’s supposed to look like it belongs in a mental institution.

Watch full episodes of CSI: NY here

Indeed, the 39-year-old actor, taking a break from shooting his guest arc as a serial killer on the CBS procedural ‘CSI: NY,’ is used to having a TV mug that’s a bit grubby and under-shaven, having portrayed the heroic Jake Green for two seasons on CBS’ post-apocalyptic-themed ‘Jericho.’

Watch full episodes of Jericho here

But playing the “Compass Killer” in episodes three, eight and nine of ‘CSI: NY’ this season, Ulrich concedes this character is “no hero.”

The thesp, who famously played the pathological Billy Loomis in 1996’s ‘Scream,’ says he wasn’t looking to do a guest spot, but the overture from series producers Pam Veasey and Peter Lenkov made him curious about once again channeling the mind of the deeply disturbed.

“What they laid out for me was not a one-dimensional character,” says Ulrich, noting that he has spent time over the years researching real-life serial killers including Ted Bundy. “I’m interested in those people and those dynamics. He’s interesting because of the reasons he does what he does.”

According to Veasey, ‘CSI: NY’ producers three years ago were quite satisfied with both creative and ratings results of their “333 Killer” story arc, and felt like the time was right to integrate another tormented, tough-to-bring-down nemesis.

As the show goes about its business through episodes four through seven, with a ‘CSI‘ and ‘CSI: Miami‘ crossover casting stunt thrown in, Ulrich’s arc will remain in the background, teasing the audience until solving the mystery of the Compass Killer becomes the primary focus of episodes eight and nine.

Watch a clip of Ulrich in CSI: NY below:

“What we’ve found is, it works for us knowing that there’s someone out there we have to take down – a really formidable protagonist,” explains Veasey, sitting in a class-enclosed conference room adjacent to the ‘CSI’ crime lab set.

Veasey also cites Joey Lawrence’s three-episode guest turn back in 2007 as psychotic killer Clay Dobson. “Each time we do that kind of thing, the audience responds.”

Back on the darkened ‘CSI: NY’ set after lunch on a sunny Friday afternoon in Studio City, Calif. for production of this season’s ninth episode, the last of Ulrich’s three-part turn, the Virginia-native is dressed in a hoodie. He’s standing next to what is supposed to be his lair, a one-bedroom hovel dingily decorated to match his deranged character’s obsession with the year 1961. The actor positions himself behind the “front door,” frenetically doing jumping jacks and push ups, readying himself for scene in which he’ll violently enter his room in a high state of anxiety.

“My character is supposed to have been chased through streets of New York, so I need to get my breath up,” he’ll later explain, after performing this physically demanding scene no less than eight times.

Now rolling, Ulrich bursts into the room screaming. He slams the door, then turns back to pound on it once more with his fist for good measure. He manically paces the apartment’s anachronistic shag carpet, pulling off his hoodie and anxiously running his hands through his hair and over his face, before pausing in front of a broken main window. His breathing is loud and erratic, as he seeks to settle himself down. He sounds, well, sick.

In walks actress Josie Davis, a specter in the character’s twisted mind, perhaps the girlfriend or wife who’s exit from his life made him this way.

She says she just wants him to be “OK.”

“I want us to be OK,” she says.

It will be OK, the killer assures her. He’s almost done.

But with what?

“With making it go away,” he responds. “With making it all go away.”

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