ONE CAN'T throw a rock while at multiplexes this weekend without hitting Mark Strong. He's in the Ridley Scott-Leonardo DiCaprio-Russell Crowe counter-terrorism thriller, "Body of Lies," and the Guy Ritchie-Gerard Butler London gangster flick, "RocknRolla." Chances increase if screens are still reflecting "Babylon A.D." -- but good luck recognizing the target there.

In the Ritchie film, Strong is the loyal right-hand man to a thuggish mobster; in the Scott, he's the quietly lethal head of the Jordanian secret service. Pretty much all the men have in common, besides superb taste in suits, is unshakable belief in the rules they follow.

"Obviously, if you're portraying a character that can embody that, they inevitably become quite likable, no matter how bad they are," said the 45-year-old actor by phone from London. "People respond to people who have a strict moral code that they adhere to; in a way they're sort of respectable."

But he knows it takes a group effort to make portrayals work, as "Body of Lies" proved: "Leo was brilliant, because my character would rise and fall on the amount of respect he gave me -- that this guy was genuinely influential, genuinely dangerous and genuinely necessary. He could have pulled rank and said, 'Hey, it's going to be all about my guy.' But Leo, as a consummate actor, gave me the power."

Even Strong isn't sure how many films he'll have out this year (the Internet Movie Database lists six). However, he qualifies his prodigious output by saying several of the movies represent favors to friends and he did only single scenes in some. "Body" and "RocknRolla," however, were major commitments and as different from each other as were his characters.

" 'RocknRolla' is very much a film about London," Strong said. "We were shooting things on the hoof. And there were scenes set on very busy streets in London where we would just jump out of the car and quickly shoot before a crowd could gather.

"That was the total opposite of shooting in Morocco, where everywhere we went there would be hundreds of people standing around watching. On some scenes there were four camera crews. Ridley was sitting in front of four monitors, cutting the scene in his head as we went along. So it was a much bigger operation."