Greg Kinnear: No More Mr. Nice Guy

Kinnear was the star of choice for producers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (screenwriters of The People Vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon) for both his acting chops and his resemblance to Crane. But the actor himself takes pains to point out the dissimilarities, between himself and the actor "I'm not Bob Crane and we didn't tell Bob Crane's life," says Kinnear. "We did a two-hour interpretation of what happened at a certain time in his life. I'm happy to say that I believe there are huge dissimilarities between me and Bob, not only in terms of his lifestyle but also in terms of his career. I have a tendency to anguish about events in my life, but Bob was made of Teflon. He was doing all this damage and it just sort of rolled off him. I'd be very conscious of the idea of hurting someone. His unshakable optimism fueled his decline. And, of course, there was a kind of high school quality about his approach to sex. Some seeing the movie might say that Bob had a sex addiction as serious as alcoholism or that he was a celebrity who had sex thrown at him, so he took advantage of it. I'm aware that stuff goes on but the notion of where Bob went with his private life is very foreign to me."

Indeed, Kinnear has gone about his personal life as quietly as he has his career. Although married for the past three years to Helen Labdon, even in his bachelor days he never earned a reputation as a ladies' man, let alone as an over-the-edge pleasure-seeker as Crane was. Still, Hollywood is Hollywood. So, when I ask how he handled being around beautiful women all the time, he cracks up. "There never was a great deal of handling to do. Are you confusing me with Heath Ledger? Which happens all the time, by the way, so I don't blame you one bit. I'm the kind of guy who does Michael Keaton imitations for friends, but that's not exactly the kind of thing that drives women crazy, is it? Yep, I've got a clean record. But, really, I was fortunate to fall in love 10 years ago and I've been with the same girl ever since."

With Kinnear receiving such strong reaction to his performance in Auto Focus, is he turning his back on the flip romantic roles? "I have lots of dreams at night where I'm being chased," he admits, "so I'd love to do a thriller. I don't know what's happening next. All I know is that we're opening Auto Focus at the Telluride Film Festival and I hope it's like my experience with my first film festival at Cannes with Nurse Betty, which was thrilling because they didn't boo or throw anything at us."

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