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Actor Dillon`s `Ghost` marks career in transition
LA, Apr 24: In just over two decades, his career has gone from teen idol to leading man to comic sidekick. Starting on Friday actor Matt Dillon takes on a new role -- director, in his film, `City of Ghosts.`
LA, Apr 24: In just over two decades, his career has gone from teen idol to leading man to comic sidekick. Starting on Friday actor Matt Dillon takes on a new role -- director, in his film, "City of Ghosts."
Dillon, at age 39, said his career is in somewhat of a transition, though he has no plans to leave acting altogether.
Many of the roles he had been offered in recent years, he said, seemed similar to roles he had played since becoming a Hollywood sex symbol in 1984's "The Flamingo Kid," then serious leading man in 1989's "Drugstore Cowboy," and an actor who can play for laughs in 1998's "There's Something About Mary."
Not coincidentally, in "City of Ghosts," Dillon portrays Jimmy Cremmins, a 30-something con man who, after an insurance scam he runs comes under an FBI probe, skips New York for Cambodia and undergoes a personal transformation.
"This is a transition, but I still want to work as an actor," he told Reuters. "But it's definitely not a one-off (chance to direct), because I had a great time."
Typically of an independent, low-budget film, "City of Ghosts" debuts in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and spreads to major cities across the United States on May 9.
Dillon, who also co-wrote the film with his friend Barry Gifford (author of the novel "Wild at Heart), said what he most enjoyed about writing and directing was watching the parts grow from character sketches to their onscreen incarnations.
The movie features James Caan and Stellan Skarsgard as Cremmins' accomplices, Natasha McElhone ("Solaris") as his love interest and Gerard Depardieu as a French expatriate whose Phnom Penh bar serves as a hangout for foreigners.
Bureau Report
Many of the roles he had been offered in recent years, he said, seemed similar to roles he had played since becoming a Hollywood sex symbol in 1984's "The Flamingo Kid," then serious leading man in 1989's "Drugstore Cowboy," and an actor who can play for laughs in 1998's "There's Something About Mary."
Not coincidentally, in "City of Ghosts," Dillon portrays Jimmy Cremmins, a 30-something con man who, after an insurance scam he runs comes under an FBI probe, skips New York for Cambodia and undergoes a personal transformation.
"This is a transition, but I still want to work as an actor," he told Reuters. "But it's definitely not a one-off (chance to direct), because I had a great time."
Typically of an independent, low-budget film, "City of Ghosts" debuts in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and spreads to major cities across the United States on May 9.
Dillon, who also co-wrote the film with his friend Barry Gifford (author of the novel "Wild at Heart), said what he most enjoyed about writing and directing was watching the parts grow from character sketches to their onscreen incarnations.
The movie features James Caan and Stellan Skarsgard as Cremmins' accomplices, Natasha McElhone ("Solaris") as his love interest and Gerard Depardieu as a French expatriate whose Phnom Penh bar serves as a hangout for foreigners.
Bureau Report