Sean Patrick Flanery

Or the next, Steve Buscemi?

In his movies, Sean Patrick Flanery walks a fine line between golden boy and very cool weirdo. He's definitely going for it - now will it go for him?

No doubt he'll cringe when he reads this, but Sean Patrick Flanery just might be Hollywood's next golden boy. Yes, It's a pretty risky statement, but take a look at the facts: Within a year of graduating college and moving from Houston to Hollywood, he'd risen from walter to working actor; before long he'd snagged the role of TV's young Indiana Jones, turning him into something of an icon for overseas schoolgirls, who still gaze at his reruns. He has the talent to be unrecognizable, as he was in Powder (1995), and the coolness to tease, as he does in this month's Suicide Kings - in which he plays an ultra-impassive rich boy attempting to intimidate, of all people, Christopher Walken. On top of all that, he's entirely lacking in the angst the outwardly fortunate often bathe in. He has the gifts to make it, and he knows it, in a cerebral rather than insolent way. He's confident enough to refuse to answer personal questions, yet thoughtful enough to offer a pensive, three-hundred-word explanation why. He also knows better than to place his whole world in one box: In addition to acting, he's a professional race-car driver. (Did you expect him to be a world-class philatelist?) You'll have plenty of opportunities to see what he can do: Flanery has six movies in the can (including turns with Joanna Going, in Eden, and Drew Barrymore, In Best Men). But If all these facts still haven't swayed you, take a look at the pictures.

ELIZABETH WEITZMAN: Hey, Sean, thanks for calling.

SEAN PATRICK FLANERY: Yes, ma'am.

EW: Are you at home, or on a set?

SPF: I'm at home. I have a house right above the Hollywood Bowl, which is up in the hills, so it's a decent rock's throw from the slime.

EW: Do you like L.A.?

SPF: In some respects yeah, and in some respects no. You feel so disposable at times. Everybody comes here with an agenda. They don't know how long it's going to take to achieve their goals, and they don't know if they're going to be here long enough to invest in a real friendship.

EW: Do you yourself actually feel disposable when you're there?

SPF: think you have to, because you constantly think, Great, somebody else could just take my place without skipping a beat. And it's true. I'm working in the most expendable industry known to man.

EW: We hear a lot about how women are marketed in that culture, that they're hired for the way they look as much as for their talents. But it seems like there's a similar market for men, too, which certain actors fall into easily and others fight against. Is this something that you've noticed?

SPF: Absolutely. There are physical, aesthetic requirements for each and every job you go up for. End of conversation. And it's not like you can change things about yourself. I mean, certain things you can, but other things you just gotta live with.

EW: You're someone who could easily be stuck in pretty-boy roles, but right off the bat you did Powder, in which you played the ultimate anti-pretty-boy character. So it seems like you were fighting that categorization from the start.

SPF: But it wasn't on purpose. You just pick the roles that penetrate your consciousness, regardless of what they make you look like. It certainly wasn't my personal protest against pretty-boy-ism. It just so happened that the character was not a young, handsome leading man.

EW: Are you at all concerned that you'll be stereotyped?

SPF: I'm well aware of the whole flavor thing, and who's hot now and who's not. I know there are certain names that mean more at any given time. Does that frustrate me? Yeah, I'm not gonna tell you it doesn't. Have I missed out on films I wanted to do? Absolutely. I can't say that everything's been perfect and there's never any pressure. Of course there is. But I'd imagine it's a lot less than if you're working the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. It's not like actors are kicking off with executive high-pressure heart attacks or sitting in the garage with the car running. In the grand scheme of things, maybe we have it kind of easy. My God, what kind of pressure is it when you're doing a movie but it's not the one you want? "Oh, poor baby," You're still making a feature film, and I don't know how bad that can be.

I think if you do good work and you're comfortable with it, you'll get a lot of different jobs. But if the only thing you have to fall back on is your looks, then maybe you should worry. I'm not saying I don't have to worry about it, but I would sincerely hope I could get jobs on merit, outside of the fact that I look a certain way. I'm not gonna stand up here and say I'm ugly. But I certainly don't put myself in the category of Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt. Everybody says, "Oh, Johnny Depp's trying to rebel against the pretty-boy thing." But he's not an idiot. He has mirrors in his house, I'm sure. He knows what he looks like. Hats off to the guy for not exploiting it, because he doesn't need to. He's talented.