I first interviewed Guy Pearce, the British-born, Australian-bred actor, seven years ago in connection with his flashy turn as a gay muscle boy in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. At the time, he was on the cusp of film stardom. He was fiercely intelligent with a flair for self-deprecation and an underlying distrust of Hollywood and what it might bring. He also seemed to be openly insecure, despite his chiseled good looks. The actor has been famous in Australia since he was a teenager, when his starring role in the series Neighbours propelled him to heartthrob status. As the newcomer in Priscilla, working alongside veterans Terence Stamp and Hugo Weaving, Pearce's deft comedic timing and scene-stealing antics elicited much interest from Hollywood. Two years later, the actor achieved bona fide stardom with his edgy performance as by-the-book cop Ed Exley in L.A. Confidential.

Following that film, the actor appeared in an eclectic mix of independent films such as Ravenous (1998) and Till Human Voices Wake Us (2001). He's also starred in big-budget Hollywood films, including William Friedkin's Rules of Engagement (2000), The Count of Monte Cristo (2001) and The Time Machine (2002). Undeniably, though, his best work was in Chris Nolan's Memento (2000). His brilliant portrayal of Leonard Shelby, a man who has lost his memory but not his penchant for trouble, prompted Time Magazine to single out his work as "the best performance of the year not to be nominated for an Oscar."

"When I work on a $100 million movie I'll ask, 'Can we have some rehearsal?' adn I'm told, 'We don't have the time or money;' or 'We don't want to over-rehearse.' I don't know that I believe it. Maybe it's because [the director] is TOO scared to do rehearsal of he doesn't know how to rehearese people..."

In 1997, Pearce married Kate Mestitz, his childhood sweetheart. They currently live in Melbourne, Australia. Recently, the 36-year-old actor visited New York to promote The Hard Word, an independent film from Australia co-starring Rachel Griffiths about three nefarious brothers who find themselves forced to pull off one more heist after being released from prison. Pearce delivers a gritty turn as the eldest brother who acts as the criminal mastermind of the family. The New York Times lauded his work as "a performance of back-alley bravura."

Dressed in an olive green shirt and black trousers, he lounges casually in a sleek suite at New York's Bryant Park Hotel. Time seems to have stood still for the actor. When asked why he doesn't look seven years older than when I last encountered him, he jokes, "Makeup and trick photography. It's all an illusion."

James Grant (MM): I just came from a screening of The Hard Word and had had a rollicking good time. It's a very black comedy...

Guy Pearce (GP): Yes, very much so. It's fun. And I think it works. Listen, the great thrill of any film is seeing on screen what I felt when I read the script. For me, what I find exciting is when I have a perception of something and that time—that mood—translates and is up there on the screen. That's what I find appealing about the whole experience, really. Of course, it's always nice for everyone else to like it and for the critics to like it, too.

MM:What attracted you to the script?

GP: It was the laid-back humor between the three brothers, particularly in light of the situation they were in. When I first read it, the first person I thought of to play my middle brother, Mal, was Damien [Richardson]. He's a guy I'd done a play with, Face to Face. As I was reading the script, I was laughing and thinking of Damien saying these lines of dialogue because he used to make me laugh so fucking much in the dressing room.

There's a quality in the Australian psyche and in the culture—the ability to laugh in the face of anything—that I find a relief. That's very prevalent in the script and it's such a familiar quality for me to latch onto, particularly because I spend so much time overseas. So that was the prime reason I suppose. Also, I don't have any brothers so I was interested in the idea of actually creating a sort of pretend world for myself by bonding with these two other fellows.

MM: Were you specifically looking to be the lead in what is essentially an ensemble piece when you decided to do the film? You turned down some starring roles in bigger budget movies at the time.

GP: Yes, yes, much to my agent's dismay. [laughing] I wasn't actively looking for a leading role in an ensemble, but I'm always saying to my Australian agent that I want to know what's going on in Australia. I think the more time I spend and work away, my urge to actually express myself through Australian characters becomes stronger. To be part of the industry at home and to express myself through it is really important to me.

MM: How does working in the Australian film industry differ from Hollywood?

GP: Well, it's worlds apart in one way but, at the same time, whether you're playing a character in this country or that country, it doesn't really make any difference. You just wake up that morning and off you go, wherever you happen to be. The differences lie in the communication.

I find it so much easier to work at home because I understand the communication we have between each other. Even though Americans speak English, we all speak a very different language. There's a real difference in the way we relate to each other. I guess there's just a bit of shorthand that I slip into when I'm working in Australia. It's also more intimate. There are smaller crews. Basically, we don't have the money for 300 people on a set.

MM: When you work on an Australian film do you find that, because you have a smaller budget than a major Hollywood film, you do fewer takes of any given scene?

GP: Not necessarily. There's a difference between shooting something six different ways when, as an actor, you want to offer up different ways to play the scene and shooting something six different ways because the director doesn't know how the movie ends. Sometimes you hear, "We'd better do it with the girl dead and then with the girl alive and then with the girl not even in the scene."

MM: How do you know how to play the character if you don't know such basic aspects of the storyline?

GP: [Throws up his hands] You don't! You're confused and don't know what the hell movie you're in. It's horrible. As opposed to saying something like, "Okay, in this take, let's just lighten the whole thing because once the director puts the whole movie together, that may be the bit of relief the audience is looking for at that point in the movie." The funny thing is that when I work on a $3.5 million Australian movie, I get two weeks rehearsal before I start. But when I work on a $100 million American movie, they say "We don't have the time or the money to do any rehearsal." And I think, 'Now, I don't know that I believe you. Maybe it's because you're too scared to do rehearsal and don't know how to rehearse people. So therefore, I'm going to be anxious on the set every day because I've never fucking done any of this. And we're going to start shooting the day we start talking about the scene.' And that's really scary. I get so anxious about it.

