Guy Pearce: Up From (Down) Under

America - Heard of Guy Pearce, Australian soap opera star and heart throb? No? You will.

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Guy Pearce is a celebrity in Australia, a swoon-inducing soap opera hunk and the star of several feature films. But in Hollywood, the reaction is a bit different. "A lot of people here know they've seen me in something," Pearce says, "but they just can't place me." Something indeed: Pearce was the bitchiest and most flamboyant drag queen in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the 1994 indie import hit.

His Hollywood debut is more than a slight change of pace. In director Curtis Hanson's hard-hitting version of James Ellroy's scorching crime novel L.A. Confidential, Pearce plays Ed Exley, an obsessively moral, career-climbing cop. Director Hanson never even saw Priscilla. "But that's the great thing," says Pearce. "Getting L.A. Confidential was very much based on what I brought to the audition." The fact is, he nails the lead role of Exley. No chance you'll suffer distracting flashbacks to his diva in long flowing gown atop a lavender bus in the Australian Outback. "That's good," Pearce says dryly. Though his Hollywood profile is on the rise, Pearce doesn't plan to leave his home Down Under any time soon. "Coming here and doing this made me want to try hard to get involved in some really good Australian film next. Besides, if I'm gonna be out of work, I'd rather be in Melbourne than L.A."

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Joshua Mooney