FIRST Matthew Goode confounded all the early comparisons to Hugh Grant by playing an American sociopath in 2007's "The Lookout." Now the handsome, lanky English actor takes on perhaps his most morally complex role in the film version of a literary classic listed among Time magazine's top 100 novels since 1923.
But more on the graphic novel-to-big screen "Watchmen" later.
Right now, Goode is in another adaptation: Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" (which also made Time's list) as the reserved, working-class Charles Ryder. A role Goode almost didn't accept.
"I found him quite cold; I didn't understand him," said Goode between bites of Cobb salad. "And obviously with the [famed 1981 Jeremy Irons] miniseries, which was perfection. . . . It's not a flashy character; you can't suddenly -- 'Charles is a mambo dancer!'
"But then, I knew that Emma Thompson was going to be in it, and Michael Gambon and Ben Whishaw. If they'd signed off on the idea of this, then how could I not?"
The polite, charming Goode, who occasionally articulates with the mouth of a sailor, grew up in Devon, England, and moved to Birmingham at 18 to study acting, then on to London, where he has lived since. But to say this was his calling might be a stretch.
"It was never a burning ambition," he says. "I think it came from laziness; I'm not very good in an office."
Goode's American breakthrough, "Chasing Liberty" opposite Mandy Moore, started the comparisons with Grant. His nice-guy persona was polished in "Imagine Me & You" and "Match Point" before he bashed it in the face in the dark crime drama "The Lookout."
"I shaved all my hair off so they could see I looked like I needed to," he said. "But it wasn't one audition; I had seven or eight. Maybe I just bored them into giving it to me."
Despite positive buzz, Goode didn't take another role until "Brideshead." He rattles off the obstacles of the adaptation, such as the loss of Charles' narration, with the clarity of a practiced literary analyst.
"Brideshead" director Julian Jarrold, speaking by phone from London, was impressed right away with Goode's cerebral approach: "His comments were very intelligent. He studied the book carefully, and there are great differences.
"We had to find somebody to take you into this exotic, alluring world of Brideshead, so you have to be able to identify with him. Charles is an observer, communicates a lot without saying much, which Matthew does brilliantly."