Look, I'm generalizing. On Memento we got to rehearse and some other films I've gotten to rehearse. But I've come across this a number of times. As we're doing the contract, I'll ask, 'Can we have some rehearsal?' And I'm told "We don't want to over-rehearse. You don't rehearse in life." The [studio executives] make up all these ridiculous excuses. But I like to establish what it is that we're doing. I don't like to over-rehearse; I don't like to bore everyone silly. But part of my job is to do something and make it look like it's the first time I've done it before. Acting. It's called acting.

MM: The Hard Word is Scott Roberts' first movie. Did you have any concerns about working with a first-time director?

Pearce with Rachel Griffiths, who plays his wife, in Scott Roberts’ The Hard Word.

GP: None more than working with anybody whose work I don't actually know prior to doing the job. But I made sure I sat down with Scott and tried to get a sense of what he thought he knew and what he thought he didn't know. And he was very honest about that. So from the outset, I thought, 'Okay, great. If you tell me you don't know how we're going to get this thing together, then I'll help you figure that out.' Fortunately, he'd written such a funny script, things were pretty clear, anyway. We all had a pretty natural grasp of our characters. I was more concerned about who was going to be cast in the other roles. It's a very specific kind of humor that needs people who can really pull it off. Otherwise, it's going to seem a bit daft.

MM: You and Rachel Griffiths, who plays your scheming wife, really heat up the screen…

GP: Well, Rachel is a really powerful woman. If she looks at you and wants you to think she's in love with you, it happens. And you kind of go, 'But I'm married.' [laughs] She's such an amazing actress. There are times when I have to remind myself that we're actually acting and not be too overwhelmed by the person I'm working with, which has happened a number of times before.

MM: Why?

GP: It's just that I'm momentarily overwhelmed by their talent. For a brief moment, I feel like an audience member who has snuck up onstage and here I am watching. 'Oh, I'm in the scene.' Hugo Weaving [in Priscilla] was the first person that that really happened with. I think he is one of the greatest actors in the world. He's so alive and spontaneous. Everything to him is fascinating. Consequently, his interest in things translates on screen in a very intense way.

MM: You surprised me by saying Hugo Weaving. I thought you'd say Kim Basinger.

GP: Well, I was definitely floored by Kim. I was also floored by Kevin Spacey when we started to work together. I enjoy being an audience member as well and have to make sure I don't fall into that trap when I'm working.

MM: After the enormous success of L.A. Confidential, you received a lot of offers to star in big-budget Hollywood films. Yet you chose to do Ravenous over them. Why?

GP: It's funny, because I look back at that time now and think, 'Well, what else would I have done next?' I did the things I wanted to do—the things I found interesting. I certainly got offered all sorts of big studio movies, but I found most of them pretty stupid and predictable. I kept thinking, 'I can't do something interesting with this. This is not really interesting on the page.' I'm sure there are actors out there who can turn something dull into something really interesting, but I can't do that.

MM: I'm sure you could if you had to...

GP: No. I can't do it. I've tried and I end up pulling tricks out of a box of tricks that are just lame. I feel like I need great inspirational directors and great inspirational scripts in order for me to say, 'Okay I will surf this wave with you.' Don't expect me to invent anything. I can't invent stuff. I have to latch onto the character that you've presented me with. And once I understand it, I'll do it...

I have very little self-confidence, anyway. I'm not one of those people who can go, 'Yeah, I'm going to take the film and I'm going to turn it into this and that.' If there's nothing there, all I'm going to show you is that there's nothing there. And that's going to be bad for all of us. I just felt like I couldn't do anything with those big films. Of course, I'm quite fascinated by a lot of those roles that require the actor to be the hero. But I so don't feel like a heroic leading man. I just don't have the confidence to do them. I'm getting better, don't get me wrong. I'm not as insecure as I was when I was 24. But that stuff is what led me to do the things that I did.

MM: Since The Hard Word, you worked with director Jean-Jacques Annaud in Two Brothers. How was that experience?

Pearce with Russell Crowe in L.A. Confidential (1997); his star-making turn in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994); and the indie hit Memento (2000).

GP: Well, I literally just finished it on Wednesday. It's hard for me to talk about because I don't really have any perspective on it yet. It's the first film I've ever done where I never watched any of the rushes, so I have no concept of it. It's kind of strange.

MM: It's certainly an interesting premise. It's set in the 1920s, there are two tigers, you're an explorer?

GP: I play a writer and hunter who has grown up in Africa. He decides to trek off to Southeast Asia and pinch some statues and sell them. He ends up getting arrested. This is just the backdrop to these two baby tigers whose father has been killed and they've been left on their own. One ends up going to the king and one ends up going to a circus. They're the real focus of the story; I'm just the fool in the background who affects their lives.

MM: How did you like working with Annaud?

GP: I can't answer any questions about working with him at this stage. I'm still trying to understand what the whole process was like.

MM: After working back to back in Memento, Rules of Engagement, Till Human Voices Wake Us, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Time Machine, you planned to take a year off. Did you?

GP: [Laughing] No. I took about six months off. But then Jean-Jacques' film came up and I was quite attracted to the idea of it. And because my character is not really carrying the movie, I thought it could be a nice way to segue back into work.

MM: What keeps you passionate about acting?

GP: Making sure that I've had time off in between things. I really need to regenerate and rejuvenate my batteries, and learn from the experience I've had when I get back to being me at home. I like experiencing how different I feel, which I think inspires a desire to go off and work again. It's the shift back and forth between being somebody else, then coming home and being myself. MM