When comedian Denis Leary first stormed the comedy-club scene in the late 1980s, he saluted audiences with a defiantly raised middle digit, swilled beer onstage, chain-smoked and loudly savaged political correctness, vegetarians and pretentious rock stars. Part of a generation of young comics that included Jon Stewart, Colin Quinn and Sam Kinison, Leary was slammed by old-timers and prudes for his machine-gun barrage of four-letter expletives. But younger crowds bought his CDs, books and videos and packed his stand-up performances and one-man shows, such as No Cure for Cancer and Denis Leary: Lock 'n Load, both of which aired frequently on cable. His widely seen high-speed promotional rants on MTV about R.E.M. and other topics, along with his satiric anthem "Asshole," about the joys of being an all-American asshole, brought him even more fame.

And then there are his movies. Since 1993 he has bounced between roles in mainstream flicks like True Crime and The Thomas Crown Affair and smaller movies like Wag the Dog and Jesus' Son. He has also done voices for the animated smashes A Bug's Life and the two Ice Age films, and he produced the highly charged Blow. In 2001 he cocreated, co-wrote, co-produced and starred in the well-reviewed, prematurely axed ABC cop show The Job. Three years later he was back as the star and co-creator of Rescue Me, a seriocomic FX series about the gnarly personal lives of a group of post-9/11 New York firefighters; he also co-writes and co-produces it. The Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated show is classic Leary--brutally funny, edgy and obsessed with sex, Catholicism, hypocrisy, guilt and death.

The second of four kids, Leary was born on August 18, 1957 to a hardworking Irish immigrant couple who had settled in Worcester, Massachusetts. His mother, Nora, was a housewife, and his father, John, a jack-of-all-trades, worked as an auto mechanic and for the gas company. A so-so Catholic-school student whose dreams of a hockey career were smashed when poor grades got him bounced from the junior varsity team, Leary found a new outlet by performing in high school plays. After graduating he won a full scholarship to Emerson College in Boston, where he studied acting and theater production. While teaching at the Emerson Comedy Workshop in 1982, he met student Ann Lembeck, and they later married. Acting jobs were scarce, so he began to scrounge for work at East Coast comedy clubs, where his friends Steven Wright and Lenny Clarke were already gaining stand-up experience and cash. Leary's stand-up gigs weren't plentiful, and club owners advised him to tone down his language in the style of other up-and-comers such as Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno. He resisted. While in the U.K. for a weekend comedy gig in 1990, his wife gave birth prematurely to their firstborn, Jack, whose health complications forced the couple to remain abroad for months. To stay sane and solvent, he wrote No Cure for Cancer, a show that would become a controversial prizewinning hit at the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland. Leary moved the show to New York at his own expense the following year.

While Leary was in New York shooting the third season of Rescue Me, Playboy sent Contributing Editor Stephen Rebello to interview him. The two began their conversation on location in Harlem and continued it on a downtown limo ride to Leary's apartment and then to a studio. "He's smart, serious and focused," reports Rebello, "and his rants--on subjects ranging from dropped cell-phone calls to arrogant Manhattan drivers--were wildly entertaining. A pissedoff Leary is the best Leary."